More about Christmas...

My last post about how Christmas isn't just for kids got some interesting responses. Sharah wanted to know more about how my family celebrates. I consider myself very lucky -- I've spent every Christmas of my life to date with my family. When dh & I got married, I moved to the city where he was born and raised and where almost all of his extended family lives. I told him the deal was that since his family could see us anytime they liked during the rest of the year, and Christmas was a much bigger deal for my family (especially since his mother passed away), we would spend Christmas with them. And we haven't missed one yet in 22 years of marriage, even though we are a two-hour flight & one hour drive away (and the weather has sometimes made things touch & go).

My (childfree by choice) younger sister & her partner come out from the city and spend a few days while we are there. My maternal grandmother was Scandinavian, so Christmas Eve was always the focal point of our celebrations. Usually we arrive at least day or two ahead, and I get to decorate the tree. They know I love it so they save the job for me. It's a real, old-fashioned tree with big coloured lightbulbs and the same ornaments that have appeared on our Christmas tree for the last 40+ years. I dig out the box with my childhood letters to Santa and laugh & cry while reading them.

We have dinner (which has evolved over the years -- lutefisk when my mother was a kid -- yuck! -- ham when I was little and now it's usually pickerel), early evening church service & then we open our presents to & from each other. Christmas Day we have stockings from Santa (we all have them! -- my mom fills them for my sister & I, & we do them for our dhs & switch off on doing mom & dad from year to year), have a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings, and play lots of cards.

My parents are still relatively young (66 & 68), and the good Lord willing we will have many more Christmases all together -- but I can see it becoming more difficult as they age & pass on. It was hard enough adjusting to Christmas without my grandparents there. Right now, it's all about being together & carrying on tradition -- and so long as things stay relatively the same, it's easy to coast along from year to year. But as the people who have taken part in the traditions start passing on and there get to be fewer & fewer of us who remember what it was like, with no younger generation to carry on, I can see it getting more difficult. :(

Our celebrations have not entirely lacked children over the years. The year before my dh & I were married, my parents moved, and their neighbours had a new baby girl. From the time she was in a high chair, she has come to our house for Christmas, and that helped take the heat off me & dh as newlyweds ; ) & compensate for the lack of grandchildren. She even had/has her own stocking at my parents' house! However, even she has grown up -- is now 23 (!), going to university & living with her boyfriend. She still usually makes it over for dinner sometime during the holidays, if not right on Christmas, & we all still fuss over her. ; )

Deanna & Ellen, I know what you both mean in the comments you left on my last post -- on the one hand, why shouldn't we be able to celebrate, even if there's just the two of us? On the other hand, there are times when not having kids gives you permission not to have to "go to all that trouble" when you really don't feel like it, lol.

Not that Christmas is all about presents -- but it does bother me when people say, "Oh, lets not exchange gifts among the adults this year. After all, Christmas is for the kids!" Well, fine for them -- they can cross me & dh off their list then -- but we still have to buy for their kids! And it's not just Christmas -- it's birthday parties, baby showers, first communions & confirmations and high school graduations and then weddings -- and not always for people whose kids I feel very close to, either. It's hard sometimes when you feel like you just keep shelling out & shelling out for other people's kids & get absolutely nothing in return (not even a thank you, sometimes). But perhaps that's fodder for another post...!

"Christmas is for kids"

There it was, splashed across the cover of the latest Parents magazine on the newsstand today -- the phrase that gets my back up at this time of year like no other can:

"Christmas is for kids."

Bah, humbug!!

Sorry, maybe it's the childless curmudgeon in me talking, but I refuse to believe that Christmas is just for kids, or about kids. Strictly speaking, of course, Christmas IS about "A" kid -- "THE" kid -- the Christ Child, and what his birth meant to the world. But somehow, I don't believe He came into this world just so that kids could bug their parents for mountains of toys and stuff themselves silly with candycanes and turkey. ; ) Or so that magazine publishers could sell magazines!

