IVF vs Adoption

As previously posted in an earlier blog post, Steve and I were intending to do IVF #2 in November.  But because of the major water leak in our house, we decided that we needed to postpone until after the first of the year.  The biggest reason for this decision was stress levels.  I am an easily stressed person and I am also a person who hates to live in chaos.  We knew that the process of fixing the water damage in our house would leave us living in chaos for several weeks (we are still not fixed yet). The second reason we decided to wait was money.  We knew that we were going to have to pay a deductible for our home owners insurance and we only had so much money in savings to pay for the IVF and meds.  There just wasn't enough to do both and obviously fixing our house needed to come first.

After making the decision to postpone the IVF, we also began pondering whether or not this was still what we wanted to do.  We again began considering the idea of adoption.  Ultimately the goal for us is to have a baby.  But I have always wanted to be pregnant.  There are many good reasons to adopt and there are many good reasons to do the IVF, but I know ultimately I have to decide how important it is to be pregnant. Steve was totally and completely supportive of whatever decision I decided to make (because let's be honest, I had to make this decision but I didn't resent that because he assured me he was fine with anything I decided). We decided to research adoption a little bit and wait to make any decision until after we dealt with the house.  Steve didn't want the pressure of decision making on top of the stress of house decision making and I think he was so right in feeling this way.

I had many preconceived notions about adoption.  My biggest fear about domestic adoption was adopting a baby, falling in love with that baby, and then having the birth mother come back before the adoption is finalized and taking the baby back.  I think that would be so incredibly hard!! I would hate for that to happen and have often thought I wouldn't consider adoption because of this fear. The other worry I had was about international adoption vs domestic adoption.  I've always heard that it's easier to adopt internationally than it is domestically, but it's more difficult to adopt a baby internationally.  I've only know a few people who were adopted or whom adopted a child.  My next door neighbor was adopted and her birth mother was a family member of her adoptive parents.  My sister in law's parents adopted two children from Romania and they were toddlers when adopted.  So I had many preconceived notions, but I knew I needed to get past my fear and get informed.  How could I make a decision without knowing as much as possible?

I started the adoption research process.  First I called a good friend in Florida who had been through all of the infertility options except for IVF.  I knew that she would be a great person to talk to about why she chose to do adoption over IVF.  She gave me some great advice and some really good resources to start with.  She explained how her adoption worked and how a few of her friends adoptions through the same network/agency had worked. From there I researched online and began investigating adoption agencies.  My friend also found me a website that links to each states adoption laws and that was a great resource to have. I also started reading a blog "Portrait of An Adoption".  Because November is National Adoption Month, the authors of this blog had a guest blogger every day of the month.  Guest bloggers included adoptive parents, birth parents, and grown adopted children.  It was an eye opening experience and gave me lots of things to think and ponder about.

Here's what I found out about adoption as it applies to me:

• Domestic adoptions are possible and not as difficult as I thought. You have a pretty good chance of adopting a newborn, but there are many steps involved in the process and the process may take a long time to get "matched" with a birth mother.
• An international adoption is probably not the best fit for Steve and I. I cannot imagine traveling to a foreign country and possibly living there for weeks or months on end to bring home a child.
• I love the idea of an open adoption, but it scares me at the same time.
• After reading things by adopted children that are now adults, I am afraid that if we adopted our child would one day resent the fact that we tried fertility treatments and feel like he/she was our "second choice".  I would never want a child to feel that way and as a worrier, I think that might happen.
• I do not care if I am biologically related to my child.
• Foster adoption sounds like a great option, but my state only features children to adopt on the state website that are older children or young children with major health problems.  I am not prepared to raise an older child at this point and I do not know if I want to raise a "sick" baby.  I know that may sound callous, but I don't think any parent willingly says "give me a sick baby".  If your child is sick you do what you have to do and I would be prepared to do that, but I just don't know if I could do it by choice.

I love the idea of adoption. But considering adoption at this point makes me feel desperate. Ok .. who am I kidding?  In some ways I am desperate to have a baby.  But I don't want that desperation to push me into a decision that I might regret later or into a decision that I am not fully on board with. And as much as I love the idea of adoption and feel like it might be an option for us someday, I am not ready to give up on the idea of pregnancy yet.  I want to experience all of the joys and pains of pregnancy.  Some day I might have to give up that dream, but right now I don't think I am ready to.  I might also consider doing embryo adoption over traditional adoption in the future.  This is especially true as I honestly do not care if my child is biologically related to me, but want to experience pregnancy. 

Another major influence in this decision is my health care coverage.  We paid for our first IVF and medications completely out of pocket.  If we do another round of IVF, we already have meds that our clinic donated to us.  Also, my insurance coverage is changing after the first of the year.  My insurance will now cover up to 50% of the costs of IVF with a maximum lifetime amount of $10000.  Between the insurance and the money we have saved, we could do 2 IVF's if we wanted to. 

After researching options and looking at the changes in our insurance coverage, we have decided to pursue another round of IVF.  At this point our doctor is positive that I will be able to carry a baby and have a viable pregnancy as long as we can get good quality embryos.  I want to give the option of pregnancy one more shot.  I don't know what the future holds. Adoption may be in the cards for us yet. And who knows, if it doesn't work, maybe we will decide that it's just better to be great Aunts and Uncles and give up the idea of being parents. I believe it's in Gods hands now and we can only try to walk the path he leads us on.