The Start or the End?

I know. Where have I been? I was all revved up for metamorphosis and my butterflying sort of got caught in a lengthy net - a sort of Hamlet moment of  "To use a surrogate, or not use a surrogate: That is the question."

I'll get to how I answered that question a little later. But first, my little craft glue project. I know maybe you were expecting some great mittens and scarves or some crochet throw, but it's been like a bazillion degrees in New York so the thought of such things makes me want to vomit. Sooooo, I went in a different direction. Inspiration can come from all over the place and this time it came from a soon-to-be expired vitamin bottle.

My little craft glue project represents what I title: "The Start or the End?" Now we all know the first tiny little invasive step we take with our bodies when we begin to dream of our beautiful baby is the good old folic acid increase. Some go straight for the rocket ship of prenatals, but I went for a wimpier mix of multi-vitamins and folic acid tablets. I started this regimen in December 2005. I took those damn pills everyday with the few exceptions of bleeding/miscarriage/ectopic times. The folic acid was just the beginning of my hopes for having a baby. I've been off duty since my last IVF disaster and those pills have remained in the pantry untouched. So I've found a better use for them.

Now for all the folic acid pills I have popped, I would expect a baby by now with a brain size of Texas with absolutely no neural tube defects. So my little glue project is here to represent this fantasy of "Folic Acid Woman=Folic Acid Baby." The irony is clear. I have no baby. My folic acid pills are about to reach their end date and so have I expired too? Does this starter vitamin really represent the end of an era, the end of innocence, the end of carrying my own child? 

This brings me to what we've finally come to decide. After much flip flopping, agony, stress, and opinion polls among family and close friends, I think we are going to move forward with a surrogate. The start and end points of infertility get so blurred along the way. You might be ending one kind of treatment and then starting a new treatment. You might be ending IUIs and starting IVF. You might be ending using your own body and starting a better road in another body. We are all starting and ending on a regular basis in life. After being paralyzed by indecision, neither starting nor ending anything, I've forced myself to both start and end with a decision. I'm still not sure we are doing the right thing. But the fact of the matter is, I will never know until something actually works. The REs can make their case for trying another IVF on me and I can certainly make the case that I don't need more losses, more ectopics, ruptured tubes, and endless guesswork about the whys. Like any major decision, you have to look clearly at what you want and what you need. I WANT a baby. I NEED to do this in a safe and healthy way for me and the pregnancy. So now do I really need folic acid anymore?