I love Christmas -- it is my favourite time of year. And of course, my love of Christmas dates back to my childhood, is rooted there. But those feelings didn't fade or disappear when I got older . They just changed and took on a different form. The older I got, the less the toys and Santa Claus meant to me. What I loved (still love today) was being together with my family, and re-enacting our decades-old traditions and rituals. Some things have changed over the years, of course, for various reasons -- new rituals have gradually evolved over the years -- but much stays the same.

The spirit of Christmas was embodied by my maternal grandfather. I spent every Christmas of my life with him for 37 years straight. When I was very little, we lived hundreds of miles away from my grandparents. Sometimes, my grandmother would stay home or go to be with my my mother's brother and his family -- but wherever we were, my grandfather would drive or travel by train or bus to be with us for Christmas. I remember vividly how one year, when I was no more than 4, my dad went to get him at the train station in the next town down the road. I pulled a little chair up to the window and fell asleep there, waiting for them to come.

When I called to tell my parents I was pregnant, in March 1998, the first thing my mother asked me (after she stopped screaming!) was "when?" & when I told her "mid-November," she sighed rapturously, "A baby for Christmas!"

Well, by the time Christmas 1998 rolled around, not only was there no baby, there was no Grandpa. He died October 15th of that year at age 86. It was the saddest, most melancholy Christmas I have ever experienced. A year later, my grandmother was gone too.

A year or so after that, we were all sitting down to Christmas dinner, and my father went to get the camera to take a group shot of us seated around the table, as he often had in years past. He stood there looking through the viewfinder and as we all looked back at him, a strange thing happened. He set the camera down without taking the picture, turned and went down the stairs to the basement family room. Everyone looked blankly at each other. My mother got up and followed him down the stairs, and I bowed my head & struggled to hold back the tears. I knew exactly why he had to put down that camera & hide the emotions that had hit him unexpectedly. Instead of growing, our family was actually shrinking -- so many people we loved just weren't there anymore (or, like my daughter, never made it there to begin with) -- and I knew instinctively that he had realized that as he looked through the lens of that camera.

After a few minutes, he came upstairs & took the picture. I love looking at pictures, but this one gives me pain to see. None of us are smiling in it.

My mother is guilty of the "Christmas is for kids" & "kids are what make Christmas special" mindset (and it sometimes sets my teeth on edge). I will often hear her, at Christmastime, telling her friends that "we don't have any little kids at our house for Christmas." (Thanks, Mom.)(My sister is childless by choice, and she and I, at ages 45 & almost 47, are still "the kids" at our house.) She (my mom) loves it when my aunt invites us to her family Christmas shindig the Saturday before Christmas, where we get to watch her grandkids, saucer-eyed in the presence of Santa (yes, Santa) as he arrives at the door bearing gifts. (They lose most of their shyness very quickly as soon as they get handed their presents.)

Yes, it's fun to watch; yes, it's an element that our family Christmases lack these days. Is it better than our own family Christmases have evolved to become? I don't know. It's just different. Most certainly, our Christmases would be very, very different these days if our daughter were here -- but when all is said & done, it's still Christmas, it's still magical, and I still love and appreciate it.

I'm rambling here, but the point I want to make is that while children may add a certain element of fun to Christmas celebrations, it's not just "for kids." If it's about kids at all, it's about the child that lives within each of us. The magic & wonder & generosity of the season is something for ALL of us to enjoy and to share with each other.

The club nobody wants to join

Last night was the regular meeting of the pregnancy loss support group that dh & I help facilitate, along with one other woman. Ours is one of several groups run by this organization (mostly in the Greater Toronto Area), which also provides telephone support across the province, as well as training seminars for doctors, nurses, funeral home directors and other professionals who support newly bereaved parents. The organization runs on a shoestring, but does amazing things. 

We started attending the group as clients about six weeks after we lost Katie... and we've never left. ; ) We started training as facilitators after the one-year "anniversary" mark had passed, and we're still there. It's become such a big part of our lives. It's a great feeling to be able to give something back to an organization that helped us so much... but it's also nice to feel that there's still a place I can go where I can say my daughter's name & talk about what happened to us and not have people look uncomfortably away -- although our role is now more to listen than to talk about our own experiences. Sometimes, late into a long week of work, it's a pain to haul ourselves out on a Thursday night (dh especially can grumble)... but we almost always come away invigorated & feeling that we did some good by being there. 

