Something’s gotta give…

I can’t continue to do this anymore. It’s not even an emotional thing for me anymore. Honestly speaking, things have gotten a lot easier for me emotionally the last few months. I could continue to speculate as to why things are easier, as I have done in previous posts, but I guess it doesn’t really matter to me why things are easier; just that they are.

It’s not the physical toll that is bothering me, not that the physical aspects have ever been that overwhelming. However, 12.5mg of Femara did a lot more to my body than 5mg ever did. My left shoulder was intensely sore and tight for about a week because of the hormones. Acupuncture helped, but it was still pretty miserable.

What’s bothering me the most lately is the unknown.

I want to know if we will ever be able to have our own biological children. I want to know if my eggs are of a good enough quality that I will be able to be a part of the genetic make up of our baby. If I knew, for certain, that on May 29, 2011, for example, I would give birth to a baby that was half of me and half of Mark, then I could wait for that. I can have all of the patience in the world to wait for our biological children if I only know that things would happen for us eventually.

On the other hand, if my eggs are not good enough for us to conceive a baby, then I want to know that now, so that I can move on to other options. Being pregnant is one of the only dreams that I have for myself as an adult. I want to be able to experience everything that comes along with being pregnant. If donor eggs will allow me to be pregnant and carry our children and experience labor and birth, then I am 100% on board with pursuing that avenue. A few months ago I fretted about using an egg donor because our children would not have any genes of mine. Now I realize that it doesn’t matter to me that our children would not genetically be a part of me because families are made up of people who love each other. Where they came from or whose genes they have is irrelevant.

But even more than being pregnant, my biggest adult dream is being a mom. It is because of this realization, that I am completely willing and excited to adopt, if it is determined that I am unable to carry children or if the toll of trying to conceive gets to be too much.

I am 100% open to any of these options and would be happy if any of them brought children into our lives. The problem is that I don’t know which path will bring us children in the end.

How long do you spend doing one thing before you turn to another? How long do you fight before you give up on a dream in one form to meet it in another form? When does the entirety of the battle and the emotional, physical and logical toll that comes along with it outweigh the ultimate goal?

And what if I’m losing sight of my goal? What if throughout all of this I’ve become so disillusioned to the whole thing that now I’m just more interested in “succeeding” rather than having children? Have I become so completely impassioned in trying to get to the ultimate goal that I’ve forgotten what it is that I’m even fighting for?

The other day I found that someone posted a quiz to the wiki that my support group maintains. Since I missed the last support meeting, I’m not quite sure what the quiz is about, but it seemed to be a quiz that is trying to get to the heart of whether or not the quiz taker really wants or needs to have children. This is something that I’ve been turning around in my head for a couple of months, so finding this quiz and reading the questions really caused me to think even deeper about it.

The bottom line is that I do think that I could live a happy and fulfilled life without a child. It’s certainly not what I would choose, but I do think that it’s something that I could live with.

Coming to that realization makes me question everything that we’ve been through the past 17 months and what I am willing to do going forward. I’m not sure how much more of myself I can give up to this endeavor at this time. I feel drained. I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. I have told Mark that I’m willing to do one more IUI with Femara cycle, and then we will need to take a break and re-evaluate our situation. I’m at the breaking point and something’s gotta give.