The Next Journey

I am grateful that our battle with infertility* was over quickly. We are lucky that the fertility doctor we saw was not one who tried to milk money out of us, or give us false hope. It hurt, but hearing that our chances of changing what my body could do were slim allowed us to make decisions quickly.

From the early days of our relationship, J & I talked about having a family. We discussed what our various options would be -- I thought that due to my age, getting pregnant may be a problem -- and one of those options was adoption. While we were at the fertility doc, she also brought up options, though she was leaning towards surrogacy. This isn't something we really considered. I am not 100% sure why, but neither of us were that interested in it.

We went through two rounds of fertility treatments -- for me that meant a few rounds of estrogen. At the same time, we realized that this may not be the best avenue for us, so we started exploring other options, specifically, at this point, adoption.

I guess nothing in life is guaranteed, but with adoption, you are likely to end up with a child. Unlike IVF, or surrogacy, where you can spend a lot of time and money and still be left with a hole in your family. I'd seen many of my friends go through some extreme fertility issues --  I saw the stress to them and their relationships -- and while those that ended up with children said it was all worth it, I wondered about those who ended up still childless.

But still we thought we would see one more specialist. Then, my uncle passed away very suddenly. Very shortly thereafter we found the second round of estrogen hadn't worked at all. And I was tired of fighting what seemed like a very uphill battle where we were unlikely to be successful. And I needed success; I needed a win. J & I discussed and then agreed to stop fertility treatments and focus more seriously on adoption.

And this decision was the best we could have made.



*I still struggle with considering myself infertile, but, by definition, I am. I can conceive, but not get pregnant.