How My Family Was Made

They told us it would be easy. 
We were young, and our specialist was almost certain it'd be quick. So when my first baby ended up taking two years, nobody was more surprised than us.

We'd decided against a known donor and home insemination, and went straight to a fertility clinic. They recommended starting with IUI. But I don't get regular periods because of PMOS, so both times they had to induce ovulation first. And both times, it didn't work.

So we moved to IVF — and we decided to go straight to reciprocal IVF. I was always going to be the one to carry. My then-wife went through two egg collections. The first gave us a failed implantation, and then a chemical pregnancy — an early miscarriage, over almost before it began.

The second collection gave us our baby.

Our second baby was a little more straightforward. But it came with some complicated decisions.

We'd always said we wanted to alternate — that the second baby would come from my eggs. So we went ahead with an egg collection of my own.
It was disappointing. We ended up with only two usable embryos and neither of them stuck.

And then we were standing at a crossroads: do we use a frozen embryo left from my then-wife's earlier cycle, or do we wait, and save up, and try another collection of my own?
We chose the frozen embryo. And that embryo became our second baby.

We always planned for more. We'd always said three, maybe four.
After the birth of my second child, the doctors told me I probably shouldn't carry any more.
But I needed more. I wanted more. I felt, in my bones, that I was meant for more.
So we went ahead with another egg collection.

Bad idea. Terrible idea.

The medication made me manic. And then, after the collection, I crashed. And somewhere in that crash, my marriage went with it. A divorce.
Now there are embryos on ice that may never be used. That can't be donated. Potential life, sitting frozen, waiting on a decision only I can make.

How do I make that decision?

I don't have a tidy ending for this. I don't think there is one.

If you're somewhere in the middle of your own story — the waiting, the hoping, the grief, the impossible choices — I see you. This is why I do what I do. Because every one of these beginnings, however it turns out, deserves to be held.