My Consolation Prize

It's 4dp3dt and I'm not feeling a damn thing besides my sore stomach muscles. Which is just as good because I don't really feel like thinking about anything during the 2WW. I don't feel like analyzing every little twinge or oddity. I would just rather relax and sleep until it's over with. My beta is Wednesday the 10th. Tomorrow I think I will return to work although I'm starting to dread it. Everybody knows why I've been gone and I don't want people asking if I'm pregnant yet or when I'll find out. I've decided that I won't officially announce it until we see a heartbeat on the ultrasound. Of course I'll blog about my beta results but not many family and friends read my blog anyway so I should be safe. Another reason I don't want to return to work is because I found out during my IVF cycle that one of my co-workers is two months pregnant. Yippee. So if this cycle ends up with a BFN then I'm not sure how I'll handle that. I might ask to switch departments. Brandon suggested that I just quit my job but I make pretty good money and don't really want to do that, especially if the military makes him stay here for another year or two.

Brandon and I discussed quite a bit about what we'll do *if* this cycle doesn't work. Are we willing to try another fresh IVF? Are we willing to do adoption? We're honestly considering just living childless for the rest of our lives. But who knows. But I did decide on one thing: if this cycle ends up negative then I will get a pretty sweet consolation prize. That way I still have SOMETHING to look forward to this year. My consolation prize will be a trip to Ireland. We will probably go sometime in the fall when it's cheap and stay for at least 10 days, maybe two weeks. I've always wanted to visit Ireland ever since I was a little girl. I want to see the castles and abbeys and the Cliffs of Moher and meet the people. Brandon isn't too thrilled about going, he doesn't see the point. As he puts it, "We're not big beer drinkers and that's all they have in Ireland, pubs!" but I just think he doesn't have the travel bug as badly as I do. He said if I'm interested in castles then we should go to Europe, they have plenty of castles there. It's true, I'd love to go see the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany (the one that the Disney Castle was modeled after) but I'm not really interested in visiting Europe right now. I'd rather go to Ireland. Nothing against Europe but I just think the people are friendlier on the Emerald Isle.

Some people have asked "Why don't you just save that money for another IVF?" and I realize that $2,000 would help with the cost of another IVF or adoption, but I feel that a vacation for the two of us would be really nice. Every other vacation I've taken has given me something to focus on and for once, infertility does not become the focus of our lives. That's why we take so many vacations! That is also part of the reason why Brandon and I considered living childless instead of trying more fertility treatments. I don't want to look back on the last 5 or 10 years of my life and see that it was completely consumed by infertility treatments. I don't want our lives to have revolved around cycles and medications and doctor appointments. I want to look back and see that even if we weren't able to produce a child, our lives were still fulfilling and happy. Travel really makes me happy. I love visiting new places, meeting new people and having those memories to look back on.

So if things don't work out and I end up with a BFN or worse, a miscarriage, then we'll be spending a nice two weeks in Ireland and just being happy with each other. In the end I can at least feel confident that infertility will not affect the strength of our marriage and may even make it stronger, whether we end up with children or not.