Bloggers Unite: Project IF
Beyond the book news, the other exciting thing I’ve been sitting on is a project I’m working on with Resolve that actually involves all of you.
Since I was honoured last year with their first best blog award at Resolve’s Night of Hope, I get to introduce and help organize Resolve’s spring advocacy project, which will choose this year’s winner of the Hope Award for Best Blog at the 2010 Night of Hope.
Did that get your attention?
Good.
Participating in the newly created Project IF is quite simple and will be held in two parts. Today kicks off the first part and the second part will go up on April 21st, just in time for NIAW, National Infertility Awareness Week (April 24–May 1).
All you have to do to participate in the first part is leave a comment below stating your biggest “what if” in regards to infertility: what if I never get to experience pregnancy? What if we can’t gather enough money to fund another adoption? What if we didn’t choose the best clinic? What if my child feels strange about being created via IVF?
In other words, take out one of the “what ifs” that keep knocking around inside your heart, keeping you awake at night, and allow the larger community to commiserate, empathize and help you carry your burden by reading your words.
The What IF List (in other words, this post and the comment section below) is open from now until April 16th. On the 16th, the list will close and 10 what ifs will be chosen to be used in part two of Project IF and directions will be given on April 21st to explain how to participate in the second part.
All blogs and bloggers who participate in Project IF will be eligible to be considered for the Hope Award for Best Blog, presented at the 2010 Night of Hope.
Let the what ifs begin, and may this project bring strength in numbers; in the commonalities that run throughout the community despite our unique diagnoses, experiences, and circumstances.
Please help spread word about this project via your own blog. If you use Twitter, the hashtag is #projectIF. Unlike last year’s Advocacy Day which necessitated a trip to Washington, D.C., this project can be completed in the comfort of your home and will hopefully have an effect on changing the way the general public thinks about infertility as well as bringing together our community.
450 comments
What if I’m never a mother?
Very cool project, Mel! Excited to help spread the word.
What if we can never give O-man a sibling? Im being limited by my body, funds, and all the other unknowns.
What if you’re faced with a choice between your husband and the possiblity of a future child?
What if they never find a cause for our unexplained infertility?
What if the hole in my heart never goes away?
what if my mom dies before i’m ever a mother? DH’s mom died during our TTC trials.. and my mom needs a new liver. how many more years will go by, how many more people will go before we are parents and our child gets to meet his/her family?
Oh, this is AWESOME. Thanks for all you do for the community.
What if I regret buying the larger car because the empty seats remind me of the child we might not have?
What if I’m never able to let go? I find myself being overprotective of Lexi because we went through so much to have her.
What if I can never just be happy with what I have and stop being angry, bitter, and sad about what I do not?
What if our lives are predestined and no matter what we do (ie: pray, beg, steal, IVF, Clomid, Injections, IUI) the outcome isn’t going to change. What if we invest all of this time and money and it’s still really out of our control?
What if we exhaust all efforts and in the end are still left childless and jaded? Not to mention totally broke.
What if I keep getting pregnant but never see a heartbeat on the ultrasound screen?
What if we’re old and gray (I’m halfway there already) and it’s Christmas or Thanksgiving and it’s just the two of us and the dog — no kids, no grandkids, no family?
What if I never get to be part of a family again?
What if I miscarry again, and I”m never able to make my parents into grandparents?
What if despite my ultimate success I never let go of the resentment at and jealousy of the women who got to do this the “normal” way and who never experienced pregnancy loss.
what if my anger and my grief never go away?
What if Izzie never gets a sibling and she has to grow up without a sibling and she has no one to lean on after I am gone.
What if it’s never meant to happen with my body, and we’re wasting time not switching to my wife’s?
What if I turn 70 and regret that I didn’t insist that we had a second child?
What if, after years of dreaming and trying and hoping and hurting, I can finally be healthy because I gave up the dream of ever being being pregnant and giving birth?
What if I can’t ever experience pregnancy?
What if my son ends up hating me because he was conceived through DI? What if all we’ve gone through to have him and to bring us so much happiness ends up bringing him enormous pain?
What if I punch the next person who tells me I’m so lucky to be finally pregnant and “wasn’t it all worth it?”
What if we adopt again and that upsets the balance in our family and negatively impacts all of us?
What IF we can’t ever come up with the funds to adopt and don’t get pregnant?
What if all the people who tell me I will be able to get pregnant again, despite my 3 years of infertility, are wrong and the baby that we just lost was my only chance of motherhood and pregnancy?
What if I always feel like less of a person because I wasn’t able to reproduce?
What if IVF works and then K thinks that we did IVF instead of adopting again because we made a mistake adopting him?
What if the reason I’m infertile is because I wasn’t meant to be a mother?
Even w/ my Tweedles, what IF all the pain and heartache endured never scars up and stays an open-wound forever? – What IF I will always feel a stab at the non-chalantness of pregnancy for someone who didn’t have IF issues, therefore don’t consider ‘our’ side of things? What IF I feel I’ll always want to punch those that think I’m “cured” b/c I was able to have babies after all?
{thank you for doing this Mel. It brought a knot to my throat to read all the comments above mine. How I love this community and wish I could just fix it all}
What if I can never get over the feeling that my body has failed me?
What if I am forever bitter about women who get pregnant “naturally” and then treat their kids like shit?
what if giving birth to twins at 20 weeks and the 30 seconds before one of them died is the closest i will ever become to enjoying the glow of being a new mother?
What if I never stop feeling like a murderer because my body keeps “spontaneously aborting” our babies?
What if…..IVF doesn’t work? Will I be able to hold on to my sanity?
What if my daughter is “an only” forever?
What if every state passed a law that would require insuance companies to coverFertility Treatments and A.R.T. so that people like me and my husband wouldn’t have to choose between their mortgage or having a family?
What if my son is alone in this world (I will have failed him)?
What if I had seen a different OB, would I have my twins with me today?
What if my health is compromised by treatment and we have to leave the remaining embryos sitting there?
What if the ALI online community didn’t exist? I shudder to think about how this journey would have been even more painful and isolating.
What if we go through all this trouble to conceive and my baby has/babies have developmental problems?
What if my friend never gets her baby?
What if I never can move on from IF?
What if I have a second miscarriage during my second IVF attempt and fall into a deep depression again?
What IF my husband can’t ever truly connect with our DI babies? What IF we never even get to have them?
What IF I never manage to be truly content with being childless?
What if my baby and I never meet on this earth and I have to wait for heaven?
What if our infertility issues were passed on to our twins and they have to go through the same hell we did?
What if the road to being a parent continues to meander as haltingly as it has begun…and children are still years away for us? Can I make it that long?
What if I always have survivor guilt because I get to be called “mommy” now?
What If we are unable to conceive even through IVF and our only option becomes adoption, what if my DH never changes his mind and agrees with adoption?
What if I never get past the bitterness and jealousy that have resulted from the years of infertility?
What if I can never get over this pain of never being pregnant beyond 8 weeks? What if it affects our adoption plans?
What if we never get to share my mother’s advice about life’s peaks and valleys, my father’s stories about kindness and loyalty, my father-in-law’s memories of life on the bayou and my mother-in law’s value of family and faith with our own children?
What if I’m subconsiously sabatoging myself to fail at the IF treatments because I can’t stand the thought of going through another miscarriage? The pain of a BFN is so much easier than the pain of a loss.
What if all those drugs & hormones I pumped into my body during treatment turn out to have unexpected consequences in the future?
What if I can never truly forgive my body for its betrayal?
What if my family resents the twins I’m carrying because of what we went through?
What if I really should have listened to the universe and kept focused on my career and not sought extraordinary means for motherhood?
What if I never experience happiness like I did before infertility?
What if I never get to be a mother, biologically or through adoption- how will I let go of all our dreams and find a new reason for living?
What if the sweet tiny baby clothes that I just packed away in a box yesterday never need to be reopened again?
What if I do everything right, and that still isn’t enough? (What if, in spite of jumping through the right hoops, in spite of the constant vigilance, what if that isn’t enough and at the end of all of this, I’m still crushed by infertility?)
What if, after years of unfulfilled hope, desire, longing I finally come to terms with being childless, finally find freedom, finally find the acceptance that has elluded me, finally find peace with my lot in life, who I am and what my life is all about, finally let go for good that false hope and expectation… I find myself accidentally, spontaneously pregnant in my mid-forties?
What if waiting until I graduate to freeze eggs means my AMH drops even lower?
What if I come back CMV negative and we have to chose a ~~0 donor all over again?
What if none of this treatment works?
What if I can’t live a child-free life happily?
What if we have nothing to show for it?
What If…My husband doesn’t support me and my journey through IVF. What if I’m left in the transfer room with my MIL because he is working? What if I am doing all of this for nothing. He put my back against the wall and said it’s either biological children or none. ‘None’ isn’t an option for me; I am not giving up my dream of motherhood because he can’t open up to adoption. What If I go through all of this and he leaves me on the side of the road with a crying newborn and no one to share the load and love. What If, I said NO to another round of IVF, Would that be the end of our marriage because I won’t go through another round of IVF and he won’t give up his dream of biological children.
What if, after all this seemingly perfectly timed sex that has yet to lead anywhere, I have to go through another four miscarriages before I experience another pregnancy that actually sticks?
What if my son really resents that he is adopted.
What if Significant Other never forgives me for losing our babies? What if I never forgive Significant Other for applying the brakes on treatment before I was ready?
What if I hadn’t ended up with the children I have?
What if the literal scars left over from my first battle against infertility cause me or my next baby to lose our lives?
What if I end up as the crazy dog lady?
What if the treatments we are doing now to create a second child have a result(quads! health issues!) that leave us unhappier than if we remained a family of 3?
