As you and your husband sit at home alone on this first weekend of being empty nesters, there is a lot to reflect on. There are, of course, the hundreds of miles you have traveled for high school and college gymnastics meets and musical performances. There are the awesome trips that you have been able to take your two daughters on. There are the hours you have spent around the dining room table playing 10 point pitch and various board games. Before all of these memories, however, were the far less happy times when you feared that you would not even be able to have children.
Those days with the infertility specialists were long and frustrating. Try as they might, fertility clinics three decades ago were not the happiest of places. The patient waiting rooms were so obviously divided. The haves and the have nots. The couples who have heard that they had finally conceived, those couples who have not. As bleak as some of those first appointments were, however, were worth every minute, every dollar, every tear. And while the idea of being an empty nester is a struggle, you simply have to remind yourself that you are happy you ever had at nest at all.
Reproductive Centers Help Patients Through Sometimes Complicated IVF Timelines
If you have never had to worry about getting pregnant then you likely have no idea about in vitro fertilization procedures. The fact that so many couples struggle to conceive, however, means that IVF timelines are familiar to many. These couples start counting days and hours long before OBGYN starts talking about months and trimesters. In the past, these couples earning to get pregnant charted temperatures and ovulation cycles, planned for daily shots and weekly appointments. While the doctor’s visits for a couple who is expecting grow more frequent as the time of delivery arrives, the doctor’s visits for a couple following an IVF timeline can go on for years.
The latest research indicates that as many as 44% of women with infertility have sought medical assistance. Fortunately, of those who seek medical intervention, approximately 65% give birth. Those nearly seven in 10 couples join the long list of 7.4 million women, or 11.9%, have ever received any infertility services in their lifetime. And also the list of happy parents who eventually get to sit at home alone as empty nesters.
