Too much

A few months back I ran to my friend L's house to borrow a few eggs. She is in her mid 40's and has 6 children, with only 2 left at home. We got to talking about our plan for our next attempt at having a family. She then told me she had rented a movie all about IF, The Ba.ck-u.p Pla.n. I could hardly contain my disgust. Have you seen the movie? If you have you, you understand what an awful pretrial of IF it is. J.L.o gets pg on her first IUI attempt, with twins no less. She has no side effects from meds and her twin pregnancy is 100% uncomplicated. She even goes into labor and delivers healthy babies with no medical intervention. The only "issue" she has is this guy comes into her life on the day of her IUI. They fall in love and the movie ends with her throwing up in a trash can, surprise she is pg again! This time with her fiance's baby after no TTC. This is the movie L watched and suddnely understood IF. She just couldn't believe all we went through. Really?!?? Because that movie made it look pretty easy. She then finishes with, "gosh, if I had to do all that, I don't think I would have kids!"

Pause to catch my breath...

I then told her how easy that made it seem and how what we did, IVF, was about 147x more complicated. Not to mention all the stupid complications I had. I still don't think she got it by the end of our conversation. (Even Though she was one of the many friends who came to visit when I was sick with OHSS.)

So is this all really worth it? Someone who had six children, without even thinking about it, seems to think it isn't. I now know why the Lord gave me the gift of IF and not her, he knew I would continue to fight. Becuase my children are woth it!


PS This is the same friend who often comments that she stopped praying for patience because every time she did she got pg. And that my friends is the real secret to getting pregnant. Why didn't I think of that!

Bid your heart out

Sarah and Chris are holding an online auction to help their adoption dream become a reality! They have totally AMAZING stuff! Go over and help out this wonderful couple out.

Marital strain

DH was in Phoenix a few weeks back, and while sitting in church I made the comment to my very fertile friend D how much I missed him the week he was away. Her comment...

"Yeah you don't have kids yet. You wouldn't miss him like that if you had kids."

To which I replied...

"No we don't, but you have never been through infertility treatment and had "timed sex" or had your hormones all over the place from fertility drugs, or had to drop off your husbands semen at a lab to have it analyzed, or..."

She stopped me before I could continue to list things that strained our marriage and made it just as"real" as hers. And said, "Yeah, yeah you're right."

A few months ago after hearing someone say something similar to me and me just nodding and walking away, I decided I would never do that again. I was going to tell whomever told me this next time just what it was like to be in an infertile marriage. We have been married for almost 8 years. Just because we don't have kids doesn't mean our lives are stress free and wonderful. I have had this comment said to me in one form or another SO many times. I swear, we could fund IVF #2 if I had $1 for every time someone said something like this.

I get it, kids are hard and they make it a lot harder to have alone "couple time", but infertility can be like a cancer for a marriage. One that, if not "treated" properly will spread and kill the relationship. Yes DH can have alone quality time and date nights any time we please, but we have yet to have the joy of being parents together and watching our children grow and develop. Yes, we pray and beg for that blessing everyday, but when it comes, will I love him less? No, I think it will only make us more in love with one another. And maybe that is what I needed to get from IF, that children are such a blessing. I do believe that my non-IF friends think this, at least part of the time, but they will never have the privileged of knowing it like we do.