Friday, July 31, 2009

Things We Can't Afford

They (if not the proverbial they, at least my parents) say that nobody can afford to have kids. That applies triple when you're infertile the way I am.

I met with Dr. Foulk again a couple of days ago, and after a long talk, he convinced me that doing anything but IVF would be a bad idea: it would put my health and maybe life at risk, it would be financially inefficient because of low success rates and the possibility things will go wrong again, and it would just be frustrating and miserable.

Dr. Foulk is one of the top infertility doctors in the US, so I guess when he tells me I need in-vitro to have a baby, he's right. I signed us up for September.

We'll put off buying a house, live someplace a little more modest for the next few years, and go into a bit more debt because we want to start our family at the not-so-modest price of around 6K.

I know a lot of people ask why anyone would go through such lengths and expense just to conceive a child that's genetically theirs. I used to ask that question myself. But now I'm here, and I've realized it's a complex situation emotionally, financially, and hormonally. The choices to adopt or do IVF are just too complicated and personal to be justified to or questioned by anyone else. As pro-adoption as I am, this is my choice right now, and any support you have for me, emotional or monetary, is a huge blessing.

And on that note, I sell out. We'll be sacrificing as much as we can to make this work, but we need help. A friend suggested fundable.com as a good way for us to find help doing this, and if you want to donate to help us start a family, you can visit our fundable page. I'll see if I can't get a button up in the sidebar, too. Updates to come.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Amy - I really admire your courage, honesty, and perseverance. Thank you for being so frank and sharing your feelings. I have a few friends going through similar things right now and reading your blog gives me some great insight and fills me with empathy and admiration for you. I say - do whatever you need to. You are so awesome!

Brooke said...

All I can offer are positive thoughts/prayers, but I will send them your way.