I think one of the most intolerable things about infertility treatments is all the waiting. I’m not just referring to the dreaded two week wait. Waiting also comes into play when deciding when it is time to move on.
I think one of the toughest questions in life is, when is it time to give up? It happens in relationships, jobs, and of course infertility land. For me it started with deciding whether to move away from my OB-GYN to an RE. I felt like if I made the jump, there was no going back. I spent a year and a half at the OB-GYN before I finally decided I needed to move on, and even then, the only reason I did was because my OB-GYN refused to continue with the cyst I had on my ovary.
When I switched to my RE, I immediately realized I had waited way too long to move on. She pointed out I should switch to Femara for less side-effects, that I needed to be on Metformin for my PCOS, and that my vitamin D was dangerously low. The scary part is that the Metformin and the vitamin D is very important in keeping a healthy pregnancy. Had I not gone to her, I could have gotten pregnant and risked the health of that baby.
So, we started on the Femara, with an HCG trigger shot, and just timing everything perfectly. After 2 months that wasn’t working. It wasn’t that 2 months is a long time, but when you add that to how long I was on Clomid, I felt like this wasn’t ever going to work. How long do you wait before moving on to IUI?
After the two months, we decided to give the IUI a try. We stayed on the same medicine but just added the IUI to the mix. After that didn’t work for two months, I was completely lost. Again, two tries isn’t a ton of time, but it comes down to looking at it in reference to the whole picture. We are coming up on 2 years of trying, with only one pregnancy to show for it.
Time isn’t the only factor. The toll it is taking on my well-being is a whole different issue. I have Crohn’s Disease. The medicines I take for infertility constantly make me sick. This means I have been sick for 2 years. How long do I continue to torture my body before we move on to the next level of treatments.
We got our last negative IUI result a day before Christmas. Every negative test I have had, has fallen on a Holiday. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and our Anniversary. I have long grown accustomed to seeing the negative result, and continuing on with my day, because or else I would probably never accomplish anything. Usually however, the negative test nags at the back of my mind. For some reason, the Christmas test was different. I felt a huge wave of peace. I just knew what we needed to do.
I called my husband up to our room (we were staying at my parents), and told him that we needed to move to IVF. The wave of peace I felt was having a plan. I knew that I wasn’t going to continue to string myself along month after month with low grade treatments. I knew we needed to move on.
The idea of moving on to IVF is usually terrifying for people. It is a sad realization that your babies won’t be created the way you dreamed of growing up. For me, I felt relief. I was terrified of never being strong enough to make the jump, and I finally felt that peace I needed to do so.
We had our IVF consult a week or so ago, and since then I have continued to feel peaceful. Speaking to our doctor about our plan, and having it all set out, put my mind at ease. I no longer had to stare into an unknown future.
For those of you reading that do not know when the time to move on is, I will say this, you will know. I had such an overcoming feeling that this was the right thing to do. I never had that the previous months. You will know when it is time to move on to the next stage of treatment. I’m not saying to give up, but I am saying, do not keep hurting yourself with lower grade treatments, just because IVF sounds scary. Once you get a plan in place, you will feel excited and confident in your decision.
Keep going. Don’t give up. Listen to yourself. You know what is best for yourself!
Elise
Then Comes The Baby 