I wish someone had told me that infertility wasn't just for "old" people. It doesn't happen just because you are "one of those women" who puts her career first and dries up. There is male infertility and female infertility both of which present their own set of challenges. There is also what is known as "unexplained infertility" as well as many specific diagnosis. No matter what "type": male, female, known, unknown; its all painful.
DH and I went for a few sessions of pre-marital counseling because our church did not provide it. The therapist asked us what our plans were if we had trouble with infertility. Lucky for us (so he said) we already knew we wanted adoption as part of our family planning of if infertility was a problem we would just adopt. We also knew IVF was not in our cards. Little did I know there were other options but having had that conversation in that therapists office even before the "I do's" we had somewhere to start from. The conversation gave us a starting place and a stopping place. At the time we knew there was a small chance (so we had been told) we would have trouble with infertility but we were young so we were told not to worry.
What I've learned from infertility is that fertility doctors will keep going, and keep taking your money until you say "I'm done." They work in their field to get women pregnant even when the odds are not good and they even succeed (sometimes you just have to drain your resources first). It has to be hard for them to say "I dont know that fertility treatments are your best option." The cost of one IVF treatment is 1/2 of our adoption fees. Until you have tried them all there is a chance to get pregnant for most but what are your odds? We were told12% a cycle. When you are speaking about something you most desperately want 12% sounds like good odds to me. I can't tell you how many times we were told "you are young!" As if that was an inoculation for infertility. We just had to try a little longer, a little harder, and do treatments.
I wish more people were educated on infertility. Every wedding or engagement I hear about I want to tell them to consider what they will do if they struggle with infertility. I don't typically but a few close friends I've made off handed comments. If you have the conversation but it's never needed nothing is lost. If you dont have the conversation and infertility rears its ugly head its heart breaking but you have a general map of how to proceed. There is pressure from family/friends and your medical team each with a different idea of what you should do. Ultimately its whats best the couple. We were likely conservative compared to most, but its what our hearts had told us was best for us even before we knew we were affected by infertility. Yes being young is your friend when you are trying to conceive but no one is ever too young for infertility.
I've also felt the urge to tell people that if they're planning their lives so much in advance - get their careers going, travel around the world, THEN have a baby - they should also plan on what to do if they have a close encounter with infertility. I sometimes think that whatever happened to us is going to happen to everyone. Of course, this is not right. :oP The thing is that we're infertile. period. It has nothing to do with how long we waited to try to conceive. I only think that if we had considered adoption before we would've have done it sooner. But things happen the way they should. Had our journey be different or done sooner we would have never met our daughter. :o)
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