Choices

Based on some of our discussions with our social worker I have been giving a lot of thought to the question:

Why did I choose not to go for IVF? Why did I choose to stop all fertility treatment when I did? I am sure there are lots of other choices that  have been made that we will need to go back to, discuss, breakdown and examine at great length but I do think this was feels like the biggest we have ever had to make.

I guess there is no easy answer to that but at the time it was the right choice for me.

IVF comes in many forms but all are incredibly invasive and by the time our consultant got round to talking about it as an option for us I had dealt with 2 and half years of tests – blood, tests, scans and other more invasive tests and I really couldn’t face any more. Even now the thought of an internal examination fills me dismay.

That being said when we got to these discussions I was already emotionally and mentally battered, what had gone before had left me in a fragile state that could not have coped with the stresses of more treatment. 

On a practical level any treatment would have been at Nottingham which would have meant countless car journeys so an unknown cost in time off work, fuel money and all those other costs that are naturally incurred like parking and that doesn’t even start on the cost of any drugs we would have had to pay for.

Do I believe that happened was ‘for the best’? No. And I find myself being very angry with people that suggest it might have been. Do I feel that everything occurs for a reason? I want to. I want to believe that I am a stronger person today with more empathy for those around. I also want to believe that our family will be stronger in the future for it.  I know that many couples have IVF successfully but there are also huge numbers that are not successful and for me, if the chances of success had been higher I might have considered it as a valid option but the chance of success for a woman of my age is 33.1% (according to the NHS) and based on that I decided that, for me and for us as a couple, it wasn’t the right option.