A support group may not be for everyone -- some clients love it, some come once & we never see them again, and some never show up at all -- but I would highly recommend at least giving it a try. Even in 1998, I was able to find support online, and I was quickly hooked on my daily fix ; ) but there was nothing like meeting up with other bereaved parents in "real life." Even though the circumstances of our losses might be very different, we quickly come to realize that we are all hurting in the same ways. We like to joke about it and say it's the club that nobody wants to join. There is such a bond that is formed through listening to each other's stories, comparing notes, venting about the people who have hurt or annoyed us ; ) and offering each other our support. We have made some really good friends through the group, and the bond remains even with those people we only see now once or twice a year at the memorial events the group sponsors (a Christmastime candlelighting service, a summer picnic & butterfly release, a fall Walk to Remember). 

Many, many of our clients have gone on to have successful subsequent pregnancies or adopt. Although many of them also have wrestled with infertility (surprise!), dh & I are among the few we know of who have opted to remain a family of two. Sometimes we talk about whether it's time to throw in the towel. We're getting older, and some of our clients are getting to be VERY young! And I wonder whether they'd rather hear from a facilitator whose loss was more recent, who went on to have subsequent children -- as an example of hope. We mentioned this once to someone, & she pointed out that, "Yes, but they see you there, and it's nine years later and you're still standing, even after everything you've been through. That's a great example for them too." I'd like to think so! We've decided we'll go until the 10-year mark, next fall, and then see how we feel.

She would have been 9 years old today. :(

Today was my due date in 1998. The first one they gave me, anyway. With each ultrasound (I had five in all), they revised the date, but since this was the first, it has stuck in my mind. 

Nine years. What a different life we would be leading right now, if only... 

What kind of a birthday party would we be planning for this weekend? Does anyone else in the world remember that, nine years ago, we were supposed to have a baby right about now? 

Of course, one of my colleagues on parental leave picked today to bring the 22-month-old girl she & her dh have adopted to the office to show off. I know she has had her own problems building the family she has wanted, and the child is absolutely adorable... but why today?? And a dad also on parental leave came in for awhile (sans infant, thankllfuy), but of course, full of news about his own bundle of joy. ARGH... 

Eight years ago, I would have fled to the bathroom in tears. I haven't cried (yet?)... but I have been very, very tired all day. I think next year (the big 10) is going to be a toughie. : ( 

Happy birthday, dear Katie. Mommy & Daddy love you.

Thoughts on getting older, & the generation gap

I've been thinking a lot about age & getting older lately. Dh turned 50 this year, and I am 46. I'll be 47 on my next birthday, two months from now. We've been married 22 years. Our two nephews are now 15 & 19 and both 6'1" (and still growing!). And next year will be 10 years since my pregnancy and the loss of our daughter (which is starting to weigh heavily on my mind). All markers of time marching on relentlessly. I know I don't look 46 (so I've been told), but lately, I've been feeling, if not 46, then certainly a lot older than I once did. 

My great-grandmother was 47 when her last child was born in 1923 -- my one remaining great-aunt, my grandmother's baby sister, who is now 84. Great-Grandma was and likely still is the oldest person ever to give birth in the hospital in that little town. (I'm not even sure they do deliveries there these days -- and certainly not high-risk pregnancies of older women, which is what it would be considered these days.) I used to joke hopefully and say that I had time on my side, maybe I had inherited Great-Grandma's genes. Great-Grandma, though, had a much better track record than me (five other children previously). No fertility drugs around back in 1923!! And to be honest, I wouldn't want to be pregnant now at my age. Even if I was guaranteed a healthy baby -- 3 a.m. feedings & diaper changes, chasing after a toddler when I'm 50 and dealing with a teenager in my 60s -- yikes!! 