What if my heart never heals from the pain of infertility and disrupted adoption?
What if I leave this job, with its amazing health insurance that covers everything IF-related, and my new job doesn’t have insurance with good IF coverage?
What if my heart can never reconcile with giving up ttc or never being a mother? What if Bikerman isn’t enough, like I hope he is and will be? What if I can never pull myself out of this black hole?
What if I never get pregnant? What if this is all a big waste of everything? What if I’m not strong enough to endure this long enough to have a child in the end?
What if I have to choose between infertility treatments and my job?
I had two misscarriages while I was employed at my previous employment. I missed two days for each, four months apart. I was fired after the second miscarriage because they did not want me to continue to try. I tried to sue through the equal employment opportunity coalition, but because of the economy, the were only taking racism cases. I will make this my life journey to get the word out that infertility is a medical issue and we should be allowed to do what we have to do have a child, and not be treaded differently because of it!
What if the precious boy I lost is the only child we ever have? Will we ever heal and stop feeling like the most precious things will be stolen from us when we least expect it?
What if in the process of all the waiting, delays, and possible problems I end up isolating myself from all my friends to protect myself from the pain of seeing them have baby after baby. I am scared I will end up with a beautiful baby and all my once close friends will have been pushed so far away (by me) and not want to return. Worse- what if I am unable to have a child, and I have no left other than my husband to turn to?
I am lost without my support system- thank GOODNESS for my bloggy friends. They are keeping me above water right now.
What if China closes their adoption program and the three and a half years we have been waiting is for nothing.
What if I finally get the baby I’ve been waiting for all these years…and then my husband leaves me, because I twisted his arm to move forward with the IVF cycle in the first place.
What if I’ve made it this far in the pregnancy and something goes wrong?
What if that third bedroom sits empty forever?
What if Katherine is an only child?
What if I spent my entire pregnancy worrying only to miss the experience and never get a second chance?
What if I feel like a failure for eternity?
What if we tried one more cycle?
(and not on a positive note. We have stopped. Did we stop too soon?)
What IF our son is an only child despite all of us praying for another child? Will he doubt God because he didn’t answer his nightly prayers for a little brother or sister? What if we can never get the funds together to help make his prayers and ours come true?
What if we decide to have one more child and it kills me?
What if my diminished ovarian reserve diminishes completely?
What if my husband leaves me for a fertile woman?
What if it never became ‘we’ in our IF struggle, would there still be us?
What if I say someday my hysterectomy was worth it?
What if my significant other needs to shield my eyes from babies/pregnancies/surrogacies on tv from now on?
What if I keep feeling like less than a woman?
What if everyone thinks I’m crazy for believing in some form, the children that I will never have are out there?
What if after all my heartbreak, I decide not to become a mother?
What if I finally announce to the world that I’m pregnant (thanks to IVF) & then something happens & I lose the baby? What if after all our struggles & finally the success of becoming pregnant for the first time I still don’t get to hold this child in my arms? And finally what if I’m blessed enough for things to actually go right & smooth for once and I do get to become a mother; how amazing will that be?
What IF after 7 years of prayer, God still says no to our dream of another child?
What IF I do get pregnant again and have another ectopic pregnancy? What IF it kills me this time?
What IF we decide to do IVF and my body can’t handle it? What IF we create embryos and they don’t survive? What IF they do survive and we have 10 children?
What IF we don’t do IVF and my DH resents me forever? What IF he stops loving me?
What IF we try to adopt and the biological mother changes her mind? What IF we adopt and our family treats the adopted child different than our biological child? What IF we adopt and the child wants to find his or her biological mother? What IF I don’t know how to “share”?
How will I react IF my sister has a 4th child? How will I react IF my brother has a 6th child?
What IF I can never bring myself to hold someone else’s baby again?
What IF I never get past this pain?
What if we are never able to consider an adoptive child “really” our own?
What IF I am never able to give my husband children?!
What if I could go back and change that day? Choose to give birth instead of having my son sucked out of me?
What if that was my only chance ever of holding my child in my arms?
What if I am spending all of this time wondering what if, only to find there is no happy ending?
What if there is no happy ending?
What if I chicken out of adoption?
What if I had never “met” all of you?
What if I’m lucky enough to have a daughter one day through gestational surrogacy and find out that she, too, was born with MRKH (congenital absence of the uterus. the cause of my IF)? How would I ever live with myself, knowing the pain that lays ahead for her?
What if I had married someone else years ago (the wrong man) when I was younger, would I have children by now?
What if I never get to experience a pregnancy, and never be able to have children that look like me or my husband?
What if God’s plan really is for us not to have biological children?
What if IVF actually works for us, but my husband’s parents may have issues with their grandchildren conceived via IVF due to religious beliefs?
What if I never get pregnant, and never stop feeling like a failure?
What if I had just given up on TTC a few years ago and pursued adoption, how many kids would we have by now, and how old would they be?
What if I do get pregnant, and then have to experience miscarriage?
This is a great idea and a great read, Mel. As I read through all the questions, I couldn’t help but think how so many of those were my own past questions and so many others could be my future…
Will I resent my husband if he wants to remain childless or will my husband resent me if we choose to adopt?
What IF we never move forward and try again? What if we can’t try some more because we choose to stay put rather than moving? What if we do stay put and I resent the decision and my husband? What if I lose my job, my house, and the rest of my world…will I still yearn to be a mother? What if I can’t decide what to do or how to proceed?
What IF I never get to experience pregnancy again?
What IF my daughter never has the sibling(s) that she so longs for?
What IF we just waited too long to get going and while we wait for hubbies sperm to start producing I loose my fertility.
What if….
I just had a hysterectomy to relieve the constant pain, and no one will allow us to adopt?
What if I was never meant to do this alone?
What IF they don’t really know the long term effects of IVF on my as yet unconceived babies-to-be, and they end up living shorter lives filled with illness and discomfort because of some incorrectly used fluid in the petri dish where life started out for them?
What if I can’t get a pregnancy past 5 weeks?
What if I never get to say “hello” until I’m saying goodbye?
or
What if I never get to tell Johnny “I’m pregnant” before I’m telling him “I”m miscarrying”? That’s the way it’s been going… I don’t find out I’m pregnant until I’m miscarrying.
What if I can never let go of the feelings of sadness and resentment that have accompanied me during my struggle with Infertility?
… reading all of these “what-if’s” made me cry – they are incredibly touching.
What if we aren’t meant to be parents?
What if I’m too scared to do this again?
Despite what the RE said, what if it really *was* my body’s fault for the 3 chemicals/early miscarriages and 1 negative cycle that I’ve had in the past two years? What if I’m never able to help another couple have a baby via gestational surrogacy?
What if I passed on my PCOS/subfertility to my girls?
What IF my marriage is ripped apart by this unending ache?
What IF my soul is ripped apart by thoughts of what could have been?
What IF we finally save the money we need, blow it on IVF, and fail?
My what-ifs are too scary for me to write down here and see in print. I just wanted to say I think this is a great project, and I’m grateful you’re involved as much as you are.
Can we have two or only one?
What IF my hair is completely grey by the time I finally have my babies and they get teased at school because their mommy is so old and they were conceived in a petri dish?
What IF the lab assistant has a bad day on the day he\she ICSI’s my eggs and ends up breaking one of them or something (is that even possible)?
I’m leaving it at 3!
What if I would never have waited to start trying for kids?
What if it were my BCPs that added to my fertility woes?
What if I never have my children?
What if it is the day after the day I decide to stop trying that God may decide to grant my wish?
What if I keep denting my finances for something that will never come true?
What if I am 60 and hobbling out of a room and people whisper behind my back about how I could not have children and poor her?
What if I become a mother and then suck in the coping skills?
What if I had to decide between motherhood and career?
What if I become too bitter, cynical and vitriolic with everybody I ever meet and all because of my inability to bear children?
What if my children had blossomed in November 2008?
What if I would still have the six embryos frozen somewhere for another try?
What if I would not have cared about being childless?
I’m not dealing with IF, though I have had one pregnancy loss. Obviously I do not wish my comment to be considered in the contest, since I’m outside the category. But, I had to say this…
What IF those of us who are blessed with babies the “natural” way read all of your stories and carry your heartache in our hearts so that when our boys act up and misbehave and we’d love to scream at them, instead we stop and remember that there are women out there who would long to have an annoying, misbehaving boy in her house right now.
What IF reading your stories makes me a better mommy to the boys I am so very, very blessed to have?
Thank you, all of you, for sharing. I have tears in my eyes reading all of your What IFs. I prayed for each and every one of you as I read your comments…..
What IF we do everything we can and we still don’t get to have a baby together?
What if, after all of the trying, we don’t have children and the toll that IF takes on us tears my marriage apart? What if, at the end of the road, I’m standing there all alone?
What if I could have done one thing different, and that would have made my pregnancies successful? What if I had lost one pound more, or taken those extra supplements, or bought that extra expensive ovulation tracker. What if that one bar of chocolate sent my PCOS crazy, and I didn’t ovulate on a cycle I would have conceived? What if that one chocolate bar during a pregnancy made my blood sugar go wild and I lost the baby because of that? What if I missed that one little thing, that could have changed my life forever?
What IF I had not experienced infertility, had not had a miscarriage, had pursued IVF instead of adoption, and had not gotten to be the mom of my precious (now 3 year old) daughter?
(one more, & one of the few big what ifs I have had over the years) What if, instead of staying silent when my family dr reassured me (at 35 & 36) “don’t worry, it will happen,” I had listened to my gut & pressed him for a referral to a fertility specialist for testing then? Would having that extra time to explore options have made a difference in the eventual outcome?
What IF infertility consumes my every thought again this time. I have a 14 month old IVF miracle who needs me. I can’t let it take over my life again, but I don’t know how to prevent that.
