The Claw

I've been having trouble sleeping lately and last night I struck apon the oddest analogy. I was thinking about a blog I recently read where the husband and wife were at odds on how much money they should "invest" in fertility treatments. It's not something most couples have to deal with. The big questions are about timing and the number of children not how much is it worth, in dollars.

My first thought was to compare it to a lottery where you are putting down money on a chance that you will get pregnant. There are no guarantees, but if you "win" it will change your life and you get the thing you want most, a baby. But a lottery is too random for a fair comparison.

It is more like "The Claw" at the arcade. You know the one with the case full of big prizes. You can see what you want and it is right there in front of you, you can know exactly what it is you need to do. So you carefully manouever and position so that everything should be perfect. You take the plunge and wait, sometimes it comes up empty and you know that it didn't work. Other times it grabs something and you wait on pins and needles to see if it has actually worked. You can be so sure you have it but the moment before it reaches its goal the prize slips out of the claw and you end up empty handed.

Because you feel like you have some control, and you came so close last time, you keep pumping money into the machine hoping that this time you can do everything perfectly. As long as you have money the machine will give you the chance at the prize.

When you can not easily have children you are faced with the awkward discussion about how much is a baby worth to you. It seems almost immoral to place a dollar value on something like that. I always feel like a bad person just for thinking it. If you place a monetary limit on a dream then it can feel like you are limiting your desire to have a baby. Almost like you are selling out. It is such an emotional and personal debate that it seems almost impossible that two people will have the same limit.

If money was no object there are endless options(like the 65 year old woman who had a twins last year), but for most of us there are limits and it feels unfair and unnatural to be put in that position.

Of course my heart wants nothing more than to experience a pregnancy and to give my hubby what he wants so badly, a biological heir. Someone that looks like him, that will carry forward the family line that he has traced back some 16 generations. My head on the other hand argues that you can spend endlessly on a "chance" and there is only so much the heart can take. Every month is a heavy investment emotionally.

I read online about all of the people that are so far along in the fertility treatments, they have spent every penny for years on the "chance" rather than adopting a child and actually having a family. In NB there is a long waiting list for adopting an infant (8-10 years). So we are left to determine how much a biological baby and those first few years are worth.

How do you put a value on the experience of creating a life, the natural bond (both for you and other family), first words, first steps. (Head: labour and delivery, sleepless nights, diapers and most importantly the fact that babies are only babies for a brief moment.)

With this internal debate raging all night I can understand why I'm not sleeping but what I can't figure is why now? This has been going on for years but why the sudden distraction? Oh well, that is for another sleepless night.