For infertility to seem to take so long to reach the goal (a baby of course) it sure can change quickly on the journey! We spoke to our previous doctor (I know! I haven't updated in a while!) about what our options were. We discussed IVF, which we did not want to do. He discussed the process, and how natural selection works within women. He discussed Louisiana laws, where every embryo is treated as a life. And how every viable embryo would be used or frozen. By viable, it has to divide past a certain day. If it doesn't divide past that day, it would not have taken naturally without IVF. (I am trying to remember everything, it's been about 2 months!) One thing I didn't know, that even at my age now, with prime fertility, only 1 in 3 eggs are genetically viable for producing a baby. It is God's way of natural selection, keeping with the 20% of getting pregnant each month. OK, so long story short, my moral concerns were alleviated.
So what changed? I was still lost between decisions, with my heart broken. I wanted a clear cut answer, and we didn't seem to have one. One day, toward the end of September, I had one. And it hit me like a rock, eliminating all other options. I was on facebook one afternoon right before leaving work (not on my work computer! on my phone...) and I had a friend post pictures of her recent birth. Maggie McKelvey (I graduated from High School with her) had given birth mid-September and she put up the normal photos - the before at the hospital, the first photos of the baby, the pictures of her and her husband holding their blessing. And of course, her looking completely worn out from being in labor, but glowing with hapiness at holding their child. And yes, of course, I lost it. I wanted that. I wanted to go into labor one day with our child. I wanted to look exhausted and glowing at the same time. I wanted to have our child, Randy's child, more than life itself. Seeing their joy as new parents seemed to have caused a realization. We couldn't adopt, or use a donor. IVF was suddenly my only option. And for some reason, it was so clear at that point. If we were standing in a room full of doors, not knowing which to take, God opened one for us and let the light shine in, while locking the others. It felt wonderful.
So then what? Our current doctor at A Woman's Center for Reproductive Medicine was going to be around 15K for IVF because they didn't take my insurance (their lab didn't, it wasn't recognized by Aetna?). And I am in the top 1% of having inferitility coverage. So we looked into the Feritlity Institute of New Orleans. It is actually 4-5 times the size of the previous, we just had no reason to change at first. Well we visited on October 2nd, and THEY TAKE MY INSURANCE! So, long story short, it is only around 5k for us and we start in January! We wanted to wait until then just to save a little more, but also to use my Flexible Spending Account. So, we are here, we start IVF in January! I'll give more details on chances and all later, I just had to update everyone on our journey!
