The Eternal Guest Room

I’m afraid to do another IUI. I’m afraid it will fail again.

Everything was perfect last time. There was no “oh well the numbers weren’t that great” or “I think the timing may have been off.” There was no reason for it not to work, except that it’s a crapshoot. Everything could be perfect and still not be successful, while crack addicts on birth control with one drunken night can still conceive.

We’ve tried just about everything. With the last IUI we tried Hope and Positive Thinking. We talked as if it had worked, hoping that would help make it work. It didn’t. In the past we’ve taken the “cautiously optimistic” route with the same outcome.

We saved and set aside money specifically for the past IUIs but did not for the next one (an accidental oversight, albeit a big one). I’m watching our savings account drain away.

People say “it’s not about the money” and “don’t think about how much it costs, it’ll be worth it in the end” but how can we not think about the cost? I’m afraid to sit down and add it up but I’m pretty sure we’ve come close to spending $10,000 all together (including surgeries) with no baby to show for it. I have these panicky fears sometimes – how are we supposed to afford raising a kid when we spent all our money just to have one? I tell myself that it’ll work out, that people make it work with less income and less financial stability, but it weighs me down sometimes.

At this point it just feels like we’re throwing money down the drain.

I tell myself that it’s a matter of time – fertile people sometimes take months to get pregnant, that’s just the way it is when “normal” people only have about a 20% chance every month. But I have this nagging fear that it will all be for nothing.

I was ready for the last IUI, but I’m on the fence about whether I’m ready for the next one yet. The pain and disappointment of the last failure are still so vivid. When it failed I was completely emotionally drained, and I haven’t filled back up to normal yet.

I guess I’m mainly just afraid to put so much hope, emotion, time, energy, and money into something that I can’t see really happening right now.

I wish I had a crystal ball. I wish I knew how this would end.

If I knew what the future held, I could deal with whatever I needed to deal with. If I knew for sure that we would have kids someday, I could wait patiently and enjoy the time we have together, just the two of us. I treasure our first few years of marriage when it was just the two of us. I hear about newlyweds getting pregnant and I don’t envy them. I do envy how easy it is for them – that something that seems so simple actually is – but I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. I’m angry at the injustice of it but it’s not a path I would have chosen, personally.

In grief and tragedy there comes a time when you need closure, so you can move on. If I knew that the answer was “never,” I could find a way to start the process of coming to terms with that.

It’s so easy for other people to say “I know this will happen for you.”

But of course in life there are no guarantees.

People seem to think adoption holds guarantees – but it doesn’t. It’s a complex process and adoptions fall through every day. Someone recently told me about a co-worker who was about to adopt, but then the birth mother changed her mind. The would-be adoptive father said that receiving the phone call with the news was like getting a call about a death in the family.

I recently heard about a girl who finally gave birth after 5 IUIs – only to have her baby die after 2 weeks on this earth.

People who don’t have any issues with infertility get that positive test and expect to have a baby in 9 months – but people who struggle for years know that 2 pink lines doesn’t necessarily equal a “take-home baby.”

Obviously it’s just a part of life, that we don’t know what the future holds, but this is such a biggie.

I am quite honestly running out of hope.