One of the biggest decisions a couple who is struggling with infertility can make is deciding to start infertility treatment. It will affect everything from your finances to your time to your health. You’ll probably have a lot of long conversations. And that’s a good thing! Here are three conversations you don’t want to forget to have before you start infertility treatment.
Who Will We Tell?
Having a supportive and loving community to support you during treatment is essential. However, I suggest you and your spouse plan in advance who you will tell and when you’ll tell them. I think it’s very common for one spouse to be more private about infertility than the other one. It’s possible that you may not be not the same page about who you want to tell. Deciding in advance will save you stressful disagreements during your treatment.
Related: Keeping Infertility a Secret
What Are Our Limits?
I’ve written before about some of the ethical questions I had to confront before starting IVF. But even if you’re not doing IVF, you need to know your limits for medicated cycles and IUIs, too. Unmonitored medicated cycles and IUIs can lead to higher incidence of multiples. Many doctors will advise you to reduce multiple pregnancies so you need to know what your response would be in that situation.
It’s also a good idea to have an idea of your financial limits. Are you willing to take out loans or go into debt in order to pay for your treatment? How many rounds of treatment will you try before considering other options? You may change your mind, of course. But it’s wise to at least talk about these questions with your spouse before your start.
Also, if you’re doing IVF, you’ll want to talk about what you will do in the event that you end up with “leftover” embryos.
Related: When You and Your Spouse Don’t Agree About Infertility Treatment
How Will We Keep Our Marriage First?
It’s frighteningly easy to let infertility treatment consume your life. Take some time to come up with strategies on how you can keep your marriage your first priority. If your treatments fail, you’ll need a strong relationship as you decide what’s next. And if you’re successful, you’ll want to be in a healthy place during during those exhausting first days of parenthood. Having a child is a good thing, but don’t let your marriage take second place.
Talking can be hard.
These are not easy conversations and you may find it hard to agree with each other. It might be tempting to just ignore it and hope that starting treatment will magically make you agree. But that will actually probably make it even worse. So I encourage you to seek help from a counselor or trusted clergy if you need help
Have you had these conversations with your spouse? What other things do you think it’s important to talk about before you start infertility treatment? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
If you’re looking for more encouragement during infertility, be sure to check out my book, 31 Days of Prayer During Infertility.
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