Out of the Blue

Mo and I haven't seen much of each other lately.  It's football season, and I'm a coaching widow.  I'm used to it. He gets home after I'm asleep and leaves early in the morning.  We see each other on weekends, mostly.  So, today, I thought nothing of it when he woke up and asked if I wanted to go to breakfast.

We drove around a while, deciding on a place to eat.  Mo started talking about how overwhelmed he feels financially.  How it seems as though we are never going to drag ourselves out of this black hole of debt.  We discussed some things we can do to ease the burden (starting with selling our house back in our old town) and I told him that I was in no hurry to jump back on the baby bandwagon.  One thing led to another, and basically he told me that he is not going to take any more money out of the IRA for treatments.

As in NONE.

He said he wants to redo the testing that is covered by insurance and to keep trying naturally.

And that's it.

No adoption, no IVF.

He wants to focus on retirement.  He wants to ensure he still has some of that money left in 15-20 years when he does retire.  Basically, he said he's reached his limit.

I was shocked.  He has always told me that he'd spend whatever it took for us to be parents.  I always thought I'd have to be the one to say "no more, I can't do this."  I told him that I have, maybe, one more treatment cycle in me.  I told him that I want to move onto adoption.

He vetoed me completely.  It's not even on the back burner, as a last chance option, for him.  It's our baby, or no baby.  Period.

I just don't know how to react or how to feel.  I held it together pretty well, and was proud of myself for remaining calm.  I told him that I respected his opinions, that he was entitled to feel however he felt, and that he wasn't wrong for feeling that way.  I simply feel differently.

I know that, given time, he may change his mind.  I also know that he may not.  And, for the first time, we are not on the same page as to what the next step should be.  He wants to clear up our debt, our taxes and medical bills and lawyer fees before trying again.  I get that.  I can't, however, wait forever. I will be 30 in May...and I never thought I'd be having kids in my 30's.  And, to be quite honest, I can't imagine I will be any more fertile in my 30's than in my 20's.

I'm not making any decisions today, or tomorrow.  He told me later that he felt better just getting all of this off of his chest.  And that he knows he might change his mind later, when we aren't in such a financially dark spot.  I honestly believe he was simply feeling overwhelmed and, in expressing his frustration, gave vent to some other, deeper feelings, he had never voiced before.  Even he said to me "I'm not sure where all this came from."

I can't slip this under the rug and pretend it never happened.  It is too big.  And yet, I don't want to overreact too early either.  Things could still swing back the other direction before I feel like it's too late.  But, there is also a part of me that can now see a point in time where we might reach an impasse.  A time where I will have to choose.

I hope it never reaches that point.  If it does, I fear that my mind is already made up.  But, I'm curious, too.  I think most IF-ers think about this choice in the abstract, if not in the very real reality, during the course of infertility.

And so I ask: what would you, my fellow blogging buddies, do if your spouse wanted to stop treatments?  If they wouldn't consider adoption?  Which unthinkable would you rather face: a life of childlessness or a life of the unknown without your mate, and no other guarantees?

If it came down to it, what would you choose?  Your husband or a baby?

To OPK or not to OPK, that is the question

Knowing my predisposition to pee on sticks, it should be no surprise that, despite my obsessive negativity about our chances at natural conception, I have still been, well, peeing on things. (Or rather, into things, followed by a nice tidy dip. Much less messy that way.)

Anyway, I digress.  Here's my dilemma: I recently purchased the horribly expensive digital OPK's, thinking that they would be much easier to interpret.  And they are.  The empty, blank circle every day has left no doubt that today is not "the" day.  But I've been hopeful that tomorrow would bring good news and the baby-making could commence!

And now, I am out of sticks. But, there's a twist.  I THOUGHT today was CD18, which is very late for me to O. (I'm usually 28-30 days).  I've been using the 23rd as my CD1.

Only it wasn't.

That, my friends, was June's D&C.

CD1 was actually July 21st, which makes today CD20.  It ALSO means I didn't start OPK-ing on CD 12, like I thought, but on CD14.  Which, quite possibly, could mean that I completely missed my LH surge.

So, now I've got to decide whether to spend the $$ on another set of OPK's (at $25 a pop) and hope against hope that I'm O-ing late and will still catch it.  OR I can assume I've O-d already (at least a week ago) and wait to start again with the next cycle, and try to make sure I've got my dates right.

I'm leaning toward the second option, as I've also had O-pains earlier this week (that's something new that I've only had post-miscarriage.  I had them last month, too.) That, along with my CM, and my tendency to O earlier (rather than later) leads me to believe that O has already come and gone.

So what would you do, friends?  Chase the elusive or, given that it really DOESN'T matter when/if I O, give up the ghost?