What if I lose myself along the way? I’ve lost so much during this roller coaster journey — what if I lose the true me somewhere along the road? What if I turn into someone I never wanted to be? What happens then?
What if my body fails me again. Is it worth trying again even though I could face immeasurable joy or pain, depending on the outcome?
What if we should have tried treatments before going straight to adoption, would we have had a biological child?
What if I’m never a mother? Will I be content with my life? What if my husband is never a father? What if my sister is never an aunt? What if God has something totally awesome in store for me that I can’t even fathom?
What if we aren’t able to raise or save the funds we need to adopt another child? Will our son never know the blessing of having a sibling? What if I have to give up on my “once-upon-a-time” dreams of having more than 1 child because we just can’t afford it, especially with the financial challenges of adoption and the challenges of surviving on one income so that I can be the constant–the loving, patient mother–my son desperately needs?
What if I regret this?
Melissa, this is a beautiful, amazing project. I stumbled onto this via RESOLVE’s website first actually, before being brought to this post. This is inspiring, and I’m tearing up here at work reading all of the other “What IFs?” before mine. I just wanted to leave a separate comment apart from my own What If suggestions to tell you how exciting this project is and how much I’m looking forward to being a part of this.
What if we will NEVER see a positive pregnancy test?
What if the doctor was missing something when treating me and if we did one thing differently, the IVF would have not been cancelled/worked? What if the doctors could really figure out why my estrogen doesn’t rise?
What if our adopted child hates us later in life and tells us we are not his “real parents”?
What if I can’t use the frozen embryo we have waiting for us this year becuase the law in Arizona is changed and that will become a criminal act. Will my RE do the procedure anyway and allow my dreams of becoming a mother to a living child ring true. What If I decide it is worth the risk?
I’m in a good place right now, so my what if’s will be coming from that goodness…
What if we DO become parents?
What if I redefine what it means to be woman, mother, family?
What if I let go of the doubt, the fear, the worries, the self-judgments just for one day? For one week? For the rest of my life?
What if I finally told all of my friends, families, coworkers, that I was having trouble trying to conceive?
What if I let myself lose control?
What if I became an advocate for infertility research and treatment?
What if I tell my future child all of the struggles that we’ve gone through just to meet him or her?
What if I lived in the moment rather than living in an uncertain future?
What if my story can help just one other person? What if it helps hundreds, thousands, millions?
What if my infertility has robbed me of my sexiness and I never am “in the mood” again?
My daughter is three today. We spent so many years wishing for her, and I feel so blessed… but as each year passes and we try to give her a sibling, I ache with the what if’s. What if each first that she has is my last first? What if I never get to see another 1st step, hear a 1st word, plan a 1st birthday party?
What if: Fertility treatment was a right – not a luxury. What if the reproductive medicine community restructured how they delivered infertility treatment making single embryo transfer an affordable reality making the legacy of multiple births a thing of the past.
What if I can’t ever become a mother? The thought of being childless is too much for me to handle!
What if I am unable to give my dad the biological grandchild he so desperately wants?
What if I am never able to create life with my greatest love? What if I am never able to look into OUR baby’s face and see US reflected back?
What if my dreams of being a mom of four are never realized?
What If acupuncture is our last hope? What if, after all the pain, heartache, and sacrifice we still don’t know the joy of seeing that first positive pregnancy test, of feeling our baby kick me from the inside, of holding him/her for the first time? What if we never get to see him/her play in her first little league game? What if DH’s family name dies with him? What if I never forgive myself for not being able to “make” it happen?
What if my children have to face IF? What if I can never find the right place with IF (do I belong with the mom’s or the IFers?) What if this rocking back and forth never settles?
What if I can never put aside my desire for motherhood?
What if the end of the road is here for me? Will I pick up a shovel and start building a new one or will I just stop?
What IF we had tried embryo donation instead of moving onto adoption? Would I have been able to get pregnant and carry a child to term?
What if I’m never able to stop comparing myself to others who seem to have an easier time?
What if we fight all the fights again to have another child, and it doesn’t happen. And our son sees the hurt in our eyes and wonders why he isn’t enough?
What if all this is futile and I am only fighting my God because it was not in His plan for me to be a mother?
What if I was only given two children? One of which I chose to abort at 18 and the much anticipated child I lost to miscarriage at 38?
What if we’ve passed our IF on to our ART baby?
What if…I cannot afford to do Donor Egg IVF in my country and have to go abroad and use anonymous egg donation?
What if…I get pregnant using anyonymous donor eggs and my child has a medical issue I cannot explain?
What if…Once my child finds out about his/her/their origins will they resent the fact that I used an anonymous donor and they cannot trace their origins?
What if… I were to tell you that I am leaving the USA and going to the Czech Republic to do anonymous egg donors at 1/4 of the price?
What if I am never content with what I have (3 beautiful children through adoption and IVF). What if I always am always sad about the children that could have been in our lives if infertility and finances did not get in the way.
What if I did something to cause IF?
What if this makes me a bitter, jealous person – forever?
What if I ever lose my health insurance and cannot afford to continue…..
What if my very loved and wanted, adopted daughter grows up feeling unloved and abandoned?
What if the only child you have in your life is the one your husband conceived during an affair?! Though I love that child as my own and that will never change but what if.
What if I can never give him what she gave him already?
What if one day he decides he wants a “real” family with the mother of his son?
What if I can’t ever get pregnant?
What if I never stop thinking about this and never get it?
What if I am obsessed with this forever?
What IF I am never able to stop being jealous of my best friend and her gorgeous baby?
What IF I never know the feeling of growing a miracle inside me?
What IF, no matter how hard I try, I am never ok with not having a child?
What IF I can’t forgive myself and my body for failing my husband and giving him what he wants so badly?
What IF I’d gone to a doctor years ago when I knew something was wrong?
What IF my heart didn’t break at what I don’t have and am scared that will never be mine?
What IF I could have gotten pregnant once upon a time, if only I hadn’t waited until I was 37 years old to start trying?
What IF the fact that we cannot conceive a child together ruins my marriage?
What if I had wanted a family before I was 35, would I have gotten pregnant?
What IF we never know why?
What if my ectopic pregnancy was my last golden egg?
What if I never become a Mom?
What if I can never overcome this bitter, empty feeling?
What if infertility leads to the end of my marriage?
What if I can’t have a baby because we don’t make enough money?
What if I always feel like I’m a failure?
What if I had never gone to a Resolve meeting to seek support from others like me and meet some great friends?
What if my area didn’t have a Resolve group?
What if family and friends think we are crazy to go through all of this to build our family?
What if after years of trying for a baby and using donor eggs to conceive, my baby wants to meet their “real” mother?
What if we had given up after IVF #6 (we thought about it) and the world had to go on without ever knowing these wonderful little girls we have now?
What IF I always feel like I’ve failed my husband?
What IF I always feel bitter that none of my RL friends understand my pain? What IF one (or more) of them finally do? How awful will I feel then?
What IF I am not meant to be a mother?
…tearing up reading through everyone’s entries – amazing project. Thank you.
What if I we cannot go on in treatments because we cannot afford it?
What if I had become pregnant? What if I had never known about the boy who is now my life? What if I never stop feeling like I have to be even better at being a mom than the next woman because of what we went through to have a family?
What if he DOES have sperm and we COULD have a biological child, but we just can’t afford it?
What if we spend the money on IVF only to have a miscarriage?
What if we did have a biological child – would our adopted sons feel less important to us?
What if this is our destiny and we really do just have to accept it?
What if I never become a mother but I do become bitter?
What if I have another ectopic, miscarriage, loss?
What if my husband resents me for not being able to give him children?
What if I misunderstood God when I believe I heard Him tell me we WOULD have a baby? What if I never get pregnant?
What if after all of these passing years, 4 IVFs, 2 pregnancy losses, 5 REs, dozens of tests for both my husband and myself, thousands of dollars spent, a river of tears, begging and pleading with the Universe and watching all of my friends IRL get pregnant and have families… I STILL am not able to experience motherhood… what then?
Now that I am finally pregnant after IVF, what if something goes wrong?
What if I can never stop blaming myself for my infertility?
What if this is really all I get?
What if my prayers are answered and I really do become a mommy?
I’m trying my very hardest (and it’s hard) to not look at the negative…the road to unconditional love is paved with positive whatifs!
What if the sperm donor has some sort of genetic disease that the bank never tested him for?
What if I can never afford to do another FET?
What if I become one of those suffocating with love Moms that fixate too much on their kid because it took so darn long to have him and I need to love him and hug him a million times a day because oh my goodness it sucked during those childless years?
“Everything happens for a reason.”
What IF I never know the reason?
What if my child ever asks if my husband is his or her real father?
What IF I’m always “just” the fun aunt?
A nice person to be and all, but I want to be Mama.
What if I had known where I would be almost three years later, would I have chosen a different path?
What if I can’t save all the money I need to get treatment? will I fall apart?
WHAT IF I REACH MY LIFETIME LIMIT ON MY INSURANCE POLICY AND NEVER END UP WITH A HEALTHY PREGNANCY/LIVE BIRTH?
What if we find IVF so difficult that eventually my husband reaches the point where he can’t continue, but I cannot bear to let go. Will I be forced to choose between my husband and a baby? I can’t live without either.
What if my life isn’t worth living without a child?
What if this person I’ve become; this bitter, jealous, depressed, angry person IF has made me; is who I really am? I don’t deserve children if it’s true.
What IF in my efforts to be a mother, I end up with RAD suffering kid? What IF I can’t cope?
What IF I am never able to counter the thought “I had to buy a baby?” What IF that doesn’t make me a real mother, in my eyes, or in anyone else’s?
What IF all those people on http://www.adultadoptees.org/forum and poundpuplegacy.org are right?
