What Would He Want?

I had my consult with Seattle Reproductive Medicine yesterday morning. It was not all that I had hoped for. First of all, they didn't give me any new insight. They told me that I have a year (more or less) to make the big decisions, because once I have to go off of Lupron there is no real telling how long it will be before I need another surgery and am facing even more damage (which I already knew). So I need to have a decision and plan in mind by next November (when my last dose will be wearing out).

The truth is, there are no answers. There are no guarantees that this will get worse, but a good gambler would weigh the odds in favor of my needing a hysterectomy in the next few years, and of my losing more and more reproductive ability every day that passes leading up to that point. My choices right now (given the best case scenario, which is that the Lupron does exactly what it is supposed to do for the next year) are as follows: Next November I can either; Use a sperm donor and IVF in an attempt to get pregnant on my own and freeze the remaining embryos for later; Freeze my eggs and have faith that they will remain viable long enough for me to find a partner; or Do nothing and hope I beat all the odds and get another chance. Choice number 3 isn’t really a choice as far as I’m concerned (I’m all for wishful thinking, but I won’t rely on *hope* while I watch all my options fade away), so that leaves me with IVF or egg freezing. For those of you who don't know, egg freezing and embryo freezing are two different things. An embryo is a fertilized egg, and it is more durable than an egg on its own. When most people think about frozen eggs they are actually thinking about frozen embryos, which is the more common practice since embryo’s have a much higher success rate when frozen. For someone like me though, freezing an embryo would still require a sperm donor, and as far as I'm concerned if I am still using some nameless, faceless daddy, then I might as well do a fresh cycle, which has an even higher rate of success. Freezing eggs vs. embryos buys a single woman the time to find that future partner, but eggs by themselves simply don’t withstand the freezing process at the same success rate as embryo’s. Until a few years ago it was a fairly uncommon practice, but new freezing techniques have made it a more reasonable option for young, single women with illnesses that may hamper their future fertility (it's primarily being studied as an option for cancer patients prior to their undergoing chemo). It gives them the opportunity to possibly have a biological baby with the future partner they haven’t met yet, even when their other options have run out.

I’ve been leaning towards IVF though, simply because egg freezing is still so experimental and the thing that scares me about it is that those eggs will be sitting there for however many years until I decide to use them, and then if they don't work it's too late and I’m shit out of luck. In theory it is a good idea, but it is also so risky. It just feels like a lot of money to spend with no guarantees, just to risk finding out 3-5 years from now (or whenever I decide to thaw those bad boys out) that they aren’t even viable and I’m out of options. Call me crazy, but maybe I’m not a huge fan of putting all my eggs into one (expensive and risky) basket... literally.

At least with IVF, if I become pregnant I know I didn't lose my chance, and if I don’t I  know I need to keep trying. Either way though, I won’t spend the next however many years worrying and wondering about some eggs frozen away in storage somewhere. But, the downside to IVF is obviously that I am doing it on my own, and if I do meet someone eventually I probably won't be able to have a biological child with them. This is the viewpoint the Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) was pushing on me yesterday. She said to me, "What if you meet the man you want to marry in 2 years, and all you have is a baby that's not his and a bunch of embryo's that aren't his either. You have to think about what he would want."

What he would want? What would he want?? I don't even know that "he" exists, how the hell am I supposed to know what "he" would want? Now I've got to make “him” a consideration, and my unborn baby a consideration, and every single person in my life who thinks they have all the answers on this topic (and trust me, everyone seems to have an opinion. Just today, one of the big-wigs at my company, who knows very little about me and I'm sure has only heard passing comments about what I'm going through [I’ve shared only the need-to-know details at work regarding my surgeries, mostly because I don't want any possible future decisions to effect any possible future promotions], came down from the offices on high and urged me not to have a baby on my own, no matter what. He said it's too hard for a woman on her own, and more importantly: no man would ever want to marry me if I was a single mom… It was all I could do not to laugh at him [at the risk of losing my job] and tell him that finding a man to marry me is the least of my concerns right now!) The worst part is that all those people (with all their opinions) will (undoubtedly) be looking at me with “I told you so” in their eyes if I (God forbid) don't take their stupendous advice and then the choice I do make fails me somehow. But what about what I want? I know I am being incredibly selfish right now, but seriously! What if "he" never shows up, and then I just wasted all of my opportunities because I was too busy considering what "he" may want. This should be about me and whatever future children I may have, and that's it. I had to fight the urge to tell the Dr. that if "he" wanted a say so badly, then maybe "he" shouldn't be taking “his” sweet ass time waiting to magically appear in my life! Somebody please remind me to discuss that with “him” if “he” ever does actually show up.