To put things in another perspective -- I'm the same age right now as my grandmother was when I was born. And I'm older now than my mother was when I got married (I was 24, she was 44). Both my sister & I were out of the house and off to university before she turned 40. That too gives me pause. 

I think I started feeling old(er) right around the same time I got pregnant, when I was 37. That was when we had the first of a string of interns join us in the office for a year-long stint. Most of the interns were in their early 20s and fresh out of college, eager to get a foot in the door & some experience on their resume. To paraphrase the Matthew McConaghey character in "Dazed & Confused," I kept getting older, the interns all stayed around 22 or 24, or so it seemed. 

I remember telling one of these interns, who joined us at the turn of the millennium, about how when I first joined the department (at age 25 myself), one of my colleagues had been an elite swimmer. Just before my arrival, he had brought Victor Davis, a gold medallist at the 1984 Olympics and one of Canada's all-time great swimmers (not to mention an extremely good looking guy), to one of the staff parties. (Months later, the girls were still drooling as they told me about it.) I told this to our new intern, and she looked at me blankly and said, "Who is Victor Davis?" I couldn't believe she didn't know who Victor Davis was. Then I realized that 1984 had been a good 16 years earlier and she was probably barely in grade school at the time. 

I've worked in the same place for 21 years now, and these moments have gotten more and more frequent. Gradually, the under-30 set has come to dominate. They all cluster together, chatting & giggling, talking about their condos & the best place to buy shoes, and the bars they visited the night before, and go out drinking together after work. I like them, and I think they like me, but there is a generational gap there, for sure. 

(Dh had his own moment several years back, when the Eagles first reunited for their "Hell Freezes Over" tour. When the tour came to town, several of his colleagues at work were going and asked if he had tickets. "No," he said, "but I saw them on their Hotel California tour in 1978." Whereupon one of the 20-somethings in his office looked at him, open-mouthed, and gasped, "How old ARE you??" lol) 

A couple of weeks back, we had cake to celebrate one girl's birthday. She was turning 28. Her mother is one year older than me (!!). As we ate, the young girls all giggled and talked about the pressure they're under from their parents to start producing grandchildren (even though few of them have boyfriends), and all of their friends and cousins who are having babies right now. I winced as they chattered & giggled away (they think they're under pressure NOW??). I'm sure none of them know my history -- there are perhaps half a dozen people left in the office who were around at the time I lost my daughter and might remember what happened. If these younger officemates think about it at all, they probably assume I don't have children because I don't want them. They've never asked, and I don't tell. 

I think I started feeling the generation gap at work even more keenly this past year. Last December (2006), my co-worker took early retirement at age 59, after 16 years of working together. This woman (also childless) was my best friend at the office, my coffee break companion & confidante. She was there for me in the dark days after the stillbirth of my daughter and through the years of infertility treatment that followed, and to say that I've missed her this past year is an understatement. Meanwhile, she is enjoying her well-deserved retirement hugely, keeping active with all sort of classes and projects and outings. I think I'm jealous! 

I feel like my life is in a sort of in-between phase right now. I don't have kids, so I find it difficult to relate when I'm with friends & family members who talk non-stop about kid-related stuff. I enjoy my work, to a point, but I work to live, I've never lived to work, and it's been a tough year for many reasons (her absence being one of them). People in the infertile community sometimes ask me what there is in life to look forward to, if I don't have kids, and my answer is immediate: "Retirement!!" (lol) (And hopefully an early one!) 

For now, I know we have to keep working, if only to ensure we save enough for a comfortable retirement -- no kids around to "take care" of us, so we'd better make sure we can do it ourselves. But work interferes so much with all the other things I'd like to be doing with my time. I just wish I could skip over the next 10-15 years or so and get to the good stuff right away. ; )

How we made "the decision"

Writing about our ttc journey (in the post before this one) made me think I should write more about how it ended -- i.e., how we came to childless/free living. (I hesitate to say "made the decision" because in so many respects, I feel like we didn't have much of a choice.) 

