What Happens if I'm Not Pregnant?
If we don't end up with children think of all the traveling we can do. We could even live abroad, which could be really cool. Bilbao, Spain is high on my list of places to see...
Four more days until I find out if I'm pregnant or not. It's starting to get hard. I've been thinking about the future...what we'll do if I'm not pregnant. My husband and I have talked in snippets about this, but this is really my list (not ours) at this point:
- We have some more frozen embryos, and I'd like to do another FET right away. After that I'm not sure what I've got left in me. I'd like to use up all our embryos, but I'm getting so worn down by this process. One thing is for sure: once the embryos are gone, we are DONE with medical interventions.
- Adopting an infant is a possibility. Adoption scares me though as I know almost nothing about it at this point. I'm totally fine with having a child that is not biologically related to us. I'm pretty fine about not going through a pregnancy (and I can definitely get to a place where I'm fine with it). I'm scared about the process and what it's going to take out of us emotionally. I'm scared of the wait, which from what I understand could be long. I don't really care the gender or race of the baby, or whether we do this domestically or internationally (although my gut preference is for domestic). I think if I knew more about the process I would be less scared, but I just don't feel like I can go through IVF and figure out adoption at the same time...
- Adopting an older child/children. This is something my husband and I have talked about a little. I think it would be great to adopt siblings. This feels like the easiest/best route, although it would be hard not to get to go through the younger stages of a child's life. And I know there are dangers with this...older children who get put up for adoption by definition haven't had an easy time of it. Are we equipped to handle it?
- Or, we could decide to be a family of two. There'd be so much more time and money to travel, for me to write, for us to build our dream house, for us to retire young, etc., etc., etc. Except I can't stop thinking we can do all those things with children. And, I don't know, I'm just having a hard time picturing my life without any children in it. But I'm really not sure anything else is going to be possible.
Ugh...I thought writing this would help me feel better--to look and see that I have choices--but instead, it just feels overwhelming. A little down today. Didn't sleep well last night. No pregnancy symptoms to report, really. I'm just feeling so exhausted and sad about all of this...
XO
Image credit: rahego.