After all our bad news lately, we have been talking a lot about what is next for us. We’ve been talking, thinking, crying and even laughing. We see 5 options before us right now.

1. Try Again with the full treatment plan

In many ways, this would be the ideal solution, because Mr. MPB and I already have some idea what we would be getting into. But, we both know that it is unlikely to occur for us. Based on our current diagnosis expectations, it is unlikely we will be able to afford the full treatment plan. We fully expect that once we receive the full treatment plan from Dr. B, this will trigger the official end of our RPL/infertility journey after almost 2.5 years and 5 lost babies. I am sure that this will take us on another emotional roller-coaster as we come to grips with our new reality, but I am confident we will figure out how to live with this.

2. Try Again with a partial treatment plan

This is probably not going to happen for us. We chose from the onset not to tell Dr. B about our financial constraints. We wanted him to design us the full package (i.e. we want the Porch with all the bells and whistles and upgrades). We want to know what he would recommend without any constraints to know what will give us our best chances.

Once we see that, we can then start to look at downgrading and what the lesser options will do to our budget and our chances of success (i.e. will we just be designing the ford pinto which will allow us to drive it until it explodes and kills us all). That said, I suspect both my husband and I are prepared to walk away from trying again if we cannot do everything on Dr. B’s list – neither of us want to go through another miscarriage, and if we cannot afford the best, we might just not be willing to take the ride. Honestly, for me, right now, it was one thing before to be willing to try again when we didn’t know the cause. But now, knowing my body is unknowingly reacting negatively to each one of our babies and ultimately ending each pregnancy, I’m not really interested in trying if I cannot at least give them a better chance at survival. I don’t see how I would be willing to try again both because I don’t want that to be my child’s short life. I also don’t believe that I can experience another loss. I’m not sure I can emotionally play the game anymore when the risks are so high and the chances of success so unbelievably low. If we cannot afford the full treatment plan this will likely be the end of our pregnancy journey.

All of this said, we will not make any decisions until we know and understand the final diagnosis and treatment plan options and chances of success.

3. Surrogacy / Gestational Carrier

This may be one of our best options moving forward. We have been spending a lot of time discussing and researching this option. We will undoubtedly also be spending a lot of time in the future discussing the same.

There are definitely some pros and cons for this solutions.

Pros include:

• Having our genetic child. But, we don’t really care about the genetic link, it’s not the most important thing for us.
• We will know the full family medical history.
• We will know with some certainty that no alcohol or drugs have been consumed by the carrier.

Some negatives include:

• Finding a carrier in a country that does not allow payment for such arrangements.
• Costs of potentially travelling internationally to pay for a carrier.
• Health risks of international IVF and premature births.
• Myself going through IVF – I feel like I’ve already had enough physical torture with 5 failed pregnancies, and I’m not sure I am even willing to go down that route.
• The emotional investment in the process – the uncertainty of a TWW. I honestly don’t know if I have it left in me to do this again. I’m afraid another loss would destroy me.

4. Adoption

Right now, deep inside my heart, I believe this will be our final route to parenthood. As we have been researching adoptioon for months now, I have written a bunch about adoption in the past multiple times (and I’m I will continue to). We have a lot of concerns, but we also have a lot of knowledge about the process and the risks.

Ultimately, we both know that if we want to have children, adoption is the most certain way to get there. We know if we choose to adopt, that with some time and patience we will end up with a child. There is something to be said about certainty. There is something to be said about loving a child in need of parents.

5. A life without children

This will likely not be our outcome. We have talked about this at length over the last year, and even more so in the last few weeks. While not having children would enable us to travel more, take greater risks, have less financial worries, go out for fancy dinners more frequently, and really do whatever we want (as I have discussed), we both know this choice would also mean something will always be missing in our lives. And, as my husband so eloquently put it the other day, if I have to choose either adoption or not having children, I’d rather take the small health risks related to adoption.

Once again, he is so right (I knew there was a reason I married this amazing man). For us, at the end of the day,

We want children to be part of our lives, and we will love and care for any child that comes into our lives regardless of how they arrive. We have too much love in our hearts to not share it.

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