As I wrote previously, we had agreed (in consultation with an infertility counsellor at the outset of our foray into treatment) that we would try three IUI cycles using injectables. In dh's mind, that would be it. In my mind, we would re-evaluate and perhaps move on to IVF. (But of course, it was going to work!!) 

Cycle #3 came & went and no BFP. Devastating. This was in early June 2001. I was 40 years old. What now?? 

About two weeks later, I was having lunch with a girlfriend at a restaurant in the office tower where both dh & I work. I was treating her for her birthday. Before I met her for lunch, I had taken off my bra & stuffed it into my purse, as it was feeling unusually tight. As we talked, I was finding it harder & harder to focus on the conversation. We were in a booth & I was sitting with my back flat against the upholstery. I had a strange tingling feeling in my arm & shoulder. The waiter came with the bill and I tried to reach for it. I couldn't move my arm. My girlfriend noticed something was wrong & asked me if I was OK. "I don't know," I said. I managed to pay the bill and we left the restaurant & sat on a nearby bench. I was breathing heavily. I wondered whether I was experiencing some side effects from the huge amounts of drugs I had been taking for my cycle. 

She gave me her cellphone & I called my RE's office. Nope, they said breezily, I shouldn't be having problems two weeks after the end of my cycle. But if it continued to bother me, I should see my family doctor. Gee, thanks. 

So I called dh. He was downstairs in about two minutes flat. My girlfriend hailed us a taxi and he gave them the address of our family dr of 16 years. Not sure why we didn't go to emergency at the local hospital, but I'm glad in retrospect we went to the dr. I was breathing heavily all the way in the taxi. Dh squeezed my hand reassuringly, but I honestly thought I was having a heart attack -- maybe even dying. 

Walked into the dr's office. It was empty (thank God) except for the receptionist and nurse (the dr's wife). I said, "I'm sorry, I don't have an appointment, but I'm not feeling very well," and burst into huge wracking sobs. They had me laying on a table with a blood pressure cuff on my arm in about 30 seconds flat. The dr came in, took one look at me and said, "You're having an anxiety attack." The receptionist handed me a pill (from her own Ativan prescription, it turned out!!) & that helped me to start calming down. They took an EKG & continued to monitor my bp while I talked about all the stress I'd been under, at work and with treatments, and the failure of our final cycle. 

"Well, no wonder," my dr said. "You've just had a major life disappointment." Dh told him about some of the drugs I had been taking & he shook his head and said, "That's pretty powerful stuff." He wrote me a prescription for Ativan & told me to take it when I felt I needed it. 

The next few days I had to take the Ativan several times. I would be feeling fine & then I would get this tingling feeling running up my arm & scalp, and start to panic again. I didn't like how the Ativan made me feel, but I liked the anxiety attacks even less. Was this how my life was going to be from now on?? 

I wanted to talk to the infertility counsellor again, & dh agreed to come again with me. She listened sympathetically as we brought her up to date on our story. 

Dh said this was the end of the road as far as he was concerned -- he wanted a baby, but not at the expense of my physical & mental health. 

I told her I felt like we should try IVF -- because it was there -- but I was terrified. If this was how I reacted to the failure of an IUI, what would an IVF do to me, with its much greater stresses (not to mention higher drug dosages)? 

She recommended I read one of Alice Domar's books, and that I try yoga to help me relax. She asked us how we felt about donor egg or surrogacy. Too far out on the fringe, we felt (although it has become much more common as an option since then). Adoption? We had discussed adoption, but neither of us was able to muster up much enthusiasm for it -- and I felt that going into it half-heartedly would not be fair to the child. Perhaps if we had been 35 instead of already in our 40s, we might have felt differently. I know several couples who have adopted, and knew it wasn't just a matter of deciding to adopt and having a baby fall into our laps. I knew adoption might take another few years and perhaps more heartbreak along the way, and we were already in our 40s. (I imagined pregnant teenagers scrutinizing our profile and, seeing that we were about the same age as their parents (!!), choosing younger, more hip couples to parent their babies.) It would mean getting off one rollercoaster and getting onto another. I was tired of riding rollercoasters. But we'd been doing it for so long now -- the thought of actually getting off & walking away was a scary, scary thought. Still, I knew that dh & I could have a good life together, just the two of us -- because we'd already been doing it for the past 16 years. 

