COLUMN: A fork in the road

There are points in life where we have to make decisions that change the trajectory of our lives. My husband and I are at a fork in the road, and our choice will determine what the rest of our lives look like.

After struggling with infertility for two years, we began going through fertility treatments at Mid Iowa Fertility in Des Moines. There we have gone through three rounds of IUI, intrauterine insemination, all of which failed to take.

In two weeks, we meet with our doctor to determine next steps. But really, it comes down to IVF - In vitro fertilization.

During IVF, an egg is removed from the woman’s ovaries and fertilized with sperm in a laboratory. The fertilized egg, called an embryo, is then returned to the woman’s womb to grow and develop.

It sounds simple, but they don’t remove just one egg. They need to remove as many as possible. The woman is placed on medications to produce numerous eggs in one cycle.

Forbes reports IVF as costing an average of $15,000 to $20,000. We are fortunate to have insurance that will cover some of the procedure, but we don’t really know what it will look like.

Let’s call IVF the left path in our road. On the right side, we have adoption.

I’ve always been interested in the idea of adoption, but felt it was financially out of reach when having your own child is a simpler way to go about the process of starting a family.

Only now, having my own child isn’t simple. It’s grieving an empty womb month after month after month. Each month comes another loss.

Both IVF and adoption take time to pursue, so as of right now, we’re looking at both options. It’s blown my mind just how complex the adoption process is. It makes me wonder, if as a country we are becoming stricter and stricter on abortion, what are we doing to help simplify or reduce the cost of the adoption process?

Now I’m not talking about helping the birth mother with expenses. I’m talking about administrative fees and government hoops we have to jump through to be eligible to become parents.

The first step toward adoption is the home study. During the worker’s first visit, you hand them a check for $1,500 just to start the process. In addition, you pay for the worker’s mileage and travel time.

Then come the hoops. You need to collect this for each of the prospective parents: birth certificate, marriage certificate, physician’s report, employment verification, tax sheet, general monthly budget, pet vaccination records, numerous reference letters, FBI fingerprints and an Iowa criminal record.

Of course these don’t come without cost either. The background checks, fingerprints and doctors visits will result in additional costs. My husband, Patrick, gets to go to the doctor in a few weeks just to get it signed off that he’s healthy enough to be a dad.

It’s demoralizing. The entire process makes you feel like you have to be perfect to be a parent. Like one toe out of line could derail the entire process before it’s even started.

The Nelson Law Firm estimates domestic infant adoption at $37,000 and international adoption at $42,000.

Again, how are we encouraging mothers to put their children up for adoption when those are the figures potential parents have to look at? I certainly wouldn’t consider it for that cost if I had the option to make my own.

I know there are some grants out there, and you can write off up to $14,000 on your taxes, but it’s still a hefty sum. Many of the grants don’t allow you to apply until after the home study is complete.

Those costs also don’t include the actual costs of having a child — car seat, stroller, crib, diapers, clothes, toys, formula and everything else necessary to keep a tiny human alive.

There’s also this stigma of infertility adopting as being “less than” those who could have their own but choose to adopt. Like it’s not noble to adopt because it’s maybe your last option.

And not only do I feel this stigma, we have to have our friends and family speak to what they think of our ability to be parents. It’s like applying for a job or a house but more difficult and deeply personal.

I recently read a book called “Infreakinfertility” by Melanie Dale. It helped me get through one of the darkest moments of our journey. If you’re going through this awful journey, I highly recommend the book.

In it she says, “I read somewhere that infertile women are second only to cancer patients in what they are willing to undergo to achieve a cure for their disease. I believe this. I would do anything.”

Either path we take will be filled with obstacles, but I know we will find a way to endure.