The title of this post is slightly misleading. I just want to point that out right now, before I even get started. I’m not about to reveal to you any top secret or little known information. This isn’t an exposé on the hidden costs of fertility treatments. Your eyes are not about to be opened to a world you didn’t before fully understand.
But I am about to share with you how my views on IVF have changed over the last year. I’ve been promising this post for a while, but have almost been too scared to write it. Because the truth is, I’m fairly sure my change of opinion on IVF is going to be an unpopular one. And even more than that – there are people I care about who are currently pregnant as the result of IVF, or who are about to embark upon another round. I would never in a million years want to make them feel like I now look down on them for pursuing that path.
Because I don’t. Not even a little bit. I understand that drive and desire to have a baby. That willing-to-do-anything mentality. I get it. I’ve been there. And I can’t even fully guarantee that I won’t ever be there again. The decision to pursue fertility treatments is a deeply personal one, and I would never presume to think I know what is best for anyone else.
I just know that for me, right now… I can’t ever see myself going down that path again.
My reasons behind that are expansive, and potentially hurtful to those now considering that road themselves. So I want to apologize up front if anything I’m about to say cuts into anyone reading. Please know that I am speaking now only for myself. Regarding my own feelings about IVF. And I don’t judge anyone else for their feelings about it.
All I can do is speak for me though. Be true to myself in this space here.
And the truth is, I have come a long way in how I view IVF.
I’ve always been one of those women who was convinced she could accomplish anything if she just tried hard enough. Getting pregnant is one of the first things in my entire life I have ever really wanted and failed at. I am strong, and independent, and determined. I get my way. I force my will. I make things happen.
A co-worker the other day called me “driven”. It was funny, because I don’t necessarily consider myself overly driven at my place of business. I get my work done, and I do it well, but… I’m not particularly passionate about the tasks on my to-do list most days. It was an accurate description of how I can be when I am passionate about something though. When I really want something – I can be exceptionally driven.
And when it came to making a baby, I have never been so passionate about anything else in my entire life.
Which is why I looked past the drugs involved. Even as I was turning away from western therapies in many other aspects (embracing acupuncture and natural treatments for endometriosis), I found myself looking at the daily injections of hormones involved in IVF as a means to an end. Turning my nose up at antibiotics and other drugs, but seeing this as a necessity I would have to endure to reach my goal.
A baby in my arms.
I ignored those warnings on the drugs and what they meant to me. The increased risks of cancer, and even what I personally knew they could do to the growth of endometriosis. I ignored them, because I had convinced myself that I was willing to take any risk upon my own body if it meant getting what I wanted in the end.
I was driven.
But the first time I really found myself questioning that drive was the day I happened to glance down at the warning on the side of my progesterone box. A warning that pertained not just to the effects this drug could have on me, but also to the effects it could have on my unborn baby.
I had always maintained that one of the reasons I wanted to get pregnant myself versus adoption was because I wanted to provide and care for my baby-to-be with the best I had to give from the moment of conception. I knew I would never be a mother who did drugs, or drank, or smoke during pregnancy. I knew I would be the one eating an organic diet, and avoiding foods with high sugar or fat contents. I knew I would work out throughout a pregnancy and monitor everything that entered my body to ensure it was healthy for baby. I would have treated my body like a temple, because that is exactly what it would have been – housing the most precious thing in the world to me.
I never questioned my ability to give my baby the best from the very start. But I couldn’t guarantee that with adoption. I couldn’t guarantee how someone else would treat my baby during those months of gestation. So I wanted the control there. The ability to ensure they were getting the very best I had to give.
Of course there was more to it then that. I think the desire to carry a child is innate for most women. I still long to have a baby growing inside of me, almost for no other reason than because that's what my heart yearns for. But I do know that a big part of it comes from this motherly protectiveness I feel for those children that aren't even yet here. I wanted to have them with me, protected to the best of my ability, from the very start.
But there I was, reading the side of this box as it detailed all the birth defects it could lead to when taken in the first 4 months of pregnancy. This drug I needed in order to maintain a pregnancy carried with it side effects I never in a million years would have thought I would be introducing to my unborn child.
I had always believed that when pregnant, I would live a clean and natural lifestyle. I would investigate every little thing I thought to put in my body, to first ensure it was safe for baby.
But with this, I had no choice. If I wanted that baby, I needed to inject myself with this drug in the ass every single night. This drug that detailed right there on the box all the birth defects it could cause.
I wanted to throw up. How was this OK?
That was the first time I really found myself questioning how far I was willing to go to achieve a pregnancy. What risks was I really willing to take upon myself? And what risks was I willing to take upon my baby?
Wasn’t there a point when I should have found myself saying “enough”? How far was I really willing to go?
When that cycle didn’t work, I was left drowning in a tidal wave of emotions. I can honestly say that the few months that followed were some of the most broken of my life. I coped better than I’ve coped with things in the past, because I have plenty of experience with falling apart. But just because I wasn’t cutting myself, or popping pills, or sticking my finger down my throat did not mean that I wasn't crumbling beneath the weight of my own grief.
There was still so much to focus on though. So much that needed to be done. More than a year since my previous surgery, and after 2 rounds of IVF (on drugs that are known to promote endometriosis growth), I was in a great deal of pain. Physical pain that I was able to focus on while attempting to ignore my own emotional pain. I needed to find a doctor willing to treat me. I needed to find my miracle.
