The harvest and the odds and the dirty secret

I was lying on the acu table last night, willing my ovaries to produce at least one good egg this cycle, and I started running down the numbers. Which, I've got to say, didn't exactly help me relax.

I have had 49 eggs retrieved.
28 eggs were either immature or didn't fertilize properly.
21 eggs fertilized normally and became embryos.
Of those 21 embryos, 17 were transferred back to me. 4 were either discarded or arrested (actually I think only 1 was discarded because it stayed alive long enough to become a blast but was not good enough quality to freeze).
Of those 21 embryos, 8 were 8-celled or greater on day 3.

And presumably none of them were normal, because none of them stuck around. Or some were normal and I've got an implantation issue. All three RE's don't think it's an implantation issue, although I've had plenty of immune and thrombophilia testing done just in case.

So here I am, cycle 7, with 7 antral follicles. What gives me the audacity to think that any of these will be normal? I suppose just blind, fervent hope. Just hope that maybe with a new protocol I can produce a normal embryo. Or maybe just perseverance and luck of the draw that 1 out of 50+ finally comes up good. I mean, that's worse odds than is usually bandied about for 43 year old women as far as having chromosomal abnormalities goes. And I'm 39, so you'd think I should still be able to produce a good one somewhere.

The odds seem miserably slim, though.

But anyway, it has cemented my decision to go forward with CGH even if I only have a couple of embryos. There's a part of me that wants to know now if all those embryos really were abnormal or if it really is perhaps an implantation issue. And that of course means that I may well have already had my last embryo transfer. I may be done with that completely, because I am determined to do these last two cycles and then stop TTC'ing. I am determined not to say "oh just one more cycle" after that. More and more I stare down the end of this TTC road, trying to face up to it bravely, with squared shoulders. It is hard. It will be one of the hardest things I have ever done - walking away from this dream. I've decided that donor eggs or donor embryos or adoption are not for me at this point in my life. Maybe I'll come back in a few years, once I'm done with school and have switched careers, but there's a large part of me that doubts that that will happen. You see, we all have stopping points. Lines we will not cross. For most people, that line is somewhere around 3 IVFs with their own eggs - they move on to more of a sure thing after that. But for me, I think it is the loss of that genetic connection. My dream of motherhood has always been to have my own child. Yes, I know that is hopelessly politically uncorrect to say. An adoptive child IS your own child, because it was fated and all that jazz. But I hope you know what I am trying, clumsily, to say.

Perhaps those of you that have gone the DE or adoption route just shrug your shoulders in despair here, and think I am cutting off my nose to spite my face. That I will be missing out on all the joys of parenthood, which when you come down to it are all about raising a child and not the genetics. However, it seems to be a dirty secret in the IF community that some of us have come to realize that we want our own genetic children or nothing. Because, if I am being honest, this is where my head and heart are right now. I know a few others like me - perhaps we seek each other out on the message boards or in our clinic waiting rooms, because we do seem to be rare and it's such a wonderful connection to make. It's so emotionally satisfying to have your thoughts validated by someone else who thinks the same way. To know that you're not crazy (well, not completely batshit crazy, at least). It's almost electrifying, in fact, to sit in a cafe somewhere with someone who has also travelled across many many miles to go to a top clinic in a desperate bid to try again and to go "oh!" with that realization of a kindred spirit. OK, if I'm being honest I know three or four women who I class as being like me in this, all of whom read my blog (you know who you are), and I hope I am not putting words into anyone else's mouth or letting out anything that should not be shared. But you see how small a group? Three or four out of how many women I have come across in this journey? One (hopefully, god willing, hoping that nothing goes wrong) has had success on her 7th IVF, and one has stopped treatment (maybe temporarily, maybe not). The rest of us are still plodding along. There are others that I see out there in blog land that I make assumptions about, due to the numbers of cycles they have done, but I've never emailed them or spoken in person so I don't know for certain what they are thinking. I do take comfort in knowing that they are out there, though.

I don't know why I have drawn the line where I have, but it somehow feels right. At least, more right than any other choice. When I think about having a child using donor eggs I get a searing pain through my heart as if I've been stabbed. It is less painful to think about never having a child than using DE, which almost feels like a betrayal to my family in some bizarre way. Truly, I have thought long and hard about this. I did try to pick a donor, to really try the idea on for size. And...it is not for me. At least not now. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind later if circumstances and my thinking change.

But why does it feel like a dirty secret to make this choice to stop completely? Why do those of us that don't want to do DE or adoption feel marginalized and somehow less like real women or true mothers than those who would do it? It's not like we don't move heaven and earth to try to become pregnant. We are the ones doing the super-multiple numbers of IVFs. Interestingly, everyone that I have spoken to that takes this track seems to have some difficulty with adoption - maybe their DH is deemed too old, or in my case my single status and immigration status make it difficult, or maybe it's something else. So the choice comes down to DE or donor embryos or another cycle with our own eggs, and with doctors who say that it's worth trying again if we have the strength and are aware of our pathetically miserable chances of success, we forge on. I mean, until it becomes completely impossible and if you've got the means to keep going, why not? Other women move heaven and earth by grieving the loss of the genetic connection, squaring their shoulders and accepting DE or going through that home study and the endless reams of adoption paperwork. And they are, rightly, celebrated for coming to terms with the whole "parenting=child rearing not genetics" equation. Why then, when we are all busily also going to enormous lengths to fulfill our dreams, are we not celebrated for saying "enough is enough" when the time comes? I guess it's because nobody wants to admit that IF doesn't always have a happy ending. There's a big part of us all I think that wants to say that there can be a happy ending if we try hard enough, even if that means moving on to other methods of conception or parenting. But for me, I don't know if DE or adoption would truly make me happy. Wouldn't I always have a pang of grief that this was not my genetic child? Does that make me selfish? Or, is it less selfish of me to realize that I probably can't get past this and not inflict my less-than-overjoyed heart on a child who could be loved completely with a different parent who is less hung up on genetics than me? Isn't it better to say that I can attain a level of contentment with a child-free life, even if not truly happy, than to bring a child into the world without 100% joy?