On my route to acupuncture, there is a home that likes to display wooden signs of inspiration and encouragement. When I pass the house, I usually read the sign and smile. Today, I wanted to stop my car, walk up to the cute sign, displayed on a small wooden bench, and stomp all over it. I dreamed of doing this while screaming a few swear words. “You get what you give!” was carved into a cutesy sign that smugly stared at me from the lawn. As if this never been pregnant, forty-two-year-old undergoing IVF, in the fourth year of her infertility challenge, hasn’t been giving it her all.
I second guess myself all the time and wonder if I’m just not giving enough. That if I somehow did more, we would be pregnant. If I wasn’t so anxious. If I wasn’t so stressed. If I stopped eating dairy. If I had a better sleep routine. If I knew how to keep my shit together.
My mind swirls with similar thoughts daily. Well, I only cut back on coffee, I didn’t stop all together. Those donuts that I ate two weeks ago are the reason I can’t get pregnant. The smoothies, cleanses, diets, positive thinking, the meditations, acupuncture, meds, it isn’t enough! I need to be doing more!
“You get what you give!” Such a bullshit saying. Sometimes you give a lot and don’t get much in return. Yet, a few years ago I would have thought differently. “Oh, how nice! I’m going to work harder as a writer, a teacher, a human. You truly do get what you give.” But now, what if you do give it your best and you end up with nothing? And who the hell does that person with the signs think they are?
Not that I’m ready to give up, but I’ve started thinking about things I would fill my life with if we didn’t get pregnant. Taking improv classes, learning a foreign language, traveling more, signing up for art classes. It doesn’t help that the funeral home near our apartment has started sending me brochures for how to plan your own funeral. Coupled with the AARP letter I received the other day, I’m feeling confused. Will we know when it’s time to say: We gave it our all. It’s not going to happen for us. We’re too old. Let’s figure out what to do now. I don’t know. I hope we realize, if we get to that point, that it’s time to stop. But, until then, we have no control over how things will turn out with our one embryo.
I don’t know. We don’t have any answers right now. All we can do is wait, and not drive past that annoying house for a while.
Stefanie Wielkopolan 
Most women, us included, never think that we’ll have trouble conceiving. Unless your family has a history of infertility or you have issues with your female plumbing, we just go on living our lives expecting a baby to happen when we’re “ready”. A friend told me when I was 36 to freeze my eggs… needless to say, I didn’t, so that is my what if. But the reality is, even if I had frozen my eggs at 36, that’s no guarantee that those eggs would have been any good. You will be a Mom of “advanced maternal age” just like me, but that shouldn’t bother you because you’re in better shape than a lot of younger moms. You do you. And ignore the house that spends too much money in the Home Goods and Michael’s sign sections.
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