I haven't told much of my infertility story here on my blog. It's a LONG story 8 years total, but here are the highlights.
2004- Said bye-bye to birth control
2008- Adoption of my Amazing Little Boy!
2009- Finally diagnosed with PCOS
2010- SURPRISE I am Pregnant :-)...... Sadly ended in miscarriage
2010-2011- Fertility Treatments including 8 rounds of Clomid and 2 IUIs
2010- Current- Taking Metformin to help regulate cycles, much more regular than the past
You can fill in all the gaps with a whole lot of hoping, wishing, and praying, as well as, a ton of disappointing cycles ending with AF (aunt flow).
As you can see it's been a long journey. I often divide it in my mind as the time before the birth of my son, and the time after. I guess my life in general has that divide, the time before I was a Mom and the time since. My son has enriched our lives in ways that I can not begin to describe. He is the most amazing little man, and hands down the greatest blessing in my life. He redefines the entire purpose of my life, and brings me so much joy. He changed my marriage, made my husband a Father, and helps me find new reasons to fall in love with his Dad all over again every day. To say my son was worth the wait would be a HUGE understatement. If I had to endure those 4 years of infertility and heartache again, I would easily do it again.
I thought having a child would make accepting infertility easier, and in some ways it has. I know the joy of being a mother, and have him there to hug and love. When I had my miscarriage, he was there to comfort me and cheer me up. His smile is contagious and just having him makes it hard to ever feel bad for myself.
But now that he has gotten older, he has openly expressed his wish to have siblings. He reminds me regularly that he doesn't "have a baby", and that he wants to be a big brother. It is so sweet to think that he wants a sibling, but it also breaks my heart. I feel so bad that I can't make his wish come true as easily as he would like. I am terrified that I might never be able to make it happen. It was one thing dealing with my infertility and disappointment as it related to me and my husband, but to see it effect my son is so much harder.
So here my biological clock is ticking away. We agreed to keep trying to expand our family till my husband was 34, just 2 more years to go. So now I hope for a miracle, and pray that it will happen, not just for me, but for my husband, my son, and all of our family members who have been waiting on another little bundle.
What's the hold up, you might wonder? Money.... It's the sad truth. We work good jobs, own a home, have medical insurance, and raise a beautiful little boy. But our insurance covers NOTHING for infertility! That's right Zero despite the fact that I have a diagnosed medical condition. And shockingly most insurance companies in the US do not provide coverage. Furthermore, adoption is expensive. The average domestic infant adoption is $20,000. That's a lot of money! Seriously how many parents have 20k sitting somewhere that they can spend without a financial return on that investment.
So what is our plan? We are trying to save up $25,000 over the next year and a half. We would like to enter the shared risk program at our fertility clinic. We get up to 4 cycles of IVF and if we don't bring home a baby all of our money is refunded! We would then proceed with adoption, and would have all the money we would need to do so. It's going to be a difficult task. We are trying to come up with every creative and possible way. We are pinching pennies and praying. We are thinking about doing fundraisers. I am rolling out new items in my 2 etsy shops all the time. Let's just hope that the IVF/Adoption Fund grows faster then the sand runs out of my biological clock.
If you are trying to raise funds for adoption or IVF what have you done?
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