How do you know when it’s time to stop pursuing fertility treatment. At what point do you call it quits and either mover to adoption or make peace with living child free? We received this question on the Creating a Family Facebook Support Group.
We are about to do an IUI, will do one more after that, then we have some big decisions to make, so I’m looking for some guidance. If you could go back, would you do your fertility treatment just the same? (A little background: I have PCOS, TTC [trying to conceive] for 2.5 years, age 32, one miscarriage a year ago and nothing since).
When to Call it Quits with Infertility Treatment
Nothing is more personal than how you build your family. It involves issues as far ranging as your childhood dreams and your ideas of family, and includes the painfully mundane issue of money. And all of these issues are times two if you are married. There are no easy answers, but these are some of the things you should consider.
First Step
The first step is assessing your chances of success at treatment. Unfortunately, often you need to try treatment before you really know how you’ll respond, but your reproductive endocrinologist should be able to give you a clue based on your diagnosis and age.
Second Step
Money. How much will your health insurance cover? How much can you afford? How soon can you replenish your savings if you decide to adopt?
Third Step
How important is it to you and your partner to have a biological and/or genetic connection to your child? No shame, no guilt here. If having a child that shares your genes, or being pregnant, or controlling the pre-birth environment of your child is very important to you, then you probably need to move up the fertility treatment escalator if you can’t imagine life without a child.
Fourth Step
How hard do you need to try before you can move on without regrets, or at least minimized regrets?
Words of Wisdom from Those Who’ve Been There, Done That
- We did 3 IUIs. One with oral meds only and two with oral meds and injections. I decided my body was done after the third. We have unexplained secondary infertility. We don’t protect still and just enjoy having sex when we want and are loving it — no more charts, timing, holding back so he can jerk into a cup and then can turkey baste me. I wouldn’t go back to treatments at all. We did do some counseling afterwards with a counselor who specialized in family building. The counseling helped a lot.
- We realized for us that it was very important to try as hard as we could to have a biological child. I wanted to be pregnant and my husband wanted to have his genes passed on to our kids. When one treatment didn’t work, we saved some more, then tried a more involved treatment. It was right for us. We are now pregnant through egg donation and couldn’t be happier.
- I had six miscarriages over 3+ years before we decided to adopt. I wish we would have started looking into adoption sooner and skipped all of the extra fertility testing (lots of money spent that could have gone toward adoption!) I’m at the point where I’m very excited to adopt and don’t think I’ll miss having biological kids. Family is family whether there are blood ties or not…at least, in my world.
- We had unexplained infertility and our infertility doctor really couldn’t tell us what our chances were of getting pregnant. We agreed in advance to go through treatment all the way through 3 tries of IVF using my eggs. We succeeded on our second IVF. Next year, we’ll start trying again. We think we will do the same – go up to 3 IVFs then reassess.
- It was very important to me not to end up destitute through this horrible journey. That being said, we had decent insurance coverage when we started this journey and used that for several tries, though it only covered 50%. My in-laws are the world’s best and kicked in some, and we paid the rest. We paid wholly out of pocket for two donor egg cycles that netted us nothing in the Czech Republic. I wouldn’t take any of it back, but it was just as emotionally exhausting as it was physically, and financially. Try to keep your whole being in perspective when you decide to change course. We are moving to foster to adopt after a year and a half of rest.
- We did 6 IUIs and 2 IVFs. We were pregnant from the 3rd IUI and first IVF and miscarried both. Looking back I wished we hadn’t done the last 3 IUIs and switched to IVF. I feel like we lost so much time and money. We didn’t have any coverage and now it’s years later and we are still paying down our medical debt before another IVF cycle.
- We tried IVF twice. Spent about $30,000. Insurance covered $0. Wish we wouldn’t moved to adoption after the 1st, but my infertility doctor felt confident we’d achieve a pregnancy on #2. We didn’t. The doctor suggested that we use donor egg on our next cycle. I said we were thinking about adoption. He strongly urged us not to adopt, which I thought was very inconsiderate! I definitely wish we tried IVF only once to have more money to adopt again after this adoption (we are matched with an expectant mom due soon!!)
- I think that if you follow your gut throughout the entire process, whatever steps you take, you won’t have any regrets. We did 3 IUI’s of which none were successful, then an IVF that resulted in an identical twin pregnancy that we lost at the end of the 1st trimester. We soul-searched for months and decided to try one more time after which we would head the adoption route. We did and were successful and carried our beautiful little girl to term. We then tried for #2 with 2 frozen embryo transfers and were successful each time and lost both at the end of 1st trimester again. I’m SO thankful we persevered and we got our daughter and didn’t change course too soon, but now after our 3rd loss (4th baby), I can’t do it again.
