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I did IVF for 2 years. What a world of misery that was! People talk about the physical pain of the shots, but that wasn't too bad. But going into a fertility clinic several times a week to get my blood checked, and feeling all the loss and longing and shame contained in that waiting room, the devastation of yet another period, the confinement to bed after an in vitro, the terrible mourning after round after round of embryos died--THAT was painful. You are sad and irritable, and a lot of that is the very serious drugs you're on, but a lot of that is the inherent sadness of infertility. I also gained 25 pounds (which I lost after I got my kids, thank God). You can't exercise for much of the IVF process, nor can you diet, because that would change your body chemistry, and you don't want that. I am an athlete, so giving up my exercise and watching my fit body turn into a weirdly bloated fat body was all the worse. Had I gotten pregnant, I probably would have said, oh, it was all worth it.
It was worth it in the sense that it drove home the fact that we are an infertile couple, and it just ain't happening. We will be adoptive parents or not. Biological children are not coming out of this body. I also realized what my limitations were. We could have done another cycle, but first I would have to go on mega steroids, give myself a false menopause, then try again for a 30% shot at getting pregnant. No, thank you!
I went through all of that IVF hell not because I was that invested in the experience of pregnancy, although it would have been nice to experience, or because I felt we needed a child that was biologically ours. I wanted a child that was 100% legally ours.
I won't go into details, but let me just say that my experience as a legal aid attorney representing birth parents in fraudulent adoptions REALLY shook me, as did attending meetings of adoption attorneys. There are some very unsavory characters out there. That was out. Knowing as I did that the adoption industry in the U.S. is grossly underregulated (Adam Pertman's excellent book, Adoption Nation, does a great job of setting forth the issues), I was very concerned about international adoption from countries that barely pretended to be interested in the rule of law. I also knew there were kids here at home I could parent. I represented birth and foster parents in juvenile court, and knew the need for foster parents. I also knew how poorly foster parents are treated and how maddening the system is, so I was hesitant about jumping in. But I did. God had been nagging me about that for years.
I feel like I am following the path God laid out for me, and we have been blessed with 3 kids, ages 6, 7, and 9, whom we hope to adopt by the end of the summer. It is an experience of enormous personal growth, to say the least. It is also HARD. 80% of the kids in care are there because of drug issues, so you can assume that the children you get will have been drug exposed, probably also alcohol exposed, and all have been very traumatized. They will have attachment issues, and possibly RAD. You will meet the most wonderful people through fostering, and you will also be confounded by the most idiotic bureaucracy. Your children will have very complex psychological issues and considerable medical ones after years of abuse and neglect. They should be seen by the most competent professionals available, but instead they will be seen by people just out of school who have no life experience, much less experience with traumatized kids, or they will be seen by ineffective placeholders. You might get some great providers who make a huge difference if you fight like a mother tiger against the idiotic bureaucracy mentioned above. You will have to educate your community, who will think you are a saint for taking "those children" into your home and heart, until their behaviors drive them or you crazy. Then you will be seen as overcontrolling and irritable. And you WILL be irritable, because foster kids are experts at finding what will irritate you, then doing that very thing in a million different ways.
It is a hard path, but it is very rewarding and life changing. It is gross to hear non-foster parents say this, but among ourselves we can admit that we do save children's lives. It is all-consuming. I cannot imagine doing both IVF and fostering at the same time. It is all I can do to do therapeutic parenting, but trying to do that while pumped up on steroids? There is no way I could do that, but it doesn't mean you can't.
Also, before I get massively flamed by parents who have adopted domestically or internationally, please understand I was going over why these options are not right for me. I believe God gave me the negative experiences with more traditional forms of adoption because He was determined that I fostered. It is a hard, hard road, and I don't know that I would have done it had there been some other reasonable alternative. So, He made the alternatives unreasonable FOR ME. Clearly, fostering was not right for most of you, and that's okay,too. I truly support adoption. I've started a foster and adoption group at my church, we've got all different types of adoptive families, and I love and respect them all.
Good luck with your decision on the IVF/fostering question!
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