May to July '16 was more of family joys and less of emotional
turmoil. After getting back to Bangalore, I met Dr. Rashmi Yogish on
my Day-2 of the next month, and the question remained the same: "Another IVF Stimulation" (4th to be precise) or "Using both donor gametes"?
My
DH and I had different views this time, again. He insisted to go for donor
gametes, however I wanted to go for the last stimulation. My logic was
that if I have to go through all the physical pains of IVF procedure just to try
if I could experience motherhood, then why not exhaust my egg reserve
than using someone else's. No! I do not have a problem with donor
concept but I still have hope; maybe it's not the egg/embryo quality in
question but the environment where the embryos are expected to florish. However, ERA test conducted proves that my uterus is Receptive.
Also,
it feels a little weird to me. Imagine, I go through the entire IVF
process, successful pregnancy, labour and child-birth
and then have a baby who neither resembles me nor my DH. WHAT!!!
Wouldn't it be super-obvious that either we accidentally got our baby
exchanged in the hospital crib or used donor gametes? Come on! If you
are so OKAY about the no-resemblance part, then frankly
speaking, adopting a child is the best solution! Unfortunately,
in today's age also, infertility is treated as a taboo topic and an
inauspicious thing. I am not sure how well it is treated outside India
but we Indians are driven a lot by "what will people say/think?" and
that is more disturbing and frustrating than not being able to conceive.
Living in a metropolitan city like Bangalore, I have peer-pressure, I
feel horrible for the women in rural areas where women are abused and treated as outcast.
Doctor
was in agreement with my logic and wanted to give it a one last try
before concluding that its the uterus which needs attention, and not the
embryos.
So, we all agreed to go for the last IVF stimulation of my life! Yes, it was a declaration.
I have no idea how much one stimulation could impact one's body, and
here I am daring for the 4th one. Frankly, even if this fails, would
taking so much risk with my body be a complete waste? Huge amount of money spent on so many IVF cycles can
still be earned, but health gone bad once cannot be undone.
Anyhow, we went ahead with the decision of doing OPU in Aug'16.