What IF we prevent Infertility would we limit the amount of physical and emotional suffering that women go through on a daily basis?
What if my daughter asks about the children that I lost and why we did not have anymore children?
What IF we waited too long to go a specialists?
What IF we never have the money for IVF?
What IF we can’t adopt?
What if my son resents us for choosing donor insemination? What if he wants to learn more about his donor and can’t because the donor we chose was anonymous? What if we can’t ever get in agreement about telling our son about DI and he finds out on his own?
What if I put my own health at risk because of the three years I was on fertility treatments before we brought home O?
(This? Is an amazing project, Mel. As always I am in awe of you.)
What if I am not able to have children, because my genetics are not worth passing on?
What if this isn’t random chance/bad luck? What if God/the universe/karma/what-have-you is just messing with me?
What if we never have the strength to finish painting our nursery, or if we can’t look out at the backyard because of the lonely playscape that taunts us?
What if this broken heart never heals?
What if my wife and I want to have children but I was injured in Afganistan. What if we mourn each day that our dreams were blowin away in a single blast. What if insurance will not cover the cost of my infertility while serving our country?
What if my child one day hates me for the choice I made to use an egg donor?
What if I can never make my husband a father?
What IF I spend my childrens’ hard earned childhood miscarrying their sibblings?
What IF I had never been brave enough to face using donor eggs? What IF I had never had a friend like FairyEggs who loved me enough to give me her eggs?
What if we had continued with infertility treatment after the discovery of my unicornuate uterus?
What if we had tried to do a domestic infant adoption instead of adopting internationally?
What if we adopt a second time and it doesn’t go as well as it has with our first?
What if we didn’t have fertility problems and had the two kids on the schedule I privately imagined when we first started trying?
I feel like such a fraud for even posting here, since I am not dealing with IF. I “only” lost one pregnancy… The only good thing that came out of it was my finding the ALI community. My life is richer now that I know all of you.
These are my ‘what if’s.
What if something goes wrong with my current pregnancy and I end up empty handed again? This is sending chills down my spine. I try hard not to think about the answer to this one. Because you don’t know which side of the statistic you are until something happens to place you somewhere. And I pray that what is to happen puts me on the bright side.
What if some of my friends (on- and offline) end up without the children they so much desire? How can I help them effectively, when I can understand so well their yearning and their devastation should this become true? And I have absolutely no idea what I could say or do for them without being fake or lying?
What if my child inherits one of the family mental illnesses or the alcoholism?
What if, despite my great desire have children and be a wonderful parent, I end up being a worthless one?
You can see how positive I think, since I have not included myself in the ‘what is some of my friends end up childless’ question. This is not because I think of myself as already a parent, but because I know what we would do, should this be the outcome for my husband and me, we have already talked about this. But sadly what the solution is for us is not valid for other couples or single friends. This is why I am not included in that question. I just wanted to clear this one up, because otherwise I come off a bit snobbish, and I surely am not, not in this respect, at least.
What if I am able to get pregnant with a sticky bean? How are we to deal with the 7 years of infertility treatments and recurrent loss enough to enjoy the experience? What if we are too scared to be happy? Is this one more thing infertility will rob me of? What if infertility stole our Happily Ever After?
What if my sisters have babies before me?
What if I have to learn to live childfree with a smile….forever?
What if I can’t get up the guts to tell our friends about our struggle?
What if the cradle we built is never filled?
What if… one of our twin boy’s disabilities were caused by the fact that he’s a twin, or that we did IVF? What if he would have been a singleton, would he have been “unaffected?”
What IF my embryos that were transferred during my IVF don’t stick? That means that we will not have the option to be parents. What IF our one miscarried baby was the only chance that we had? What IF we have gone through loss, infertility, and in-vitro for nothing? If this is the case then I hope that we learned something from it and will be better people for it on some level.
What if my husband refuses to go through treatments again to give our daughter a sibling? What if I resent him forever because of that?
What if I outlive my husband and die alone?
What if this sadness continues to touch everyday of my life?
What if my dog is the only “child” I ever have?
What if they find out that fertility drugs cause cancer?
What IF my son is our only child? Will I always feel resentment toward my siblings for being able to conceive without a problem (not having any infertility issues) and have more than one child? And futhermore will my heart always break when they say “Oh you’ll have another… just be patient it’s in God’s hands,” while they’re popping out another sibling to add to their brood because they’ve never taken the time to listen to my struggle, know what’s involved, and try to understand it?
What IF the only kids I will ever get to ‘mother’ are my stepchildren, who already have a mother?
What IF IVF works for us – how will I shift from the task of getting pregnant to actually preparing to HAVE A CHILD?
What IF I never have a child, my husband dies, the stepchildren are attending to their own mother, and I’m left all alone?
What if one or more of our pregnancy losses (two miscarriages and an interstitial ectopic pregnancy) had been healthy “normal” embryos (or implanted in the “right” place)? How would our family be different? How would I be different? Would I have ever found out that if I eat better and exercise regularly that I could become as healthy and fit as I have over the past five years? Would I have become as sensative and compassionate with others who have experienced losses and/or tragic life experiences as I feel that I have grown to be?
What if we had never done any A.R.T. cycles? Would we still have been able to to conceive again on our own?
What if we decide to try again with one or more of our remaining frozen embryos instead of donating them for stem cell research? If we do and any of them actually implant and develop, will they have severe and rare congenital heart defects, like Molly did?
What if after all these years trying to build/expand our family we really are “done?” What if we actually get to make that decision, instead of being told by a medical professional that we “shouldn’t” have more children or that they don’t think it is a good idea?
What if I don’t believe everything happens for a reason anymore, but I am able to see the many wonderful things that have come from the roller coaster ride we have been on dealing with secondary infertility, pregnancy loss and neonatal death?
What if I am able to live in the moment more going forward in my life? Will it help me to be happier then when I focus too much on the past or the future?
What if Mel never started Stirrup Queens? I don’t want to know the answer to that one and am glad none of us will ever have to wonder about that one. Thanks Mel! Another fabulous idea!
What if the only babies I ever get to carry are my angel babies? What if I will eternally be known as “Auntie” and never “Mommy”? Thank you Mel for starting this, you are an amazing person and this is such an amazing thing you are doing for all of us IFers out there
You are an angel in your own right.
I was intially very excited by this, but the more I read, the harder I cried.
I’m still excited, but feeling a little somber. Thank you so much for every ounce of effort you’ve put into awareness. I am so proud of this community.
What if I can’t have another? Will I ever be able to let go and enjoy the gift I have been given?
What if the dark cloud of depression that descended upon me during my infertility and miscarriages never fully lifts?
What if my children are stricken with the same fertility issues that my sister and I suffered? I could survive a full-body slide over broken glass followed by a bath in rubbing alcohol every day before I could stand the pain of watching them endure what we did.
What if the self-loathing and body image problems that plague me due to years of infertility affect Megan’s outlook? Will she automatically think she is fat, defective, broken?
What if Liam marries a woman who is infertile and he isn’t supportive of her?
What if I had never found the ALI community and my TOOTPU buddies? [shudder]
What if my husband never changes his mind about adopting?
What if my daughter is resentful that she never had any siblings?
What if I never get over the sadness?
What if my son hates me for being donor conceived and rejects me?
What if after losing my husband to cancer I am so saddened by the fact that my son is not biologically my husbands?
What if my son can not cope with the fact that he doesn’t have a father biological and/or non-biological after my husband passes?
What IF I spend all of this effort trying and praying to be a mother; then when I finally am one, I’m a terrible one…
What if I had lost my son after going into sudden early labor?
What if I can never have another child (we have been trying for more than two years now)?
What if my relationship with my sister who is CHOOSING not to have children becomes strained because I cannot understand her choice?
What if I can never get my body to work the way it should?
What if I’m successful in my fertility treatments and my child has fertility problems of their own? I would feel guilty for the rest of my life knowing that their troubles of conceiving were because of my genetics
What if I never see that plus sign? What if this is it, waiting and hoping for the rest of my life?
What IF somewhere along this journey, I completely lose the real me? What IF the medications, failed attempts, depression, and bitterness erase the person I used to be? What IF I am never my old, joyful self again?
What if nobody criticized you for choosing fertility medications to conceive and instead was supportive all along?
What if the only children I ever have are just 8 cells?
What if I never get to do all the things I’ve put on hold in my life for “once I get pregnant…”?
What if I never get to turn that “spare room” into a nursery, like we’ve been planning since the moment we bought the house? Won’t that room always be haunted by what might have been?
What if Christmas morning is always just me and my husband?
What if I never get to read my children “Charlotte’s Web”, “The House on Pooh Corner”, or “The Wind in the Willows”?
What if I never get to teach a child about wild honeysuckle in the summer, or go apple picking in the fall?
What if I have to explain to our parents that they’ll never be grandparents? What on earth do I say?
What IF my family rejects me because I have adopted children?
What IF I don’t believe that I am really going to get to keep them until it’s too late.
What If… our boys resent us for the way they were conceived.
What if I fail in my promise to my lost babies: That they will not die in vain and that I will use their deaths to help others? I made this vow and yet look at all of these people in these comments above and below who are still suffering and that I haven’t been able to help. Reaching out to others, being a spokesperson for infertility and pregnancy loss, fostering legislative and social change in fertility, that is my tribute to the children that I have lost. What if I don’t live up to the job, to their legacy?
What if my daughter grows to resent us because of all the time an energy that we have spent on the hope of concieving again? What if she comes to believe that we have done it because she “isn’t good enough”?
What if we come to resent ourselves for all the wasted emotional energy that has been spent on infertility, when we could have redirected that energy toward our daughter?
What if infertility has made us terrible parents because it has managed to steal a considerable portion of our attention?
