I can’t believe we’re waiting on our 5th miscarriage.

I can’t believe I’ve been pregnant 4 times in the last year.

I can’t believe I’ve been pregnant 5 times and we still don’t have a child.

I can’t believe I’ve lost 5 pregnancies. 5 babies that should have been ours to love and snuggle and watch grow.

I can’t believe we get pregnant so easily but can’t hang on to a pregnancy.

I can’t believe we’re planning for IVF.

We’re at the end of the road. A road where we should have gotten pregnant on our own and had a baby. A road where maybe we had 1 miscarriage (which is quite common, but still heartbreaking and horrible) but then went on to get pregnant again and have a baby. A road where Clomid, baby Asprin, progesterone, and Lovenox should have worked. A road where we have a baby because every single test we’ve done has been negative for problems. All of those things could have happened. I wish any of them would have happened. But they didn’t and now we’re at the end of the road. The road where we conceive our child the good old fashioned way. But we aren’t really at the end of THE road, we’re at the end of A road.

Luckily, there are many roads.

Now we’re turning down a new road and if this one doesn’t take us where we want to go we won’t have too many more to turn down, but there will still be more roads.

The end of the road is terrifying. IVF feels like the end of THE road. If IVF doesn’t work it’s certainly the end of the road for 1) both of us being the biological parents of our children and/or 2) me experiencing pregnancy, labor, and delivery. Believe it or not I want to experience ALL of those things. Even the labor and delivery.

Before this last pregnancy we weren’t ready to be at the end of the road. IVF was on our minds but it was still distant. After our 5th miscarriage we’ve decided the heartache is too much and if IVF is the end of the road then we might as well get there so we can look at the map and find another way sooner rather than later. Maybe it will save us from some heartache and stress.

There’s a saying that goes something like, “It’s not the destination that matters, but the journey that got you there.” That’s not how I feel about becoming parents. Well, it’s actually just not that simple. I’m beginning to feel like the destination is the ONLY thing that matters. I used to think the destination was getting pregnant and having a baby.

I now realize the destination is becoming parents and raising children.

I would love for the journey to matter too. If the journey mattered it would be simple. We’d get pregnant on our own and have a baby. THAT would be the journey and I’d think it was the destination too. But that is not our journey so the journey can’t matter. Our journey is not and will not be that easy.

I hope the journey involves a biological child for both of us and a pregnancy for both of us to experience too. As we turn down the road to IVF the possibility of a journey with donor eggs, or surrogacy, or adoption are becoming more real and more likely. I wish the journey mattered, but I now realize that as the journey becomes more difficult the destination is the only thing that matters.

I don’t know what the rest of our journey will look like, but I know we’ll reach the destination.