Decisions

About a month ago Eric and I had to sit down and have a serious discussion.  We got a certified letter from our clinic about our lone frozen embryo.  A year has passed and we needed to decide what we were going to do with it.  Eric wanted to donate it.  He's pretty much done with this whole process.  I thought and thought and thought about it and knew that I would never be at peace with that decision.  I would always wonder if that was the one that finally worked.

So we decided to pay the $300 to store it for another year.  We also discussed at which point we want to transfer it.  I brought up donor embryos.  Our clinic has a donor embryo program so I asked if he would at least go there with me to discuss it.  My plan was to take our one embryo, combine it with some donor embryos and transfer them all at once to increase our chances of success.

We spoke with our doctor and he said they've never done that before, but he could talk with the other doctors and see what their opinion was.  He did say that he would rather us transfer our one by itself first before moving on to donor embryos.

After discussing the financial aspect of it, we have decided that we're not going to do the donor program.  I don't think Eric would ever be totally comfortable with it anyway.  It costs twice as much to do a transfer with donor embryos.

So here is the plan:  in about ten months we're going to transfer our embryo (March 2012).  I'm spending the time between now and then to get in shape, lose weight, basically prepare myself as much as I can.  I'm going to start accupuncture (didn't do that last time around).  I have a meeting with my therapist tomorrow.  My emotional health is just as important as my physical health.  I want to do everything that I can to make this work.

If it doesn't work, we have decided that we are done.  We won't be adopting.  No more IVF cycles.  We'll be living child-free.  Obviously, that's not what we want, but at this point I can't do anymore.  I feel like I've lost 2 or  years of my life.  I just turned 30 and I find myself wondering what happened to years 26-29.  I'm tired of being in limbo and I just want to move on.  That's part of what I'll be working on with my therapist.  Being able to move on and be ok with it.

I'm sure at that point we'll have to have a discussion with our parents to let them know we won't ever be having children if it comes down to that.  Neither of our mothers seem to be able to accept that as an option.