What if we never have another child and LJ is burdened with making hard decisions on her own when we are in our twilight years. Will she be able to handle making decisions for us if we are unable to do so for ourselves?
What if our angel daughter was our only chance to experience pregnancy and have a child?
What if I can never trust my body and instincts again?
What if all these hormones have a negative impact on my future health?
What if I am never completely happy because I am not a mother?
What IF 12 years ago was my one and only chance? What IF my DH doesn’t forgive me?
What IF we use our last $30,000 for “one more try” and it doesn’t work?
What if we can’t afford to adopt a sibling? What if we never get chosen by an expectant mother when/if we do try to adopt again?
We’ve already been waiting 20 months. What if an expectant mother never chooses us to be parents?
What if I were able to finally help women extend their fertility in a very simple, affordable way with almost perfect results? What if egg freezing were the way to do it? What if that would be part of the answer?
What if my dogs are the only kids I get to have?? What if we keep spending all this money on IVF and they really haven’t figured out how to get me past 8 weeks and I have my 6th miscarriage??
what if I never know the joy of life growing inside me?
what if, what if, what if, there are too many too list
What if I get a hysterectomy and I end up wishing I could take it back?
What if I can’t support my friend enough through her infertility journey and protect her from the hurt and pain of it all?
What if she has to endure the many cycles like myself and gives into it before she has her own child?
What if I fought harder to keep my uterus?
What if the clinic froze my 20 eggs instead of proceding after my DH had high fevers with the swine flu that obliterated his swimmers.
What if we try and try and try and are never successful?
What if I had started trying to build my family at a younger age, rather than focusing on my career? Would I have been able to have a successful pregnancy if I were younger?
What if the last 2 years of trying, miscarrying, and having to deal with an ectopcic could have been avoided if my doctors had not misinterpreted and misinformed me about my first hysterosalpingogram films, and had just proceeded with a tubal surgery before putting me through the last two years of hell as if I were their lab rat to experiment on?
What IF, one day, this will truly be behind us, ALL of us?
(Sorry, I detoured from my biggest fear to my biggest dream!)
What if we didn’t keep trying?
What if insurance companies were required by law in all states to cover infertility treatments so that the expense of IVF did not determine our family-building options?
What if I can’t afford private adoption? Does that mean I can never raise a healthy child from birth?
What if I never stop hurting over the fact that I love and take care of children for a living but cannot have any of my own??
What is this IUI doesn’t work? What if they next one doesn’t work either…or the one after that? What if my body stops responding to Clomid? What if we can never afford the next step (IVF)? What if my husband never comes around to the idea of adoption? What if the years continue to go by (as they have in the past) where everything is growing (my age, my waist, the number of gray hairs), except my baby? What if I am never able to give my husband the child he longs for? What if I am never myself again?
What if I made some wrong choices before and it’s too late now?
What if we had given up right before the cycle when we had Annabelle and decided to adopt? Would I love that baby as much as I do Annabelle?
What if I can’t get pregnant again and we decide to adopt? Will I love that baby as much as I love Annabelle?
What if I can never experience the “supposedly” EASIEST and most NATURAL experience of all times: To conceive and have a sweet and wonderful baby and to be a mommy.
What IF people stop asking me if I’m pregnant yet…does that mean they have given up hope as I have?
What if I never get to hold that child in my arms that is half me and half the man that I love?
What if something bad happens to my child?
Bea
What IF sharing my struggle with unexplained secondary infertility helps even one other person to not feel so alone.
What if, after years of struggling with the roller coaster of infertility and FINALLY accepting the decision to live child-free, I get pregnant?
What if I had never experienced infertility and pregnancy loss? Would I be as passionate about the joys of motherhood as I am today?
One more I continually ask to this day:
What if I don’t know when enough is enough?
What if we run out of money for IVF, without success?
What if I never feel ready for adoption?
What if I actually do end up with a child, but then feel like I made the wrong decision?
What if I am not meant to be a mother?
What IF I was pregnant when I got a little tipsy at a wedding for the first time in 27 months of TTC and destroyed my child’s future?
What IF it’s true that I’m too uptight and my personality is destroying my chances of conceiving? Drug addicts conceive, so does that make my perfectionism worse than drug addiction, am I such a pain in the butt that I’m less worthy of motherhood than even women who might choose to throw their babies in rubbish dumps?
What if the universe really does have other plans for me, but I conceive a child artificially, will the baby somehow be taken from me through illness or an accident?
What if my husband really doesn’t care one way or another and is happy to be childfree after two IVF attempts, will our marriage survive?
What if my struggles with my female identity negatively impact my daughter?
What if I am never able to be as joyful and content with my life, as I was before infertility and pregnancy loss?
What if I take a 2nd mortgage out on my home and IVF still doesn’t work? What then?
What if I never get the opportunity to experience the joy and pain of giving birth and seeing his or her face for the first time?
What if I never get the chance to see my husband’s reaction to seeing our child for the first time?
What if I didn’t live in a time and place where ART was an option?
What if no other woman had ever undergone one of the pioneering cycles that led to the medical breakthroughs that I was more easily able to take advantage of?
What if I never knew one other woman who’d ever undergone an IVF cycle (even if I never dreamed I’d have to?
What if I was never able to stand on the shoulders of every other woman, struggling with IF, who dared to do something in the name of science and in pursuit of her dream to be a mother and have a family so that I could pursue my own?
What if this pregnancy doesn’t take?
What if I am a bad parent after all we tried to become one? What if I am judged more by others because we wanted it so bad?
What if I have to do treatments again–what if I don’t want to?
What if I can’t conceive a sibling for my son, what if it’s harder the second time around? What if I don’t have the strength to do it again?
What if my son asks how he came about, can I tell him the truth, and what will it mean for him? What if he thinks he isn’t as special because he was conceived with a syringe?
What if everything works out OK?
What if I will never be a mama?
What if I have to watch my friends and family raise their children, but never have any of my own?
What if we never get to put carseats in the new car we bought, specifically because its a good car for children.
What if, at 40 weeks and 4 days, ANOTHER precious, perfectly healthy, took 10 years to conceive, baby dies in childbirth of a rare, ‘fluke’ condition???
What of my heart can’t take that?
What if I never realizr my dream of becoming a mother?
What if after years of unsuccessful IUIs and IVFs, we pursue adoption but my desire for biological children never goes away? Will I love my adopted children any less? Will they feel less loved?
What if the hard fought for little miscarried baby buried in my garden is the closest I get to motherhood?
What if my sadness never ends?
What if this next IVF doesn’t work?
What if we run out of money to keep working towards our parenting goals?
What if we never get the money to do any more treatments and I can’t become a mommy?
What if the only child I ever get to mother is my step-daughter? What if she thinks I’m trying to replace her actual mother? What if I never hold a baby in my arms that will call me mama? What if after everything, I’m never able to give my husband a child?
What if the daughter that we fought so long and hard to have hates us for being conceived via an [unknown] sperm donor?
I want to apologize…to all women out there who are trying so hard to conceive…I want apologize for all the times I complained how my back hurt when I was pregnant or how I wish the kids would be quiet…I’m sitting here with tears streaming as I think…WHAT IF I never had my children I don’t know what I would do…so for that I am sorry that I have not been more aware of your pain and for that I thank you for opening my eyes to what I used to see as irritations and now I see as a beautiful gift and blessing. Thank you for making me a better mother.
What if despite what my heart tells me, my FIL was right and I should maybe just accept that I’m not meant to be a mother after all these years?
What if my body fails me yet again on our 6th attempt?
Even though I am the head of a an organization and a mom via egg donation I too have my own worries –
First of all I am so grateful for my son who I had in 2000.
But:
“What if my longing and deep desire for another child never ever goes away?
It’s breaking my heart in tiny pieces even as I type out these words. I am done having children — (not by my choice) and it was quite devastating to hear those words.
What if we don’t ever get the chance to be pregnants? And as much as we want it and strive to achieve this, it just doesn’t happen? What if we never have children? What if there is really something medically wrong with our bodies that they just haven’t tested for and we’ll never know what it is? What if we never get the chance to love our own child the way we’d like to? What if we run out of time?
What if its all a dream?
What if the dream is real?
What if I don’t have to wake up this time and pinch myself?
What if this fall the dream finally becomes our lives?
what if i can never stop crying???
What if I don’t get another chance to be a mom again?
What if I don’t have a child that shares my new last name?
What if we don’t have a child that is “ours”?
What if I get pregnant and it puts too much stress on my body again?
What if these meds don’t work?
What if we can’t afford to pay for the “next step”?
What if my husband changes his mind and wants to stop trying?
What if my family doesn’t approve?
What if my youngest brother thinks I am trying to “steal his thunder”?
What if my kids don’t adjust to the new sibling?
What if … I’ve run out of what ifs? What if I have no more options?
What if this IVF DE cycle does not work… this is our last chance (financially)… what if I have to live with this pain and sadness forever?
What if I want to stop treatments but my husband doesn’t, and it’s my body that is failing us?
What if we never have children and I’m never able to let go of the infertile me (the angry, anxious, desperately hurting me), and it destroys our marriage?
What if all these drugs I’m pouring into my body give me cancer?
What if I do become a mother, and I feel it wasn’t worth it?
What if after 5+ years of TTC, several IUIs, 3 IVFs, and 4 miscarriages, being broken and broke, my husband decides he is done with trying and because I cannot live with that without resenting him for the rest of my life, I leave him?
What if not having been able to have children ends up being the biggest regret of my life?
What if all the following Mother’s Days of my life are as empty and painful as those of the prior 5 years?
What if I make the decision to stop all this madness and I never forgive myself for not trying harder?