Then the counsellor made a really great suggestion. "Why don't you take the summer off?" she said. "Take a vacation. Focus on your relationship as a couple. Find some fun things to do together. Set up a regular night to go on a real date, like you used to, and take turns deciding what you do for the evening. Put away the thermometer and try to avoid anything to do with infertility. And at the end of the summer, take another look at the situation and make a decision." 

And that's what we did. We tried the date night thing (didn't last too long, but it was fun while it did). We went on vacation with my family to the Oregon coast, where we took long walks on the beach. I couldn't stay away from the world of infertility entirely, but I started visiting childless living boards and sites and doing some reading. By the end of the summer, I knew that, much as I wanted a baby, I couldn't go back to infertility treatment. 

We were done. 

It's not like we decided that we were done & everything immediately fell into place. It's been an ongoing journey. It was probably a couple of years before I could say I really felt we had done the right thing. It's been six years now, and time truly is a great healer. I like to say that our lives are not necessarily any better or worse than parents' -- just different. I do NOT miss infertility treatment at all!! 

But there are still days when something will happen to remind me about our stillborn daughter -- about the life that might have been, the road not taken -- and man, it can still hurt. :(

Blogtivism: My Story (& how mandated coverage could have helped)

As part of a recent initiative by Mel & Flicka, I'm adding my voice in the quest for changes to the way infertility treatments are funded (or not) by governments and insurance companies. I live in Canada, where the health care system is slightly different than in the U.S., but coverage for fertility treatments is equally lacking (and maybe even more so!). 

My story (Reader's Digest version): my parents were 20 & 21 years old when I was born. Although I was never told in so many words (and although I knew they wanted grandchildren… someday…!), I knew the early years of their marriage were tough, especially financially, and that they hoped that my life would be different. With their encouragement, I went to university, where I met my husband, and both of us went on to graduate school. When we got married in 1985, at ages 24 and 28, we knew we wanted children -- someday. We were fresh out of university, starting entry-level jobs that didn't pay very much, with student loans to pay off, and a bare apartment in an "adults only" building to furnish. I felt a responsibility to make use of the expensive education my parents had paid for, and find a decent paying job in my field. I was far away from my own family, and my mother in law was dead, so I knew I would have little in the way of practical and emotional support in taking care of an infant. 

And so we postponed starting a family, until we became better established, financially and careerwise. We felt it was the responsible thing to do. In a heated real estate market, it was five years before we were able to afford a house -- and then there were those mortgage payments to think about (then at 11.75% and, unlike in the States, the interest is not tax-deductible)… The years passed by quickly, and at age 34, after 10 years of marriage, we decided the moment had finally arrived. Naively, I did not anticipate any problems getting pregnant. There were lots and lots of women getting pregnant for the first time in their 30s now. Everyone I had ever heard of who had infertility problems either had irregular periods or, as I had read in the women's magazines, sexually transmitted diseases -- neither of which applied to me. 

We tried for 2.5 years. My family doctor would ask me, "Still trying to get pregnant?" and then add encouragingly, "Don't worry, it will happen." Finally, it did: in March 1998, just turned 37, I discovered I was pregnant. I was shocked, and our families were delirious with joy. Sadly, it was a complicated pregnancy, and our daughter was stillborn in August 1998 when I was six months along. Despite our grief and shock, we picked up the pieces and started trying again almost immediately -- this time, with the clock ticking ominously in the background, in a flurry of basal thermometers, daily charting & inspection of bodily fluids, doses of cough syrup to promote mucus production (!!), and a small fortune spent on ovulation predictor sticks. After another year had gone by, with my 39th birthday fast approaching, I finally sought help from the kind and well-respected ob-gyn who had cared for me during my pregnancy and its aftermath. 

