Worth it?

This has been going around the blogosphere this past week and I normally read these things and move on, but I just can’t do it this time. I feel the need to weigh in.

It is no secret that I wanted to be a mother bad, so bad we were willing to do just about anything to get there. We put off fancy vacations, big purchases and a bigger house to make sure we could afford having a baby. We knew that no matter how we built our family, we wanted to have a child in our lives. We had explored adoption and were pretty serious about going down that road before the RE consult. We knew however we built our family, it was going to cost us. The truth is at the time we had no idea how much that would be.

The treatments and the losses were paid with an emotional toll like I never expected. They changed me as a person and they changed Rich & I as a couple. But they changed us both in a good way. I am a stronger person then I ever imagined. I had no idea of what I was and am capable of. Rich & I have a stronger marriage having already been through hell and made it back.

Parenting has been a struggle and a toll as well as a blessing and reward. C is the light of our life and a joy to have with us. I wouldn’t change anything about him or the struggles we had to get him here.

Yes, if I didn’t have to go down the IF road and could just look at Rich and say let’s make a baby this month and do it, I would. But I can now say I am respectful of the IF experience. It has made me a stronger person, given me life long friends who understand the struggle, given me a strong partner to go through life with and given me my precious son C.

So would I use a wish to go through it all again, absolutely. Was it worth it? To me, it most definitely was. At the time I went through it, it didn’t seem like it was, but now I can look back and say yes. And I will do it again. Maybe the path is different the second time around, as I am older and wiser as is my body and eggs, but the end result is worth the struggle. Be it IUI, IVF, adoption or just having C, the path is laid and we will follow it until our happy ending. I will be satisfied with the ending and know that the trip was worth it for the destination at the end.