What if I don’t know how to stop, that this is so much a part of me now that I don’t know what it is that really drives me anymore? What if I can never make peace with it if I decide to use a surrogate?
What if I never heal from this hell I feel inside and never have a baby?
What IF all my worst fears do actually come true?
What if my husband and I never become parents? What if all the IVF medications cause health problems for me in the future?
what if we wouldn’t have used birth control the first 3 years of our marriage?
what if I keep getting more bitter and isolate myself even more from my friends with babies?
what if my husband wants to give up and wishes he had married someone who could give him babies?
What if because I had a baby at 15 yrs old and I have since had multiple miscarriages . One I lost at 6moths into the pregnancy. I have been told I have “secondary empty sella”. I am now 36 yrs old and I have been trying to get pregnant for many years. I have no other children, but my one son. He is now 20 yrs old. What if I can never have a child now that I am mature enough to handle the experience. What if I can not afford adoption? I am a good Mom and I want to be able to enjoy motherhood, as an adult.
What if everyone (parents, significant other, other family members) is okay with my hysterectomy but me?
What if one day I stop seeing the world thru infertility-colored glasses?
What if I can see a parent and their child playing catch together and smile and not cry?
What IF I am never able to experience that again?
That being the ability to experience pregnancy and mother hood again, not knowing then what I know now…. that it is a true blessing and a gift not to be taken for granted.
(secondary infertility)
What if I have more babies, but never bring them home?
What if I have totally lost myself to infertility?
This struggle has started to define me and I think I have lost sight of who I am if I am not trying to get pregnant and start a family. Who am I if one day I find peace with a childless life? What if not? Who would that make me?
What if…..
*What if my dead ovaries, empty of eggs/follicles, continue to wreak havoc on my hormonal/physical/mental condition?
*What if my empty womb remains hollow?
*What if our house remains childless, empty of children’s laughter?
*What if my arms remain empty?
*What if all the toys, books, family heirlooms, etc. have no one to be passed down to?
*What if my bank account continues to be too small to afford the high costs of adoption?
*What if my husband leaves me/dies, and I am left all alone?
*What if there is no one to recite the Kaddish for me when I am gone?
*What if I continue to have no identity – who am I? Not a mother…
*What if I can’t pull myself up and out of this dark pool of depression and sadness that is slowly drowning me?
*Why did G-d/fate/whatever decide to play such a cruel game of irony with me, a Child Development Specialist, former teacher, background in special education, professional history of working with children, yet I can’t have my own?
*What if I can no longer go back to my profession, since working with children is so painful now that I can’t do it? What do I do now?
*What if I finally come to terms with what fate has given me, and embrace being child free – what if I feel guilty if I enjoy it?
What if…
What if I loose the friends I made along the way and the wonderful community I have engaged in online because I got pregnant and delivered twins from my first known DE cycle. What if they think I haven’t suffered enough when I have? What if I make them sad. (It would break my heart.)
And, in direct opposition to my earlier comment (#21) above, what if I should just be unceasingly grateful that I’ve experienced exactly one singleton pregnancy leading to exactly one apparently (knock on wood) healthy child? Because while I have hoped for another pregnancy and another child, there are many other outcomes that could have occurred that I’m grateful not to have experienced.
What if I never have the title mom? What if they never find a cure for Endometriosis? What if I never get the money saved up for IVF or adoption?
What if my daughter (conceived via donor egg) gets the opportunity to meet her half siblings?
What if my daughter finds out how hard I tried to have a genetic child without also finding out how so very GRATEFUL I am that those cycles DIDN’T work because, if any of them had, I wouldn’t have her?
What if I never get the chance to say “I sound just like my mother!”
What if I can never have our own biological children?
What if the closest “life” my husband and I made together are early blasts and morulas?
What if I can never make our parents happy by having a grandchild?
What IF I never get to see his eyes and my mouth married together on the face of our child?
What IF my body fails again?
What if every person suffering from infertility could help one person who has not fought this disease to understand their experience, fears, angst, sorrow and struggle?
What if we are unable to have children and thus unable to carry on my husband’s last name? (He’s the last one with his last name…his father is the only male and my husband is an only child.)
What IF after saving for 2 1/2 years our IVF cycle fails this month? What IF it starts to take a toll on our marriage?
What IF I fail?
Despite the 110% effort, 110% desire, 110% sacrifice, sucess is never mine…
What IF i love my daughter too much because it was so hard to make her?
What IF… I had gotten pregnant easily. Would I have a different struggle to help me appreciate the present moment as this journey has? Or would I still be the same, anxious, control-freak that I was before we began trying to build our family. I like who I am now, even though I’m not a mom, YET!
What if those who are or who have suffered the pain of IF never spoke of it?
What if the stress we continually put ourselves under emotionally causes delays in conceiving? How can that really be avoided? I’ve tried my best to figure this out but fail daily.
What if I had to have the partial hysterectomy because my endo would indeed come back, knowing that suffering from endo would make me a bad mother?
What if by taking my therapist’s advice that “Mothering is just a state of mind,” I drive my brothers, parents, and friends crazy by mothering them instead of the kids I may never have?
What if I don’t express my love enough to the one child I am lucky to have?
What if my body is a only place of death and emptiness now?
What IF this is it? What IF I can’t ever reconcile myself to this reality?
What IF at the end of the rainbow there’s actually nothing?
What IF my sister was right and I am not meant to do this?
What IF I had found a doctor to listen to me?
What IF my mother had listened to me?
What IF I can never look at myself in the mirror again?
What IF this is really all there is to my life?
What IF we are somehow able to bring a child into our lives, but unable to find a treatment/cure for my debilitating health issues?
What IF despite the deepest desires of my heart, this makes me an inadequate/bad mother?
What IF I never know the joy of helping my husband, who has lost his family, become the incredible father I know he will be?
What if I never get over having my own genetic child?
What if I never become a mother?
What if I die without ever having kids or grandkids?
What if I never come to terms with IF?
What IF…after all the meds, tests, tears, I’m never able to make my husband a father?
What IF…my husband resents me for my inability to conceive?
What IF…the Clomid doesn’t work?
What IF…I’m never happy, and IF takes over my whole being?
What if I can never be around a pregnant woman and feel comfortable because it reminds me of how much I have lost and how inadequate I now feel?
What if when we try again – we again have multiple losses… how far am I willing to go for a second child?
I’m pregnant now, and we hope we’ll be bringing home a live baby in just a few weeks…but the infertile shadow still remains. What if it is always there? What if I am always jealous of women who get pregnant easily, who get to plan their pregnancies–time them even! What if we only ever have one baby and feel incomplete without a sibling?
What if I regret stepping away from treatment, and at that point it will be too late to do anything about it?
What if my future child(ren) wishes we had not adopted him/her/them?
What if we had followed through on all possible fertility treatments including IVF?
What if there is a part of me that can never forgive–and continually loathe– the woman who gave life to my son?
What if my husband secretly, or unconsiously, hates me for not being able to give him a child?
What if my daughters, who came to me via donor egg IVF and whom I love with all my heart, reject me as their mother when they understand the facts of their conception?
What if … infertility only happened to those not needing/ wanting children?
What if … I’ve waited too long to make it happen?
What IF I can’t get over the anger I feel and move on to a better place regardless of the outcome?
What IF we do all of this to have a baby and then I regret having children?
What if I am passing the same infertility legacy to my unborn daughter that I inherited from my mother? What if it’s worse for her than it was for mom and me?
What if this is just the beginning of my body’s betrayal? What if this means that there are some lifelong potential problems that this is just a symptom of?
What IF I am never able to experience the thrills, pains, bumps, and stretches of pregnancy? What IF leaves a hole so large in my heart, my soul, that I am never able to be the best MOM I can be to an adopted child? What IF this journey of infertility forever changes who I am — wait it already has! What IF life goes on, and I become a great mother instead of my body’s resistance to becoming impregnated. Then I will be complete in a new shape that may yet to be created!
Oops – typo queen – “What IF THIS leaves a hole…”
What if I can’t get pregnant again?
What if my sons cardiological and urological issues are found to be a direct result of the fertility meds from IVF?
What if my son or husband resent me for not wanting to risk a second pregnancy?
What if my husband never gets over being a DI dad? What if he always resents me for asking? What if we choose to never to tell our perfect little almost 2 year old sweetie? What if we don’t give her any siblings? What if we get divorced, what happens then? Could he abandon her, or us? What if she knows before we tell her, can she sense it? What if I want her to know, but I feel like it’s not my secret to tell…to anyone. What if he thanks me years from now? I helped us make our family. I took the shots, paid the bills, found the doctors, and never told a soul. What if he was one day grateful instead of resenting. What if I’ve never felt so all alone with all of this? I try not to think about it, remember, focus. Life is good, she is perfect, we love our family. What about siblings? What if wanting more seems selfish now. Haven’t I already been selfish by pushing this agenda from the start? What if everything was fine.
what if i never ever get two lines when i pee on a stick.
Just before my egg collection, I went to my great-uncle’s funeral. Him and my aunt never had any kids, although they wanted to. However, they were completely devoted to each other for over 50 years. Before the service she got up and touched his coffin to say goodbye; during the service the minister mentioned something about them not having children and I saw her shoulders shake a couple of times with sobs; it was one of the few parts of the service that she was openly crying (and yeah, I could have happily smacked the minister in the mouth for making a point of mentioning their infertility… did he think no-one had noticed and he needed to spell it out?)
My what if is what if that happens to me? What if my miscarriage and ep are the only times I’m pregnant? Would my husband still stay with me? After he died, would I have anything to go on for?
What if I had never experienced infertility and never became a more sensitive and strong woman because of it? What if I started to think about all the positive things my life has become because of infertility and not always focus on the negatives? What if I never took that fantastic vacation or changed my career path because I had been pregnant two years ago? What if I had been pregnant when I wanted to be and never got the gift of a child I was meant to have? From if to when and from infertility, comes strength.