And I did find him. Dr. Cook was amazing and performed extensive surgery on my insides. Clearing out endometriosis that had spread throughout my entire abdominal cavity. Un-fusing organs that had been bound together by scar tissue.
He performed a 5 hour surgery that stripped me of a majority of that physical pain.
But as he warned me then… the emotional pain would remain. And would likely become harder to ignore as the weeks after surgery passed.
I had initially scoffed, thinking that all I needed was to be out of pain. The emotional turmoil was in the past, and now I just needed to look forward.
I was wrong. And as those weeks post-surgery went by, I found myself falling harder than I had in the weeks following both of my failed cycles. I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of that depression, and I was on the verge of tears more often than not. Most days it was a struggle just to get out of bed.
But with time, and counseling, I started to find my way out of the haze.
And I began to question once again, how far was I willing to go?
Everyone around me was encouraging me to try again, but I couldn't shake that voice in the back of my head telling me that it wasn't right. That it wasn't worth the risks. Both to myself physically, mentally, and financially, but also... to my baby who hadn't yet come to be.
It no longer felt like something I should be doing. And that part of me that was left still considering it, no longer felt like it was being driven by the right reasons.
I’ve seen a lot in the blogging world. Far more devastation and loss than I think most people realize goes hand and hand with seeking fertility treatments. Spending $20,000 on a cycle does not guarantee success. Seeing two lines on a pee stick does not guarantee a heartbeat. Making it past the first trimester does not guarantee making it past the second. And hitting the point of viability does not guarantee a happy, healthy baby.
I have rejoiced with those I have met in this world as they have found their success, and then felt equally devastated when things didn’t turn out well in the end. I feel like I’ve seen more loss and heartbreak and sadness in this community of women than I have ever actually witnessed in the real world. My friends who get pregnant with ease never think about these milestones. The idea of reaching viability is not one that ever occurs to them. Is it because they are naïve, or is it because these are things they simply have to worry about far less because their babies were conceived “naturally”? I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. But I do know that what I’ve witnessed has made me begin to wonder how far we really should go in our quest to create a baby.
Is there a point past which nature will always find a way to win?
I’ve begun to think that maybe my cycles didn’t work for a reason. I know there are things I simply could not have handled, and some days I’m almost thankful I wasn’t able to get pregnant if the end result would have been something even more devastating than failure. Obviously I have no way of knowing how things would have turned out, but sometimes I wonder… I now know personally 5 women with endometriosis for whom IVF worked on the first try. It should be noted (because it serves to prove the point I'm trying to make) that half of the babies in that group are no longer here with us, but they did all get pregnant that first time. With me though, it failed twice. Why is that? Is there something more wrong with me? Something about my body that just is not equipped to get pregnant? And if I had pushed the envelope further and essentially forced my body to do what I wanted it to do, would I have gotten what I wanted? Or would nature have eventually caught up and devastated me in the end?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know that they have weighed heavily on my heart over the last year. I currently have 2 very close friends with endometriosis who are a few weeks apart from each other in their pregnancies. They both conceived via IVF. For one, everything since has been smooth sailing. Not a single hiccup or issue along the way at all. For the other, it has seemed as though everything has been a struggle. And while that bun in her oven is still in there cooking nicely, and now (thankfully) past the point of viability – it hasn’t come easily. Or without fear and anxiety.
I look at these two women, and I know it can work. I know that sometimes all the body needs is a little extra help. But I also see two very different experiences in their pregnancies, and I can’t help but wonder… which one would I have been? Would my body have cooperated with ease once I finally convinced it to hold on to one of those embies of mine? Or, would I have been hitting walls every step of the way? Constantly needing more drugs, more interventions, and more force to keep that baby of mine around?
I honestly don’t know. I know that once pregnant, I would have done whatever it took to remain that way. I would have taken on any risk presented to me to keep that baby growing. But I can’t help but wonder… would that really have been what was best for the baby? For me?
Would it really have been providing that extra layer of protection I seemed so determined to provide myself?
At what point do we stop and ask ourselves what we’re really doing this for? For me, a big part of it was wanting to be in control of nurturing and providing for my baby from the very start. I wanted to know I was protecting them from the moment of conception.
But if in providing that protection, I also had to provide that baby with a regular onslaught of drugs proven to cause birth defects – would I really be doing what was best for them anymore?
Or would I simply be enforcing my own will upon my body and my baby, with a reckless disregard for the consequences?
I can’t help but feel like at this point, any further interventions for me to get pregnant would be going too far. Missing the point entirely in my own quest to get what I want.
Without really taking into consideration what was best for that baby anymore.
And thinking that, makes me want to shy far away from fertility treatments in the future.
Again, I can’t guarantee what the future holds. I never would have assumed my opinion on IVF would have changed this much in the first place, so it’s certainly possible it could change again. Certainly possible that when Mr. Right finally does get his shit together and show up, I could be convinced to try once more. I am not one to ever make guarantees on the future.
But what I can say now, for me, in the place I currently am:
The truth about IVF is that I can’t help but feel like it’s maybe going too far.
Pushing the body to do something that it clearly doesn’t want to do, for reasons that may be more complex than what we understand.
The truth about IVF is that the consequences involved now scare me.
Both the consequences to a woman’s body and even more importantly; the consequences to that unborn baby we all want so badly to do the best for.
The truth about IVF is that I don’t see myself ever doing it again.
Even though the truth about me is…
I would still give just about anything to be a mommy.
ADSPACE