I feel fortunate that, as a Canadian with "universal" health care, I have never had to pay or worry about coverage for visits to my family dr and ob-gyn, nor for any of the basic infertility testing that my ob-gyn did for us. This included, over the space of several months, a post-coital examination, endometrial biopsy (ouch!) and HSG (dye through the tubes). We heard that waiting lists for local infertility clinics were months long (and at 39, I didn't feel I had much more time to waste), but my ob-gyn was able to refer us to a young RE who was just setting up his practice. We did several cycles with clomid & TI, then made the decision to try three cycles of intrauterine insemination (IUI), using injectable drugs, then re-evaluate. I did not have to pay for cycle monitoring or bloodwork, and (strangely enough) the IUI was covered by our provincial health plan -- although we had to pay ($350, I think) for the sperm washing procedure (!). As for the drugs, none of these are covered by our provincial healthcare plan. I investigated with my supplemental workplace medical & drug plan, and was told there was a $1,500 lifetime maximum on most infertility drugs. The Clomid was cheap, about $65 a cycle, but once we started with injectables, I think I blew through that $1,500 of coverage in less than a week. Each cycle got progressively more expensive as my RE increased the drug dosage. I think the first cycle cost about $2,300 and the third almost $3,000, including drugs & sperm washing. 

So within a little more than a year, we had blown through $10,000, and we hadn't even tried IVF. By the time we had finished our three IUI cycles, I was 40 years old, and a physical & emotional wreck, worried about the physical impact the drugs were having on my health and popping Ativan for anxiety attacks. I knew the stresses of IVF, should we decide to attempt it, would be much, much greater. As for the financial stresses, we knew that what we had just spent in a little more than one year would (maybe) cover one cycle of IVF. Ontario, where I live, is the only province, in Canada that provides any IVF coverage at all – and only in cases where both fallopian tubes are blocked (i.e., we did not qualify). Doing IVF would mean dipping into (& perhaps depleting) the savings that we had worked so long and hard to build, and/or piling on debt, at a point when we were just starting to work our way free from it (with the prospect of retirement looming on the not-too-very distant horizon, especially for my dh). We looked at our chances of success -- the statistical success rates for women my age were not good – and that wasn't factoring in my husband's low sperm count, my wonky hormones or my bicornuate uterus. Even in the unlikely event that I was able to get pregnant AND carry a healthy baby to term, we'd have all the costs associated with bringing up and educating a child on top of what we had spent to get pregnant in the first place. 

Taking all of these factors into account – physical, emotional, practical and financial -- we reluctantly made the painful decision not to continue treatment and remain childless. Had we been younger -- had IVF been covered, fully or partially -- we may have made a different decision. We might have decided to go directly to IVF and skip the IUIs in the first place, since it afforded us the best chance of success, albeit at a much higher cost. 

I suppose some people might say it is our fault for waiting as long as we did to start a family. I do not regret waiting; we did what we felt was right for us & for our future family at that time. Hardly anyone ever starts out trying to conceive, thinking they will have problems -- it's always the other guy, isn't it? I do regret not seeking help earlier than we did and not pressing the point with my family doctor. Perhaps that would have given us more time to explore more options. And I regret that money had to be a factor in making our decisions related to treatment and how long to continue. In some ways, we were fortunate that we could even consider financing IVF on our own -- there are many, many people out there for whom that would not be an option. The cost is just too prohibitive. 

Perhaps we thought too long & hard about the responsibility of parenthood. Yet there is plenty of assistance available from the public purse for parents who wind up pregnant easily with little or no thought given to the matter. Our governments pay lip service to “family values” and fret about plunging birth rates, yet do very little to help couples who would love to help remedy the situation! 

Towards the end of the recent Ontario provincial election, Premier Dalton McGuinty promised that, if re-elected (which he was), his party would create an expert panel on fertility, and hinted at the possibility of providing financial assistance to couples trying to expand their families. It is too late for my husband & I (now almost 47 and 50), but for the sake of the many other couples in this province who are struggling with infertility, I hope this is not an election promise that winds up forgotten or broken. 

(OK, maybe this wasn't the Reader's Digest version after all...!)