I’ve seen a lot of articles similar to this recently:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20090620/hl_hsn/treatmentoptionshortenspathtopregnancy

The gist of it is that some couples can become pregnant quicker and for less money overall if they go straight to IVF and skip the IUI / injectible steps.

I’m not going to talk about the money aspect; that’s a topic for another day.  What I do want to say is that these studies aren’t looking at the emotional aspect.   IVF can be very overwhelming - there are a lot of drugs involved, and frequent appointments and blood draws.   I personally didn’t find IVF to be that bad, but I’d already done 4 injectible cycles.   I was already familiar with the drugs and how they affected me.  We knew where and how to give the shots and it wasn’t intimidating anymore.

From a different angle, IVF seems like the last resort, the most drastic step.  It feels like you’ve completely failed and need a doctor to make you a baby in a dish.  I needed to know that we’d done all that we could before we moved on to that level of intervention.

It doesn’t matter to me what some study said, I still would have done the injectibles and IUIs. I needed that time and slower steps to progress to the IVF cycle.  Without the IUI cycles, I would have felt MUCH more overwhelmed by IVF, and we wouldn’t have had any idea what dosage to start with.  I’m happy with my decisions, and that’s really the key.   You have to make the choices that are right for you and everyone has a different path.

We talked a lot at our last meeting about finding balance and happiness during infertility treatments. It’s very easy to let all the doctors appointments and tests and procedures take over your life. But as Lily likes to remind us, you have to find happiness and peace with the life you currently have; a baby isn’t magically going to make you happy.

For a long time I wanted life to stop and wait for me while I progressed through this journey. I didn’t want to see anyone else’s kids, including my niece and nephew. I didn’t do a very good job of keeping up with my friends or family. I was just so frustrated by the whole process and all the failures we’d had.

When we switched to a new RE, we were forced to take a break while he did some more testing. I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands and realized how out of touch I was with my own life. I started scrapbooking again and got caught up with some of my friends. And I started feeling a lot better. So when we started fertility treatments again, I made a real effort to keep doing those everyday things I really enjoyed, like monthly dinners with my friends. It has really made a difference and I feel much less stressed.

So I’ve made a resolution to be more grateful and appreciate all the things I do have, and work on not letting infertility take over my life. So far I’ve been successful, and this summer has been a lot more enjoyable than last summer.