So yeah, I was irritated that she kept pushing egg freezing. Not because I'm entirely against it, but because all I want right now is to be presented with all the same choices a married woman in my position would get. I don't want to feel like I don't deserve the same options simply because I didn't fall for all that happily-ever-after bullshit when I was 22 (and I am not knocking anyone who did get married then [or even younger], if it worked for them, then that's amazing. I am simply stating that I am not that old. Not being married by 26 should not be the strike against me that gives everyone else the right to determine what is best for me in this situation.) If it (love) happens for me, it will happen in the right way for the right reasons (regardless of whether or not I am a single mother), but right now I just want to be given the facts and then be allowed to make my own decisions based on what I know I can handle. This woman doesn't know me. She doesn't know anything about me. She has no idea what I am capable of when I decide I want something and she has no idea what a leap it is to assume that I will one day have that elusive "he" she is referring to, and what a risk it would be for me to wait for “him” now. But then I got an e-mail from the clinic and all her pressure made a little more sense. They sent me a consent form for their Oocyte Cryopreservation Research Study, and they want me to participate in it. Egg freezing is considered to be so "investigational/experimental" (per their own paperwork), that they are still studying it all over the country, utilizing different methods to try and find the best rates of success (which means that while participating in a study, or doing egg freezing at all, you have no idea if you are getting the best possible method, because no one really knows what that is yet). She was pushing it, because I am their perfect candidate (no husband, and therefore [as far as she is concerned] no reason to want to have a baby on my own). At first I got kind of excited. I've read about studies before where all the costs are covered, and I thought; if I could get into the study I could freeze my eggs for that future baby daddy, AND still do IVF now if I wanted (both treatments are incredibly expensive. I don't know how I'm going to afford one, so I really don’t think doing both is an option... even though this is a suggestion I have heard over and over again. You just let me know when one of you wants to donate $30,000+ and then I am all on board for sperm donor baby now and frozen eggs for a rainy day [and the much anticipated appearance of “he”] later!) But when I read the paperwork I discovered that I would still be responsible for almost all of my own costs. That's when I got irritated, and the stubborn part of me wanted to call the clinic right then and there and tell them to sign me up for a fresh IVF cycle, just because I knew that isn't what she wanted me to do. That may be exactly what I need though. More stupid people to assume that I can't possibly do this all on my own (or that I wouldn't ever want to) and that they know best, just to push me over the edge into deciding that doing it on my own is exactly what I want. I never was good at being told I couldn't do something...

But then… I think about doing this alone, and I worry so much about not being enough. I refuse to take into consideration my future maybe-baby daddy (that was just the completely wrong tactic for that woman to take with me of all people), but I can’t help taking a future baby into consideration. It's just that weighing the needs of this unborn (currently non-existent) child, against my own needs feels so incredibly daunting. When I think about what it was that made my mother a not-so-great mom (what sets her apart in my mind as being incapable of ever really being there for me) it is first her weakness, and second her selfishness. The woman was always so concerned about her needs, her life, and her wants (all of which she was justified in having, she was just incapable of taking care of herself AND considering other people), that she forgot to see everyone around her (my brother and I included). She needlessly hurt people, and she stopped caring about what anyone else needed from her. When I moved in with my dad, she hardly batted an eye. Taking care of me, being my mother, was too hard for her; it was too much work, so she happily turned over the reins when it meant making her life easier. I don’t think I am anything like her, but I do share her genes, so I worry... What if I’m more like her than I care to admit? I have always vowed that when I became a mother I would put my children’s needs first, and the truth is that I really do believe that having two parents is the best case scenario for a child (and I get that the reason the RE is pushing egg freezing over doing a cycle now is because no one wants to be responsible for creating another Octo-Mom), but I also truly believe that having a child is the best case scenario for me. So, am I being incredibly selfish (and therefore just like my mother) to take what is best for me over what is best for my baby? I know I would be a good mother. I know I would provide more love and compassion on my own than many couples give their children. I know this deep down in my heart. But, did my mother believe that she would be a good mother before she had me?