WHAT IF I decide that I can’t adopt again…that I can’t wait and wait and wait, and give my heart and soul to another first family like we have done with Tulip’s family? WHAT IF I can’t commit to another fully open adoption because the one we have has both taken so much and given so much? WHAT IF I can’t do any other kind of adoption because we already have a fully open adoption, & it just feels so unfair to the child to have any other kind of relationship? WHAT IF my heart no longer desires 2 or 3 or 4 children because my Tulip has filled me with love beyond compare and I don’t know if I want to share my heart with anyone else? WHAT IF growing our family is finished?
What if I dispose of our remaining embryos only to be overwhelmed by regret?
What if after nearly 10 years of trying to get pregnant, being pregnant, and raising young children I can’t get out of the ttc/baby groove and back into real life?
What if I never lose this feeling that there is one more child out there for me?
What IF I keep putting off my life, and it’s all for nothing?
What IF I really am IF and it’s just a matter of time before I “earn” the title?
What if my third IVF doesn’t work? What if it does and I loose another baby…
What if I’m never happy again? What if I lose my husband, too?
What if we exhaust all of our TTC finances and I still never get to experience motherhood?
What if we have this baby and I’m a horrible mother and regret ever having a baby?
what if my one chance at IVF doesn’t work??
What if I ruin my marriage with my efforts to create a family?
What if we waited too long to start trying (even if we only waited till I was 26)? What if my body is really shutting down and I am starting menopause at 30?
What IF my adoptive child shuns me when he’s older?
What IF my POF leads to other health issues?
What IF I can’t get past the harsh and inconsiderate words of all of the mothers who gave birth?
What if this pain never ends?
What if I can never give my husband the children he dreams of? Will I always be enough for him?
What if the pregnancy I lost is the only one we ever manage?
What if I do get pregnant again, but can’t enjoy it because I’m so scared of losing another one?
What if I never stop thinking of myself as defective?
What if we stopped using birth control 15 years ago when we first found each other, rather than waiting till now?
So, late again. I do a lot of the what if at times.
My latest is not just what if parenting never happens but what if it does and will I be good enough.
What if we hadn’t lost our daughter in the summer of 2004? Would we still have had Gabe or would our family be completely different?
What if God didn’t keep the promise I thought He gave me in Psalm 113:9?
What if I’m too fat to become pregnant at all?
I have the answer: We will all survive. It will be able to move on and be happy. You just have to allow yourself to do so.
This is why I’m not gonna give a “What If”
What if…I don’t come out of this experience happier and better of?
What if…I finally have a chid and my child hates me? or I am not the mom I always wanted to be?
What if…I can make a difference?
What if…I can find happiness, joy, and peace in the midst of the pain of infertility?
What if…people would never utter the phrase “God must not mean for you to have children” ever again?
What if I hadn’t had a wonderfully supportive spouse who was willing to go to end of the earth (and the end of the bank account) to acheive our dream? Children weren’t a priority for him, but he knew how much it meant to me.
What if I had stayed with the infertility specialist who ignored my PCOS symptoms and listened to him when he told me I only needed to lose 40 pounds and go on clomid? What if my new doctor hadn’t finally diagnosed me properly? How many babies could I have lost?
What if I can never stop feeling like a victim of infertility? What if I always worry that people are judging me for wanting more kids? What if I can’t handle more kids?
What if some new “emergency” keeps coming up, and our emotions & finances are too drained to afford the IUF treatments that we need to have for our babies to become a reality?
What if your soulmate can’t birth your children?
What if I would have given up?
What if I have to bury another perfect baby whose only thing wrong with them was being born too soon.
What if I never get over the sadness of depriving my amazing husband from becoming a father?
What IF the pain and torment of each passing month never goes away?
What IF I’m meant not to have a child?
What IF I can’t find an RE who is willing to treat me with my multiple IVF failures?
What if the pregnancy I aborted at 18 was my one chance to be a mom.
What IF I had not given into the fear or losing my uterus to have surgery to remove my fibroids? What IF I had started TTC earlier?
What IF I let myself acknowledge my true feelings about our infertility? Will I ever be able to close the door on the grief that pours out?
What if my children experience IF like we did? What if I’m never a grandmother? I don’t want them to ever experience the hurt and losses we did.
What IF I didn’t miscarry the three times I did? I would be sitting here 13 weeks pregnant with a 9 month old and a 3 year old… How would I/We be different?
What if I let myself believe that a pregnancy is possible and I let positive thinking lead me, instead of putting up walls and isolating myself?
what IF i am not on the right path?
What if my mother in law asked me about the progress of my career path and my other passions outside of family, instead of just always asking “when am i going to get good news”?
What if I stopped dodging questions about why we don’t have children…and was just honest and up front with people?
What IF I punch the next person that says, ‘well now that you have adopted a baby, you will finally get pregnant and have one of your own.’
What IF I work too hard at my schooling/career to help me through the pain of infertility and then when our baby does come I feel inconvenienced?
What if I only mother other peoples children who constantly remind me that I’m not mom.
What if I become so resentful that I choose to no longer do foster care and children are placed in homes without enough love and support?
What if the children I have loved are placed in abusive situations when I could have saved them? What if I can’t save them?
What if following my gut leads me to a childless place?
What if I was in charge of my life again?
what IF I hate my body, no matter how thin or beautiful I get because I know the insides are not all they’re supposed to be?
What if we are wasting our time, money and sanity trying for another when we should really be focusing that energy on the child we already worked so hard to have?
What IF nobody ever calls me mama, or cries out in the night only wanting my comfort?
What IF I spend years trying to have a baby, and then we have one or adopt one, and he or she dies? (this is true fear of mine)
What IF I finally do get pregnant and nobody wants to come to my baby shower, because I couldn’t bring myself to go to all of theirs?
What IF my husband realizes that I’m the problem and he could divorce me and find someone else to give him children?
What IF the only baby I ever have has four legs and a tail?
What IF we buy a big house that is filled with empty rooms?
What IF my niece has a baby before I do?
What IF I eventually have a child, but the bitterness and pain from years of infertility make it hard to love him or her?
What IF there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m afraid to walk to it because I’m comfortable and I’ve found my place in the land of IF?
What IF I never get to feel the trill of my child moving inside of me?
What IF I never get to be a mother?
What IF the closest I get to motherhood is “Aunt”, “Godmother”, or “Stepmother” (to an 18 year old who hates me), or “Pet owner”?
What IF my body can handle a pregnancy or parenting afterward? What IF I am just not healthy enough?
What IF I just can’t cope with it all?
What IF the closest I come to having a child is a missed period?
Opps.. Typo ( don’t be surprised)
What IF I never get to feel the THRILL of my child moving inside of me?
What IF getting pregnant with my daughter was all a fluke, because of coming off birth control pills and i would have dealt with primary infertility also.
What IF i will never be able to get pregnant again, I went through 1 year & 2 back to back miscarriages to get pregnant with my son.It’s been almost 3 years of trying for #3.
What if…I do get pregnant, but forget to happy about it because of fear of another miscarriage?
What if I’m only a stepmom, never a mom?
What if I don’t get to feel the love a mother has for her children?
What if I stop fighting the incessant thoughts that because I was born without a uterus I am not a woman?
What if I relapse in my eating disorder and starve myself because I’m so mad and sad that my body has betrayed me in this most primal way?
What if I continue to feel too scared/shy/inadequate/not “normal” that I never open myself up to dating and finding a husband?
What if my sister will never get to be my gestational surrogate? What if I never adopt?
What if graduating medical school and being a doctor doesn’t fill this hole in my heart?
What if I don’t feel accomplished or successful until I become a mother?
What if I never become a mom even though it’s the ONLY thing I’ve ever wanted to be?
What if I never get any answers as to WHY we can’t get pregnant?
What if I am always wondering What if….?
What if we all decided to shun the cultural pressure to be part of the Mommy Club and start feeling “whole” without children? Could that ever happen?
what if i’d gotten pregnant ALL of those times doing IVF…..i would never have known the true blessing of being my son’s mother through adoption. i feel so blessed.
What if my husband is too afraid to tell me the truth about when he had mumps as a kid?
What if the infertility is his fault? And if those results get reported to my doctor, what if I have to tell him?
What if after waiting all this time to get pregnant, I lose the baby? Would I ever recover?
What IF I was told I could have another child, but could give that garuntee to a friend? What IF that meant my son would be an only child? I would do it in a heartbeat, with no doubt, with a peace in my heart and a smile on my soul.
What if nobody ever gets to call me “Mom” and I never get to see my husband be “Dad”?
Not “what if”!!! IF ONLY!!! If only I had gone straight to adoption instead of wasting all of that money on those painful and futile infertility treatments!!!! Ladies, don’t let the love wait……ADOPT!!!!!
What if my sperm are busted with no hope of salvation, will I feel like the children from my wife are also mine?
What if I never stop feeling “broken”?
What if my sex life never recovers?
What if my husband never comes to understand what this is like for me?
What if I spend so much time dithering about what to do next that i end up being too old to do anything?
What if I’m never a mother?
What if we no longer needed a National Infertility Awareness Week because a cure was found?
What if all the women in the world who wanted to be mommies (and men who wanted to be daddies) could be without worrying about how to pay for IF treatments or adoption costs or anything else?
What if we lived in a country that took care of us from diaper to diaper (cradle to grave)?
What IF we never conceive or can never find the money to pay for required IF treatments and I am unable to give up the bitterness and anger over that fact? Anger and bitterness that I often project onto couples that NEVER have to ask What IF?
What IF we would have started trying from the beginning of our marriage? Would we have had the same difficulties conceiving?
