Having second thoughts

Well all the reasons I have for the past 4 years been unwilling to do ivf have again been running through my mind the past couple of days; we started our first fertility treatments 4 years ago and that was the first time we discussed what we were and were not willing to do. And ivf was in the summer of 2003 on our "no" list. Just a few weeks ago I was wanting a break, and I guess emotionally that's still where I am. Although the thought of being pg thrills me to pieces, the thought of going through all those shots and procedures is totally overwhelming. I haven't done ivf before, but having done inj 7 times (with 5 iui's), I have a pretty good idea of what this will entail physically and emotionally (and financially one try will cost 3 times more than all 7 inj tries put together cost).

The CDC reports the IVF success rates for every clinic in the US. Unfortunately the info is always delayed so the most current stats they have are for 2004. The clinic we were planning to use that year did 37 cycles with women under 35 of which 11 resulted in a live birth, 10 between 35-37 (that's me!) of which 3 resulted in a live birth, and 9 for women 38-42 (no pregnancies). So if we only count those women up to age 37, they had about a 30% success rate. I know God is in control, and He could allow me to be in that 30%, but I also believe if He wanted me to get pg He could do so without IVF even though it hasn't happened in the last 5 years.

Well at the very least I decided to find out if there is ANY chance of having the ER the end of August. I left a message with the nurse, and I hope she calls me back tomorrow. I believe my next cycle would start around July 17 or 18 so I asked her if I started the protocol then (first birth control pills and then add in Lupron shots) would the timing be right for a late August ER? It seems to be adding up just right for me, by my calcuations if I started July 17 that would be about August 28 for ER which is good timing as they don't start the next cycle of ER until August 27, and that's also the first week of school for me so I'd have most of it done before school started. If she says that's not possible, then I think I just want to wait. I really can't see doing IVF while teaching MWF mornings from 8-11 as that's when most of the appts are and it would be nigh impossible to schedule all my appts for T/Th/Sat.

If she says it WOULD be possible, then I think I'll keep our appts for Thursday, but I'd still like more time to think about it. I think it would be a little easier to make this decision if we knew for sure that Lifetime and Ukraine are closed doors. Who knows when Lifetime will make their decision, but in terms of Ukraine we'll know by July 2 which isn't far away at all. Plus I am concerned about the potential strike at work and how that might effect us financially (in terms of whether we can afford IVF), and we'll know whether there will be a strike or not by July 1. So even if we follow through with our appts on Thursday (which is dependent on what the nurse tells me), I might still decide to say "time out" and not do ivf this summer. It's a tough decision to make. I'd put my body through just about anything if I knew the result would be giving birth to a baby, but it's hard to psych myself to go through it knowing the more likely scenario (70%) is that won't happen.