Waiting too long or waiting for the process to unfold?

A few weeks ago, I was asked to be on a panel called Worthy Women & Fertility in Downtown LA (if you're local come check it out, it's a free event on November 4). The topic, obviously, is fertility, but also the ideas around many women waiting to try and start a family. School, career, meeting the perfect partner-- these things sometimes take a while and ones biological clock doesn't give an F. 

I started thinking about this and wondering-- did I wait too long to start? Did I put my grad school and career and licensure process before starting to try when I "should" have been trying? I NEVER thought about this because it was always so clear to me that I started when the time felt right to us and I was still young. I was 30. That seemed reasonable.  But was that too old? Huh. Noah often reminds me that if we would have had a kid when we were in our 20s we would probably be divorced. Anyway. 

It really doesn't matter now. The whole age thing and the idea of choosing or rather pursuing a career seems like just another way to blame ourselves. There is truth to what happens to egg production after a certain age. But I also know several women over 40 who conceived naturally after they were told they never would. And a few that got P naturally by accident. We never know. Our bodies are uniquely our own and everyone has a different situation. 

I keep thinking about how everything in our lives had to play at just as they did in order to end up with our baby. It kind of blows my mind. Each BFN. Each devastating moment. Each time we had to pick it all up and start all over again. It all led to her. And I think about all the other stories I've heard like this. One woman, Lisa, we interviewed for our documentary told the story of how she adopted her son. Basically, after years of infertility and procedures and IUIs and IVF and miscarriages (I think they had 6 losses) Lisa's mother went to a hair salon where she bumped into a friend whose husband was an OBGYN. Lisa had just had a miscarriage, I think that morning, and her mother was pretty distraught. Her mother asked her friend to ask her husband to think of Lisa if any woman ever came into his office and wanted to give up a baby. In all the years he had been delivering babies, it maybe happened once. But that very day, it happened again. A woman came into this doctor's office wanting to put her baby up for adoption. She was in her third trimester and a few weeks later, Lisa adopted the baby. 

We never know how things are going to play out, or how timing impacts a situation. We do know there is such a thing as waiting too long, (starting to try when you're 50 probably isn't going to give you the best chances) but we also know that there is a lot of chance involved. There are also a lot of different ways to make a family these days. 

I hope I'm remotely coherent.

Also-- if there are any mental health professionals out there, there is a wonderful training opportunity in NYC called Coping with Infertility Training. I did this training a few years ago with renowned infertility therapist Helen Adrienne. It's coming up mid November so check it out!

Comments

[Laura]

I'm 39 and currently stimming for round 5 of ivf. I'm also single. I went to grad school and then
started a career. I never met Mr Right or even Mr close to being Right. I'm keeping the faith that my baby is coming. Hopefully this round! Thanks for sharing so candidly on your blog.

[Pamela O]

I'm glad I waited for the right guy -- we got married when I was 33 and he was 30. I just wish I hadn't chosen to wait until after the wedding to try to get pregnant. I was diagnosed with a rapidly growing endometrial cyst just a few short months after the wedding.

Two and a half years, two surgeries, one IUI, three IVFs, and one miscarriage later, I can't help but think we could have had a toddler by now if I hadn't had any silly Southern hang-ups about waddling down the aisle! (It was an awesome wedding, though...)

But we're still young in every sense but my ovaries -- I'm almost 36, he's almost 33 -- and there are ways to get around those pesky ovaries. We'll be parents yet, and probably closer and wiser for these years dealing together with things most couples are lucky enough to consider unthinkable.

We all have our own stories, and God only knows what the alternatives would have been if we'd made different choices. (If we had had a kid just after the wedding, my husband probably wouldn't have quit his job and built his freelance career, we wouldn't have spent six months in Istanbul, and so on. Still, I hope it doesn't take another two years for it to happen for us. But this is amazing training in abiding in uncertainty.)

[Whitney Parsons]

Life is funny. I was searching for something to do with Halloween and your blog came up. I am going through IVF right now after multiple MC. At 42, I am asking myself all of these same questions you have mentioned above. The one positive thing i have found over the last 4 years of trying, are the connections I have made with other women who are going through the same. Its really the sharing that helps all of us find out what options we have and that we are not alone in the experience. I will now follow your blog:) Keep up the great work and I wish you all the best!!

[Maryann]

I blamed myself all the way that I waited too long to try to have a baby, because I haven't met the right man until late in life. Now, pregnant with donated embryo, since my biology, due to my age has failed me (stared to try at 39 and after 3 years of failures moved to donated embryo). Despite all this, I feel very greatful to be pregnant and I believe that this is how it supposed to be.

[C]

Nice post. It's good the word is getting out that it's better not to wait if possible. My mother didn't have menopause until 56, had my sister at 42 and even accidentally fell pregnant at 46 (lost the baby at 6 mos gestation due to chromosome issue), all this to say I thought 35 was still young and I had a head start getting pregnant at 30! Not true at all, better to try to get pregnant at 30 than 35. (And apparently I did not inherit her fertility as I did terribly on IVF?) Most women have no idea 35 is indeed not "young" for getting pregnant and the number of older women not disclosing they used donor eggs doesn't help. I advise trying to get pregnant as early as possible. Why not career after babies?