What if IVF and FET don’t work? What if I never get to decorate a nursery or rock my child to sleep? What if I can never stop crying about my fertility challenges?
What if we will always have the time line of our life together be defined in timed intercourse, failed IUI and IVF attempts, and broken hearts and not the moments our children learned to walk and their birthdays?
What if I become a childless old lady in a nursing home that people pity?
What if my minivan is paid off before we ever put a carseat in it?
What IF this was all just a waste of everything? What IF I had not denied myself all those Diet Cokes and pints of beer and just enjoyed myself and my marriage? What IF he actually wanted to talk about it and I didn’t have to feel like I had to go through this alone? What IF our health insurance actually helped cover the costs of IVF? What IF it didn’t cost so much damn money to adopt!?! What IF people stopped giving me bogus advice?
What IF: I hadn’t been so careful to not get pregnant when I was young-would I still be here… Married to my wonderful husband
What IF: I can never forgive myself for loosing 3 babies
What IF: I spend the rest of my life hating myself for being broken
one more
What IF: I never have someone call me mom
What if I forget what’s gotten me to this point? What if I take life with Nugget for granted?
What if I never have another child?
What IF I had found out I had PCOS when I was 23 instead of 33?
What IF I hadn’t listened to that voice inside that kept telling me something was wrong earlier?
What IF I hadn’t tried one more time?
What IF we are always living pay check to pay check with no savings due to adoption costs and infertility treatments?
What IF I always walk around with this pain – even if we do get a child?
What IF I have to endure another adoption loss?
What IF my completely furnished nursery remains empy?
What IF our sex life is never the same?
What IF I can’t ever join in the conversation about kids that always comes up with my friends?
What IF I can never give my mom a grandchild?
What IF we stopped putting our lives on hold and just enjoyed the place we’re at right now?
What IF sharing my pain brings someone else healing?
What IF I have more kids and my sister never gets any?
What IF I can be more empathetic to her infertility?
What IF I can stop feeling bad that I can have kids naturally and she can’t?
What if the treatment had not worked? And what if I start to take my “luck” for granted?
What if I can offer professional support to other couples and individuals who are faced with infertility?
What if the choice to have kids is already made for me?
What if I never get to join the Mommy club?
What if I don’t have anyone to take care of me when I get old?
What if I have to hear people’s stupid comments for the rest of my life?
Everybody deserves a success story, what IF there are couples that don’t get their day in the sun.
I love this project. I struggled for 4 years with infertility and I am blessed to have a baby girl now. However, I will not be satisfied until EVERY couple has a success story.
What if…
…I get pregnant (again) and actually have a baby? It will mean my entire life will change in ways I can’t even imagine. This scares me. Not because I selfishly want to sleep in on weekends, or anything stoopid like that. The fact is I have no idea what my life will look like with a baby in it.
…If I’m like those reality show contestants on The_Bachelor who claim they are looking for true love, but just want to “win” the man/game. What if I just want a baby because I can’t have one?
… I abandon my baby, like my own mom did when I was 3? She claims she left because she needed to “find herself” – whatever that means. (She did regret leaving me and did get me back)
…we adopt and the child is the ‘bad seed’ – I have an adopted cousin who as a teenager set fire to a church. Years later he and his girlfriend ended up OD’ing and dying with their baby in the crib by their bed. Then there was the woman who put her adopted son back on a plane to Russia (click here for more).
…I’d actually be happier living “child-free”
…having a baby would destroy my marriage.
…I’m a bad mom.
…I can’t afford / take care of the baby?
and…
What if…
…Our ART efforts fail and I never experience carrying a baby to term?
…I never get to feel the weight of a baby in my arms?
… a child never runs into my arms?
… a child’s face never lights up when s/he seems me?
… no one ever calls me “Mom?”
… I never dance at my own child’s wedding? or hold a grandchild?
… I die alone?
What if my children resent me because I adopted them or each other because they were adopted different ways.(foster care and embryo adoption) What if none of our next set embryos make the thaw? Or if they do what if the transfer doesn’t work??
What iIF we go thru with the steps for IVF and they find something else wrong after the egg retrivial?
What IF IVF doesn’t work?
What IF I really never do get pregnant?
What IF I let infertility define forever?
What IF I can’t let go of the fact that my son is not mine biologically?
What IF I can’t carry my little boy full term because of my dogdy uterus?
What IF I am never able to assimilate socially again after being in self imposed IF exile?
I have had a child and he was born at 25 weeks gestation. We have been diagnosed with secondary fertility. Our child has cerebral palsy, has had 9 brain surgeries, and is legally blind. He has hydrocephalus and wil need assistance for the rest of his life. What if I never get to experience a third trimester? What if I never get to breast feed? What if I never get to know what normal is?
My sister in law had an ectopic and then 2 weeks later was pregnant AGAIN. Yet she claims infertility. My sister just did IVF and my other sister is pregnant. Every single family in my inlaws side will have a new baby this fall. Why not me?
What if after all this struggling and medications that make me feel miserable it either doesn’t work or it does work and I lose a baby for the 3rd time, will I be able to handle it?
What if I lose another one and have an even harder time coping, what will that do to my husband and my daughter?
What if I can’t hold it in anymore and snap the next time someone tells me I’m young and have plenty of time to have babies?
I’ve folded over 700 paper cranes wishing for a child and I’m scared to finish. What if, even after folding 1000 paper cranes, my wish never comes true?
What if I am one of the lucky ones, I get pregnant quickly but then am too terrified and depressed to be happy about it? Oh wait-that’s happening.
What if I never manage to have a living child and become a bitter-jealous-solitary woman?
Sorry I’m late…
What if my cervix stayed close?
What if I have to look into my husband’s eyes 5 or 10 years from now and apologize for never being able to have our child?
What if fertility treatments DO work and I DO have a child? Will it live up to the great expectation we’ve made it?
What if, like others have said, I start to forget all the emotional turmoil I’ve been through and don’t appreciate my three beautiful children enough.
What if I can’t convince my best friend that, at 39, she can’t afford to start trying “soon”. Her husband desperately wants a child and I think she’s afraid she won’t be a good mom. What if I push too hard and she starts to resent me? What if I don’t push hard enough and she is left somewhere down the line with her own “what if’s”, including what if someone had made me understand?
What if I will NEVER get over seeing pregnant women walk by? Even after having my miracle IVF daughters… I still have a rush of jealousy wash over me every time I see a pregnant belly….just a constant reminder of what my body can’t do by itself.
What IF . . . I have another surgery to fix everything – again – and it doesn’t help?
What IF . . . another IVF cycle does not work?
What IF . . . another IVG cycle works, and I lose the baby, again?
What IF . . . I lose faith and become angry with God?
What IF . . . I lose my mind?
BUT:
What IF . . . I choose to he happy no matter what my circumstances?
What IF my eggs are too old?
What if my sister never gets to be a mom?
What IF . . .
. . . the only pregnancy I ever experience is the one I wasn’t excited about until it was too late.
. . . we tell our families about our IF struggle and they only ever see us thru sympathetic eyes.
What if i never give my son a brother or sister and the baby i lost was my last chance. What if i never come up with the money to do IVF again. What if i started my family younger. What if i am forever sad
What if people realise that although we were finally blessed with a baby and love her so much, that doesn’t heal all the hurts of the IF years – that doesn’t heal all of our scars. Some, but not all. I miss my two babies that never made it and think of them often.
What if I come to resent my step son because I cannot get pregnant. What if my husband leaves me because I cannot give hime the family he deserves.
What if I never achieve the dream of being a mom?
What if I can never look at another baby without crying a little inside?
What if I can’t give my IVF/ICSI daughter a sibling?
What if, because we are older parents, she ends up alone in the world and has no one to lean on? What if we are in nursing homes and she is left to deal with the emotional and financial burden?
What if the clinic had not given us incorrect instructions for our October 2009 IVF , telling my husband who has severe male factor to ejaculate less than 48 hours before the egg retrieval (at which I got TEN mature eggs, which is amazing for me….and we got zero fertilization)?
What if I can never forgive my husband for not being aware enough of his own condition to know that that was too close a time for him to ejaculate before giving his sample at the egg retrieval?
What if this cyst that I now have never goes away and I lose my chance for the one last IVF/ICSI cycle that our clinic is “willing” to do with us?
What if at 42.5 it is just too late?
What if I never get over this and can’t fully enjoy/give happiness to my daughter, who is the most beautiful miracle in our lives….what if I worry so much about her future that I can’t enjoy the present?
What if our surrogate tries to keep our baby
What if I never talk to SIL again cause she had an abortion while I was undergoing my third IVF and told me “yeah you really wish it doesn’t work again or you will end up like me” (she is not very fond of her kids, mildly said)
What if I didn’t resent all pregnant women and women with IF who already have a child?
What if the only pregnancy I’ll ever carry is to 19 weeks? What if I had been more grateful for that pregnancy and not worked 80 hours a week during it?
What if I hadn’t been so quick to believe the MDs about the problem with my baby and had not terminated the pregnancy? What if that baby is the only chance I will ever have to see our biological child?
What if pursuing an MD and the demands of my training contributed to my baby’s cardiac defects and now I’m IF because I waited too long to have kids?
What if I never finish my medical training because I had to take a break to do IVFs and physicians don’t understand needing to take time off for IUIs, retrievals, and transfers and that working 30-hours in a row is not good for making eggs, implanting embryos, or carrying a healthy baby to term.
What if I had known the IUIs weren’t going to work and went straight to IVF? Or to DE? or to adoption?
What if we have to sell our house?
What if I have to go overseas because the treatments cost less?
What if our families don’t understand?
What if we spend everything we have money, time, energy, love and we never get to hold a baby of our own?
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