#childfreenotbychoice

[shayberz]

Haven’t caught @nickcarter live in a long while, did catch it this morning. I definitely will say it made me appreciate my #childfree 104837383737629374638373x more. 😛🙃 #nickcarter #childfreenotbychoice #childfreelifestyle is the best lifestyle. 😜 https://www.instagram.com/p/CaU8k-pu1dF/?utm_medium=tumblr

[speakin-4-myself]

Some of these 'proud moms' only get their kids when the kid's grandma need a break, but wanna lecture the next woman about having kids. You can pop out 10 kids and still not be grown. Don't judge/question me about why I'm not having kids and I won't judge/question you about why the government is taking care of yours. #Speakin4Myself #childlessbychoice #childlessnotbychoice #childfreebychoice #childfreenotbychoice

[myfamilyoftwo-blog]

This Week Would’ve Been My IVF Transfer

I’m in this odd state of mind today because, despite handling this whole infertility stuff better than I expected, I realize this week would’ve been my IVF transfer. It’s a funny (funny interesting, not funny ha ha) thing to think about everything that happened since September 2015, when we decided we would do our first IVF cycle. Since then, we did three rounds of IUI (all failed) and my husband got good at something he never realized he’d have to do--give me an injection in my stomach, I had polyps removed from my uterus to prepare for IVF, and we paid for our first IVF cycle. When we decided we’d bite the bullet and move full speed ahead toward IVF, our reproductive endocrinologist told us that with my AMH level, we’d have about a 40-percent chance of success with IVF. She said, “Here, take these medications--28 pills a day; they can improve your AMH level.” Fast forward to two months later, when my AMH was rechecked, and I was stunned. My AMH level dropped by a third, by .45 in just two months. My doctor said AMH normally drops by .2 a year, and mine dropped by .45 in two months. TWO MONTHS! Suddenly we were facing an invasive IVF procedure and our chances of success dropped by 25 percent, to only 15 percent. It was then I started doubting whether we should do this. If it worked, that would be amazing (I mean, words don’t exist to explain just how amazing), but chances are it wouldn’t have worked. We’re statistics people, and that number hit us hard. An AMH level that low means my ovaries think I am 45 years old; news flash: I’m 35 years old. So after having had a surgery I didn’t actually need (the polyp removal was to prepare me for IVF) and paying for IVF, we decided to cancel because statistics weren’t on our side, and honestly, we had spent enough time in four years being disappointed. It was time to take back control of our lives and move on. Now, in early March, when my IVF transfer would’ve been, I am left wondering what would have happened this week. Would we even have made it to the transfer? Chances are good I wouldn’t have even responded well to the IVF protocol I was given. In the off chance I did, would it have worked? I’ll never know. But I do know that at this moment, as I wonder “what if,” I don’t feel regret about the decision we made. It was an educated decision my husband and I made together, and it has given us the freedom to start to rebuild the life we had together before infertility took control.

[myfamilyoftwo-blog]

“Why Don’t You Just Adopt?”

Word to the wise: Saying to an infertile couple they should “just adopt” is incredibly unhelpful. In my experience, every time I’ve heard this, it’s come out of the mouths of women who have more than three children (which I consider baby hoarding) and who can get pregnant simply by bumping fists with their husbands. Adoption can be an amazing thing, for the parents and for the child. But the process isn’t always the smoothest. It’s expensive, first and foremost. When someone says to “just adopt,” I want to reply with, “It costs about $20,000 to adopt a child. How much did it cost you to have a child? Nothing? Oh, then you don’t get to give your opinion.” Even if you do decide adoption is right for you and you can afford it and still have enough money left over to raise that child, there’s a chance it all could fall through when the birth mother holds the child for the first time and decides she can’t ever let the baby go. That’s the best-case scenario, in my opinion, that the mother (and father) is able to find a way to raise the child herself. But the couple that was so hopeful, after likely years of infertility, becomes crushed at having to restart the adoption process, assuming they still have the strength. And I believe most of them would find the strength to continue. (Side note: I think infertile people are some of the strongest people on this planet. Repeatedly feeling like a failure when you can’t get pregnant naturally and then when you pay a specialist to get you pregnant and it still doesn’t happen is one of the toughest pills to swallow. But often they pick themselves up off the floor and keep trying. God love ‘em.) Then there’s the biological aspect to deciding whether adoption is right. Many people need that biological tie to the child, and that’s OK. Let me repeat: It’s OK to choose not to adopt for this reason. There’s so much judgement that comes from people who don’t understand infertility. If you’re reading this and know an infertile couple, please, for the love of everything holy, don’t ask them why they don’t just adopt.

[myfamilyoftwo-blog]

Same Sadness, Different Triggers

It’s been over a month since my husband and I decided to stop fertility treatment and start living our lives as a family of two (with our little dog, too). At first, it was just going through the motions. You wake up, go to work, come home from work, muster up the strength to make something, anything, for dinner because “you have to eat,” and then go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Sadness consumes our subconscious, whether we like it or not, and it hits us when we least expect it. I’ve learned that my husband and I have different triggers for our sadness over never parenting a biological child. For me, it’s seeing mothers with their itty bitties that gets me. I have such a strong desire to love a baby and nurture him or her until he or she becomes an adult. But my husband’s trigger is seeing adult-age children with their parents and realizing he’ll never have that bond. He’s incredibly close with his father, and I think he always pictured having that same relationship with his child. But unless by some miracle we beat that less-than-1-percent chance to conceive naturally, it’s not going to happen. (That leads me to a subject for a post for another day: Having hope when your chances of success are almost zero is dangerous and crushing month after month when Aunt Flo decides to visit for a few days.) I will never hear my toddler say “Mama” for the first time. He will never plan a trip to a battlefield with his grown son. This is our reality, and although being sad is a fact for me right now, it’s fortunately not my main emotion. I also have a lot of hope for my future with my husband. I am fortunate that he and I are stronger than ever after facing something as serious and stressful as four years of infertility. I have bad days, but today is a good day and I’m going be grateful for that.