This is a long one. You might want to hunker down for a bit.

I can’t tell you the number of times I have sat down to write up this post; only to abandon it as I can’t get my thoughts straight.

However I think it’s fitting that I am ready to finish this post now. You see this is the cycle that we conceived on last year. And I have realized this means all new date reminders that I will have to deal with. This is a surprise to me because I thought I was through with painful dates when our due date came and went.

But no. Now we have “1 year ago today we found out we were pregnant” and “1 year ago we were so excited and overjoyed” and then “1 year ago was our ultrasound when we were told the pregnancy wasn’t viable” and the dreaded “1 year ago we miscarried”.

So much to look forward to. (said in a sarcastic voice)

But on to my post.

We’ve been having many talks on what’s next and where we want to go on our journey. And the answer is not as easy as it has been.

Back in March 2009, the answer was pretty straight forward. We had been told numerous times by numerous doctors that it just wasn’t going to happen for us. And so we made the decision to stop trying to naturally get pregnant and we decided that adoption was the road for us.

I still remember that decision clearly. It was the only time during all of this that I felt so much relief, so much calm and actual excitement over the prospect of becoming a parent. Adoption was the right decision for us and it felt like we were actually moving forward. I completely let go of wanting to be pregnant and fully embraced becoming a parent.

And then I got pregnant. And that changed everything for me.

Because now, a year later, I can’t go back to not wanting to be pregnant anymore. I was pregnant, it happened and I want it back. I know that it’s not logical but it is what it is.

See, I’ve been back to my RE and while he was excited that we did get pregnant, he still feels that my tubes have serious issues and my endometriosis is getting much much worse (which it is). He absolutely ruled out IUI’s again and stated the only way to go is IVF but he understood our decision to not want to do IVF. In fact his exact words were “Hell I perform IVF and I wouldn’t want to do it if it was a decision I had to make”. Really encouraging.

Anyway, after that appointment I did a lot of soul searching. My thoughts went a little along these lines:

If I am so adamant that I want to be pregnant, that those feelings are stopping me from adopting why am I so adamantly saying no to IVF? What is that decision based on? What do I really know about IVF?

I sat down with James and we had a long discussion on our thoughts and feelings towards IVF and learned many new things about each other. We talked about our fears on how IVF will affect our marriage, on how it will impact our daily lives and our jobs. We talked again about our moral/ethical concerns in regards to IVF.

And then we talked about adoption. A year is a long time to think about our previous decision. New concerns have arisen since our miscarriage. By adopting a child it means that we will be taking a child away from its mother. Regardless of how you look at adoption that is what it boils down to. I’m not sure how I will feel knowing that I am causing someone the pain I felt when I lost our pregnancy. I know it’s not really the same but somehow for me it is.

The other new concern that has arisen in terms of adoption is that both James and I would never ever want our adopted child to think that they are second best. That if we could have a biological child that we would never have adopted them. Now I have no doubt that we would never conscientiously do or say anything to this affect but kids can think or perceive things on their own. I reassured James that if we do adopt I would love that child as my own because it would be my own. There is no difference in my mind. I was born to be a Mom. However it was very hard for me to tell him that I do think that if we adopt that I will always regret not being pregnant.

This brought up a whole slew of questions; both from him and from me. What does having a biological child mean to me, is this part of the reason why I want to give birth? Deep down am I ok with raising a child that will look nothing like anyone in my family? Am I ok that my child won’t have any of my family traits? I was raised knowing full well that I look just like my maternal Grandmother, right down to her mannerism and facial expressions. This has always meant so much to me. If we adopt I will never have a child that I can say anything like that to.

So what does this all mean?

It means that I have made an appointment with a private Fertility Clinic to look at IVF and find out what it means for us if we go that route.

It means that we are having lots more talks about adoption.

It means that we still don’t know what the hell we’re doing. But we are still together, we are still moving forward and we are still hopeful.

But this also means that we need to make decisions and soon. We unfortunately can’t afford to go down both roads (how I wish that was the case!!) and we can only pick one.

So lovely ladies, I have a small request. I’ve been reading many of your journals in terms of your journey with IVF and would love to chat about it, if you are willing of course. I think one of my issues is that I have some pretty serious pre-conceived ideas of what IVF actually involves. And I think many of them are wrong.

If you have the time and don’t mind either leaving a comment or emailing me (melaniejennifer at gmail dot com) and let me know how IVF impacted your day-to-day life. I don’t need to know all the gory details (although if you want to share please feel free) I’m just more curious how intensive IVF really is. Did it interrupt your job? How crazy did the hormones make you? How intense were the retrievals and the transfers? And what do you wish someone had told you before you made the decision to embark on IVF?

Thanks so much for reading and for sharing this journey with me.