Coming to terms with the end of treatment

We had one frozen embryo and we took a long time to come to a decision to transfer that and to implant that and we finally did commit to doing that.  I think that the reservation for me was just the emotion of it in that if it worked that would be fantastic but also you know a whole new world.

The last shot.

The last shot.  The last chance and you know, do I really want to have that journey completely over because we had talked about it a lot and our decision was not to do IVF again, that we’d done it enough to get one child and that we were lucky enough to sort of have one child, a perfectly healthy child so why push our luck sort of thing.  So we finally decided to do that last frozen embryo and I think there was a lot more grief there for me than what I had expected and I think only now really am I processing you know that this is – when did we do that?  A year and a half ago.  A year ago.  I think only now I’m processing the repercussions of that and the results of that I guess in that you know, natural conception is not a possibility for us so having another child is not a possibility for us because we have decided not to do IVF again which I think is the right decision for us to make but it’s still – you know, there’s still a grieving process for what you imagined your family would look like and I always imagined my family would look, you know, big, like my family and that’s not going to be the case.  So there’s a whole other process of grief and coming to the understanding that you know, that that’s not going to be the case and that’s also complex and laden with guilt because you feel guilty for feeling bad that you can’t have a second child you know, for feeling sad that you can’t have a second child whereas you know you feel like you should be feeling so grateful for that one child and you do, you do feel so grateful for that one child and I look at you know, friends of mine who have done IVF and haven’t conceived at all and how glad I am not to be in that position but there is that element of I really wanted to have more than one child and I always envisaged my family being bigger than having just one child and that’s not going to be reality for us.

I think we are still talking about that.  You know, there is a whole other world that we didn’t have to talk about which was you know, what would we do if we had more frozen embryos and I think I’m sort of glad that we haven’t had to have that conversation but the vague conversation we’ve had, we’ve been in disagreement about that to some degree so you know that would have been tough as well so you know, whether you donate them or do whatever with them.  So I think we are kind of in a way lucky that we haven’t had to have those conversations and you know sometimes I guess both of us wonder about the choice not to do IVF anymore and again I agree with Dinah, it’s the right choice for us but you know.

It does cross your mind.

Yeah, it’s a definite, you know, if we want to have more children, that’s the road we are going to have to go down so to say well we are not going to have any more children and that’s a sad things, there is still an option there so you’ve either got to accept that it’s a sad thing, we are not going to have any more children or we go down that road you know.  So we are kind of in a weird, you know – with a two and a half year old, we are in a weird sort of stage where we’ve really still got to come to terms with you know, where we are at now which in a way you know kind of stretches our IVF journey out to seven and a half years now or more which is a really long time to have that as part of your life so I suppose it will sort of to some degree be there for longer than that.