It was just my husband and me at our kitchen table. All of the IVF supplies were out. Somehow, there were too many instructions, but also not enough. How do we know we’re mixing the medicine correctly? What if there’s an air bubble in the needle? What if there’s a really big air bubble?
I stood there half-naked with circles drawn on my belly to mark where to inject and where not to inject. And right as I was about to give myself the shot for the first time, my husband let out a nervous laugh.
I lost it. I was overwhelmed. Not just by the task at hand, but also by what the task would ultimately, hopefully, lead to: a baby.
I never told my husband this (or anyone else for that matter), but that night, I thought: I can’t do this. I’m throwing in the towel. It’s not too late to give up on IVF.
And yet, despite my conflicted emotions, it may surprise many to learn that we chose IVF proactively, not out of necessity, but because this is how we wanted to get pregnant.
Why we chose IVF
My husband and I delayed parenthood. We were both late bloomers. We both started new careers around 30, married five years later, and then a few years after that decided to try to have a baby. But by this time, I was 38 going on 39, so we chose IVF for three reasons:
- Delivering a healthy baby: At my age, the chances of miscarriage and genetic abnormalities increase. With IVF, PGT-A (preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy) can be used to screen embryos for chromosomal abnormalities before transferring to the uterus. Selecting a chromosomally normal embryo may reduce the risk of miscarriage due to chromosomal abnormalities and lower the chance of transferring an embryo with certain chromosomal conditions.
- Time and flexibility: We may want more than one child. As we age, our eggs only continue to deteriorate in quality, but with IVF, we will always have our embryos ready to go when the time is right for us. My age essentially becomes just a number.
- Money: Both my husband and I received fertility benefits through our employers, so the financial burden of IVF wouldn’t be as heavy as it might have been; a true privilege that helped us make our decision.
The right choice for our family
Don’t get me wrong. IVF is hard and expensive, and frankly, it is an emotional roller coaster. But I know in my bones that we made the right choice for our family. While my husband and I don’t have infertility diagnoses, genetic concerns, or really anything else (other than high cholesterol, oops!), because of my age, there are increased risks that keep me up at night.
With IVF, it matters less that I’m now 39 because doctors can carefully select the best, most healthy embryos.
That being said, we don’t know if our IVF journey will result in pregnancy yet. With one round of IVF, my body produced 34 eggs, resulting in 4 euploid embryos that are chromosomally normal. If the first transfer is successful, I’ll still have multiple embryos that could be used for future pregnancies, thus removing my age as a factor because they’ve already been deemed chromosomally normal and viable for pregnancy.
IVF gave us time back
My husband and I took our time starting our family, but we didn’t miss anything. We gained, we lived, we made memories together in our early and mid-thirties, and built a solid foundation for our relationship. And because of IVF, we hope to experience a healthy pregnancy and parenthood on our timeline.
They say time is our greatest, most expensive resource, and that’s exactly what IVF gave us.
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