Heartbroken

We've just come back from our trip to ask my mother-in-law to lend us the money for IVF. This was basically our last ditch attempt at having children together. The answer was no. She has the money, but it's all tied up. So that's that. We don't get to have children.

I was being a bit hopeful naming this blog the IVF diaries, wasn't I? Our savings and windfalls have all been spent on university debts, getting married and buying a house. Last year we spent our last £5000 on a holiday of a lifetime. My mum had taken me to California Disneyland in between primary and secondary school and I really wanted to do the same for my son. So we went and we had the best holiday ever. It was fantastic and I have so many happy memories from it. However, had I known then what I know now, I would have sacrificed that holiday for the hope of having a child. Hindsight is cruel.

I always saw my future being filled with nappies, bottles, potty training, tantrums and school plays. It looks like all that is only destined for my past. I'm so sad because I don't get to do it all with my husband and my son doesn't get to have siblings. I wanted to experience the pain of child birth because I missed out last time having had an emergency caesarean. I wanted to agree on names and enjoy keeping the pregnancy secret for the first few months. I wanted to go shopping in Mothercare again and buy maternity clothes and baby clothes. I'd left space in my life for all that. What will I ever fill that space with?

I'm not a career girl. I can't throw myself into work. I hate exercise so I'm not going to start training to run marathons or climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I'm not artistic, so I can't start making things. I already have one child so I can't just up sticks and go travelling. I just don't know what my future holds for me now.

I guess I'm feeling very sorry for myself at the moment, but it really is unfair that all this comes down to money. It's not like we're on the poverty line and we couldn't give a child a good life. We're earning enough to make sure our children wouldn't go without anything. We just don't have access to £5000 at once and we can't afford payments of more than £120 a month over the next 7 years to pay back a bank loan.

I can't quite believe this is the end of our journey, but it looks as though it is. We don't want to adopt because the idea was to have a child that was a bit him and a bit me. There are egg donation schemes whereby you can donate some of your eggs in return for a free cycle, but it's not really a free cycle. You still have to pay for the drugs and the appointments and you still have to pay extra for ICSI, and I'd need to lose at least 3 stone. Perhaps that's something we could save for, but it would be a long time before we had enough money and it might be too late by then.

My mother-in-law said that she suspected her late husband had the same problem. He had been married to his first wife for many years and they'd never had children. When he married my mother-in-law, they managed to have my husband, but she thinks he was a bit of a miracle, and they never had any more because it just didn't happen. His line was destined to end.

So very sad.