There are now two types of women in the world – those who
have babies and those who are pregnant. Most of them are young and that annoys the hell out of
me. Some of them seem older and
they don’t seem to annoy me. I keep
going back to something I said in a much earlier post. I try, as much as I can, to think that
these women have possibly gone through a whole slew of mishaps and tragedies
and that the baby they are holding or the pregnancy they are carrying is their
little miracle. It helps me to not feel so jaded, so envious, so pissed off and it does work surprisingly well.
Last night at a party, I met a very, very, very pregnant
woman. In fact, she is due on
Thursday. When she walked in, the
first thing I noticed after her bulging belly was that both she and her husband
had a little gray in their hair.
When I see that, I honestly feel a wave of relief wash over me, ‘Yay –
they are old like us and look at that belly’! After a bit of tiptoeing around her, I finally asked her how
old she was, explaining that I knew it would seem odd, but that we are trying
to have a baby and she looks about my age and I need some encouragement.
She was more than happy to tell me her story and it was
quite a saga. They had started
trying to have a family when she was 36.
She is now 40. After a
number of miscarriages, they finally decided to go to Oregon Reproductive
Medicine. The problem was her egg
quality (something that I wonder about for us). She was given a 5% chance of actually conceiving and
carrying a baby to term with reproductive assistance – these are not great
odds, but they decided to go forward.
Well, after forking out $65k, enduring numerous failed IVF attempts, and
4 years later – they finally succeeded and their little girl will be here
Thursday. Listening to her I
was filled with both hope and complete despair. (A side note,
they are naming her one of the names that we have been tossing around and hoping
to use one day.)
There are obvious parts of their story that I hope become a
part of ours. But there are many
pieces of their story that I just don't see us being able to have.
We had initially said we would wait until January 1st
before heading back to Oregon Reproductive. But then last Thursday happened, marking a year since the 1st
pregnancy loss, and patience is just starting to feel like a pain in the
ass. Add to that the lack of
success with the birth control pills to bring on my period and I just could not
see the point in waiting a few more months.
We have an appointment on Friday at Oregon Reproductive to
see a reproductive endocrinologist or The Repro Man as I like to say. We had a round of blood work and
ultrasounds done at my OB this week that will hopefully give The Repro Man some
insight into our situation. The
good news is that hopefully he will be able to give us some definitive answers
about what we are facing. The bad
news is that we are in no way, shape, or form able to cover the financial
demands of an aggressive IVF protocol if that is what they say we need to
do. I’m not sure that we can
even afford to pay out of pocket for the ultrasounds and lab work that would be
needed and not covered under our insurance plan. As far as my plan goes: no fertility treatments – diagnostic
or otherwise. Sucks.
So, it is with a mixed heart that we head to our appointment
this Friday. We want answers, but
some of those answers might just solidify the fate of our future family and
it’s hard to think about that. But
not knowing is hard, too. Brett is
typically optimistic and I am being über realistic which really borders on
cynical. I want this to be easy
for us for so many reasons and I’m just not sure that we have the wherewithal
to face it if it doesn’t get a bit easier. And by all accounts by those who have had to endure fertility treatments, it hasn't even begun to get hard.
We really need a break, some good news, a reason to
hope that this will happen for us.
Not sure Friday will bring it, but for now, no solid reasons to expect it won’t.
Wish us luck and buy us a lottery
ticket.
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