Quality Versus Quantity

Sticking my hands into the pockets of my black London Fog hooded trench I walked with my head down following my spouse to where he parked the vehicle.  Rivulets of blackish tears were pooling on my cheek to drop unchecked to my coat.  I just didn't care.  My life was falling apart.  I was given bad news today by the doctor.

I'm fertile I cry.  I'm just too old to conceive it seems.  Eight years ago my husband wasn't ready to be a father.  We were college students without a good source of steady income.  Five and a half years ago we wed.  We still thought we had time to have children with neither one of us having medical insurance it was an understanding that we'd wait it out.  Almost four years ago he joined the US Army, we had good medical insurance at last.  Our problem then was location.  He ended up on an isolation tour of Korea, next was his deployment to Iraq.  Am I not meant to have children?  I've been doing the responsible thing all along.  I waited until I had insurance and could afford to feed an extra mouth. I didn't get knocked up as a teenager because I was afraid to have sex and get pregnant knowing that I'd get kicked out of the house.  So am I being punished now for being a responsible person?

Today was my ultrasound.  Each cycle I have an ultrasound to see how I am responding to the clomiphene.  I scored six large follicles.  Yup six eggs ready to be fertilized.  My first cycle on the clomiphene I had four, second cycle I had five do you see a trend?

The problem with me is not my blood pressure the doctor told me, though it is high and there are risks associated with high blood pressure during pregnancy.  There were three officers in my ultrasound room this morning, one was the female nurse that is required, one was the male ultrasound tech and one was the male doctor that told me the results.  He was also the bearer of bad news.  He said not to worry so much about my blood pressure but more about my age.  He explained that with each month my eggs are getting older and the mechanics in them, the DNA if you will, is getting defunct.  So this is why with five eggs last cycle I didn't conceive. 

Now I have to make a choice that I was hoping I wouldn't have to make.  The doctor is pushing for the IVF treatment.  Easy for him to say as he isn't paying for the procedure.  He told me its now $8,000.00 out-of-pocket.  Well that is going to just about clean out my savings account.  But there is only a twenty percent chance of it working.  He said eighty percent chance with my age of it failing but he said its our best option.

I have to let my team of doctors know soon if this is what we want to go ahead with.  I'll have to most likely call them by the end of the week with our answer.  I'm still going ahead with the IUI tomorrow and will do a double over two days.  I can still hope that one of the six eggs will take, right?

Needless to say I left the fertility clinic with tears in my eyes.  I should have been happy to find out I have six eggs.  I'm not.  The quality of the eggs isn't good. 

There is no rhyme or reason to how life works.  If you want something you work to get it.  Well I've been working my butt off to get a baby of our own.   Honestly I don't think I could adopt.  I couldn't deal with the open adoptions they have now knowing that the birth mother could take my child back on a whim.  Foster care to adopt runs the same risk but that the birth parents have to prove that they are now able to take care of their child. 

I'm so emotionally invested in having a child of my own now that I have to stop and think about the costs.  The hormones are tearing me up.  My husband is warned in advance, according to where I am in my cycle, of what to anticipate for moods.  He likes to anticipate.  So I warn him.  I don't like the hormone roller coaster, but I will do what I need to in order to ensure that I become pregnant with a healthy baby.

For my female friends out there, don't wait until you are in your forties to have a baby.  Its harder on the body and the egg quality diminishes quickly.  I was just told today that I have only a few months left in which to conceive.  I'm still far off from menopause but they don't want to try after I hit forty-two, of which I will be this summer.