This post is timely for me. I’ve been pushing the line for years. I’m now approaching 43, have depleted my resources, and I think I have to start closing the door and find a way to accept it. For me, it’s so hard to look back on all I’ve done and realize it was all for nothing. It feels like quitting at mile 25 of a marathon. I can keep running, but the finish line may never come.

My limit was try to age 45 / and to have enough money left to adopt, I really pushed the limits on age and money, but, somehow, I got very lucky, and adopted a healthy newborn girl at age 46 (and as a single person.) My daughter turns 7 next week. Best of luck, OP. I know how hard this is ((hugs))

Miscarriage #7, which was D&C #2 (the others were early miscarriages or “chemical pregnancies” which is a term I hate).

Our fertility doc said it was time to move on to donor eggs and surrogacy. DH and I were so emotional and financially drained that we just stopped.

We are lucky to have 1 DC and we cherish being a little trio.

Best of luck to you. It’s sucks.

I told myself 3 retrievals and that’s when we stopped treatment. We’ve had 3 early losses on our own and some weird uterine issue they’re still trying to figure out that could have caused some of the losses, so we’re also doing TI for shits and giggles. We never considered donor, but now that we’re there I can’t make up my mind about it (not that we’d move forward until the uterus mystery is solved). I don’t really want to do donor, but I also don’t really want to not have “this” baby.

That said, I think it’s helpful to set limits before you get too far into the process. But also know that it’s easy to say “I would never do X” when you’ve never been faced with the reality that X is your only option left.

no. i was just going to keep going. i think for some people having an end point is helpful. for me, the idea of making one added to the depression.

I keep moving the give up bar for myself. Originally it was 39 (i started at 34). I very luckily had my daughter after our second transfer and was fine for a year and then BAM the sibling need started and it has been hard. I'm now 41 and just changed clinics and am going in for attempt 6. We paid OOP for my successful round and have been lucky to both have jobs with insurance coverage - and double because i just changed jobs again that has new coverage hence trying again.

I have said to DH that this ER is it. There is a part of me that is not ready to quit if this cycle doesn't work. Maybe another year of TI just for shits and giggles? I dunno. But I don't have an answer and not sure I'll ever make peace if it doesn't work.

For TI we put a time limit of 1.5 years.

For IUI, we agreed to try 3 before IVF.

When came time to IVF, we settled on a plan for 3 retrievals and as many transfers as needed before reevaluating.

In my mind, I would want to keep doing IVF if at that point, for my husband, he wanted to explore adoption. Luckily we had got pregnant after our second retrieval and third transfer.

I found having a plan A, B, C and beyond extremely helpful to stay as optimistic as possible and to have a tiny bit of “stability” in a very unstable process.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, but I don't think I was as far in as you were. I said I wouldn't do IVF, only IUI, and when the RE said that IVF/ICSI would be needed with a 20% chance of success, I called it. (I want to be very clear that I'm not anti-IVF; I'm glad it's an option, but it wasn't the best option for me personally.) Due to a number of factors, adoption had a 99% chance of success and so that's what we did.

I understand the urge to keep trying once more. I wish you well.

That was us, too. We tried IUI with no success. The doctor recommended several other procedures prior to IVF to increase chances of successful outcome and I said no. It just felt like too much - unnecessary medical procedures, too much money, too much stress, too much uncertainty. At the time (almost 15 years ago), one IVF cycle was about the same cost as international adoption, but was far less of a sure thing.

Best of luck.

We thought we did but we couldn’t bring ourselves to stop. All the way down to donor egg and gestational carrier. We are not wealthy by any means, just took out loans.

Quite frankly, we ran out of money. And we were told our chances were 30 percent unless we spent a fortune on donor eggs. However even before that I was getting tired of the drugs and the emotional toll it all takes. I just accepted our “fate “ and closed the door. But I doubt we’ll ever have peace over that.

What we finally figured out is that there would be a line, but that we couldn't really know what that line was earlier in the process. What we concluded was that we need to try one method, then determine that wasn't working, then have a discussion about how we felt about moving on to another method. Incremental decision points. Within each decision point, we did have limits. There was a period of time we were willing to try IUI. When we got to ICSI, there was a period of time we were trying to do that.
Best wishes, OP. I know this is very hard.

Yes, but I don't think I was as far in as you were. I said I wouldn't do IVF, only IUI, and when the RE said that IVF/ICSI would be needed with a 20% chance of success, I called it. (I want to be very clear that I'm not anti-IVF; I'm glad it's an option, but it wasn't the best option for me personally.) Due to a number of factors, adoption had a 99% chance of success and so that's what we did.

I understand the urge to keep trying once more. I wish you well.

Just thinking through when and how I'll ever get off this roller coaster if it continues to not be successful