- We did 3 IUI’s and then moved to adoption. We were older so it was a choice between IVF (probably with donor eggs) and adoption. For us the reality was we wanted a child and rather than spend the money on the uncertainty of IVF with my 40yr old eggs, we adopted and are very happy.
- I had 2 surgeries, one artificial insemination (IUI), and two failed IVFs. Although nothing worked, I have to say that I will never sit and wonder the what ifs. I grieve not having a child of my own yet because in all honesty that is truly my heart’s desire. I feel like now we need to make peace with never being parents, but at least we know we tried.
Other Creating a Family resources you will enjoy:
- Five Ways to Know When It is Time to Stop Fertility Treatment
- How Many IVF Cycles Should You Try Before Giving Up
- 9 Ways an Average Person Can Afford Fertility Treatment
- Are You Ready to Stop Fertility Treatment & Move to Adoption?
I invested 11 years and close to seventy thousand dollars before I stopped and I made peace that I never have a child or be a mother. Seven years went by and one day my best friend started taking about kids and one conversation lead to another then she agreed to be my surrogate mother. My daughter is 2 years old today and I am truly blessed to have her.
It’s not a question anyone else can answer for you sadly. You come to your own truth as you go through the process at least that is my view. A good book I highly recommend because my wife wrote it is “From Here To Maternity” by Kylie Doust. It talks about our journey in the hope it may help others find their own path. http://www.fromheretomaternity.com.au
This is such a hard decision. We did a shared risk program where you get 6 fresh ivf cycles with however many fet that comes from it. Our first fresh cycle ended in a chemical, we just completed our first fet and are pregnant. But we are still at 8 weeks so it’s not definite yet. I have to say, I honestly don’t think I can go through all the cycles that the program offers. Physically, I do fine with all the meds, but emotionally it is way too much. Also, the medications are really expensive so we would hit a financial limit. But this question of when to stop is so multifaceted, probably no two couples will have the same answer.
So if IF treatments and adoption are not working for you, are there any other options?
We have done all the IF treatments (IUI, IVF with our own eggs, IVF with two different donor eggs at two different clinics) and embryo adoption twice.
Surrogacy is not legal in our state.
We been on the adoption waiting lists for more than five years. Three failed attempts. Agency says they will close our file at age 45.
Our county does not offer foster-to-adopt. They state their goal is re-unification at all costs.
US State Department, Office of Children Services states that their currently are no programs where a childless couples can adopt a healthy infant 0 to 18 months old in less than 3 years. Dillon, Holt, Spencer-Chaplin all confirm this.
And Yes, Dawn, I did ask this question on your Facebook page. I’m still searching for an answer.
Average Joe, as many people mentioned on the group, it sounds like your options are:
**Surrogacy in another state or abroad (check with an reproductive law atty first about how this would work in your state)
**Changing adoption agencies to an agency that does not have a 45 year age cut off
**Consider adopting a child with special needs from a stable foreign program such as China
**Consider adopting a child or sibling group already legally free for adoption from foster care in another state. Get educated first on what this might involve and the likely age of the child.
**Making peace with living child-free.
It sounds like from the discussion over on the Creating a Family Facebook Support Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/40688106167/) that none of these options are ones you want to consider. I’m truly sorry you are stuck and hurting. Sometimes people find that when they get more information on an option, they warm up to its possibilities. But sometimes not. And if none of the first options are ones you feel comfortable with, then I strongly encourage you to see a counselor that specializes in infertility grief that might be able to help you make peace with living child-free.
you should try as long as you financially can AND as long as you remain hopeful. We stopped for both reasons–financially we couldn’t afford more and we had no more hope it would work.
Jill, well said!
I’m so thankful that we had in depth conversations about this beforehand. We set a $$ limit (insurance had a very low IF cap) and time limit, planning to switch to adoption when we got there… as we neared our “line in the sand” we started researching adoption which was good for my sanity, especially after our m/c. End up pregnant with our son 2nd to last month of our time limit. But when my body didn’t respond well to IF treatments when trying for #2 we switched to adoption pretty quickly.
Krista, I think it is so important to at least talk about this before you get on the infertility treatment escalator.