questions
What if you hate this journey?
What if you have learned nothing?
What if you are a meaner, smaller, more bitter person than when you started?
What if it’s just as hard to read the success stories as it is to read the failures?
What if it’s harder?
What if love your nephew and niece so much that your heart could burst, but you still remove their pictures from the fridge because you don’t want to look at them everyday and be reminded of what you don’t have?
What if you thought the past few years had made your relationship with your husband stronger, but then you realize maybe they haven’t.
What if you thought you knew what to do next, but now that you’re here you don’t?
What if you try to imagine your life five years into the future and you come up blank?
What then?
posted by ninaB @ 6:03 PM
17 comments
17 Comments:
You decide how much more you can take; what is important to you; and you pursue what would/could give you some peace.
For me, IVF with my own eggs was just something I had to give up. And even when I got pregnant with DE, I lost the baby at the beginning of the second trimester.
So now, I am pursuing both adoption and an FET. One way or another I will be a mom. How I get there is not the most important thing to me. Being a mom is.
You've got to figure out what is most important to and for you. Focus on what you can do and not what you've not been able to achieve.
Listen to the wise doctor. She knows what she is talking about. I had thought you were considering DE? Maybe I got my wires crossed.
Anyhoo, I am glad to see you posting something, anything and believe me, you are not alone in your musings and your feelings. Getting it out there helps.
Yes, that was the idea but it's not that simple (is it ever?).
First, I am begining to doubt whether anything would ever implant in my black-hole-uterus. None of my embryos have ever taken, so why would one with a donor egg be any different?
Second, I thought my husband & I were on the same page regarding using my sister as a donor so that I would retain a genetic connection. It seems maybe we're not.
I don't know, and I'm afraid to ask myself those questions.
Liana says all the right things. I think the other thing is not to think too far ahead. The next 6 months maybe, beyong that is just overwhelming. Keep just putting one foot in front of the other. Share with us as much as you are able, we are all here for you.
It is not always easy to find the solution when you start from a blank and bereaved mind. Can I add a small "how-to" to Liana's predictably insightful answer?
You try out (in your own head) a different idea every week. Week one might be no children; week two adoption, with all its certainties (a child!) and difficulties; week three donor eggs from someone unrelated to you (with your husband's support, and without your sister's reluctance and potential weirdness); another week might be your sister's egg (but including the reluctance of husband and sister). If you don't know how you feel about that path at the end of the week, give yourself more time.
I cannot think it is useful to plan according to obstacles that have not yet appeared -- for example, a uterine problem, rather than an egg problem. (Everything you have written points to an egg problem, or at least did in my case, since I have had similar results and similar miseries.) On the other hand, those hurdles you know exist (your sister, your husband) might be better included.
(I also want to add a caveat about your sister's eggs, since this is a problem I am myself facing: such an IVF cycle might not work, even if you have no uterine problem. It will be difficult to ask repeatedly, and wise to have an alternative solution in place even if everyone involved agrees to one try.)
The time you give to these options may not give you the answers, but at least it will give you a program. And for those of us that have spent so much time planning the next cycle, a program -- any program -- is a useful thing.
Oh, I really know this sadness, frustration, and disorientation. For us, it helped to have a plan (ours was a 3-month plan) with concrete steps and end points -- but only to a point. It doesn't take the emotion out of each step.
I'm glad you posted. Too many of us have asked ourselves these same questions. Thinking of you.
What I hate most about infertility is the damage it can do to a very good marriage. I am thinking of you and hoping that somehow things will get better.
Good questions, Nina. Wish I had some answers for you. Thinking of you.
There's a lot of grieving to do in this process, grieving the failures, grieving the loss of possibilities, change courses, or letting go, learning to be a couple again not two people focused on one thing only.
Take some time to just be in the present without thinking about what's next, be with yourself, be open, and during this time you will find your way.
You are not alone.
Its some of the questions I have asked myself many times over and are still waiting for an answer.
hi - just found your blog...
i will keep you in my thoughts - it's necessary (in my opionion) to explore all these feelings - but eventually - your "what ifs" will subside... but it is a necessary step...
Those questions are all far too scary for me to choose to think about, but I know they are there waiting to take me by surprise and force me to confront the answers at some point.
After 5 years of ttc, i have asked myself these questions over and over again. There are no absolute answers; on bad days they are quite literally overwhelming. But on good days i know that I get to choose the journey i want to be on,I get to choose what i want my life to be about and to choose who i want to be. For me, my life is about learning how to love; more and more, until there are no more limitations, and to me, that objective is well worth a whole lifetime of learning....
I just found your blog, and I swear I could have wrote the your last post myself... I'm sorry about your cycle. I just went through another failed cycle myself. SUCKS...
Wow I could have written much of this myself. I too have been having the "is it worth it?" conversation in my head. What if I'd chosen to resolve this a different way 3 or 4 years ago? Would that have made me a better, happier person? I don't know, maybe. I mourn that better, happier person because all I feel lately is overwhelmed and bitter. Thinking of you.
You're reaching that critical point. I've been there. It's the point when you realize you can't take any more going down the path you are currently on. So you need to choose a new path. It's scary, I know. Make a list of your options and think it over. You'll get through it, we all do eventually. I'm so sorry you have to go through this. Much luck to you.
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