Please welcome guest blogger Nina, from Queercents!

“The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.” – George Santayana

We’ll blink and find ourselves at the two year mark. Two years of trying. Time is one way we mark this baby-making business. When asked for an update, my partner, Jeanine typically rattles off the number of months we’ve been trying. I always speak about it in terms of dollars spent.

You see, I’m the money person in our family. I write about finance over at Queercents where I focus on how to save, invest and create wealth. It’s not a secret formula. Wealth boils down to two simple steps: 1. Spend less and 2. Make more money.

Well, we’re spending a boatload of money these days and temporarily it is altering our financial plan. This, of course, freaks me out.

As each month passes, we’re on the brink of becoming one of those crazy, desperate infertile couples spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the baby. Jeanine and I recently tried to have a frank discussion about dollar limits. We’re at the $45,000 mark.

The experts all warn that financial stresses can intensify the complexities with this experience. In Conquering Infertility, Alice D. Domar, offers insights into the coping process. She writes, “The stress builds as conception fails to happen the second month, the third, the fourth, the sixth. It grows as you start wondering if you’ll ever get pregnant and skyrockets when you see doctors, undergo tests, endure invasive medical procedures, and still fail to get or remain pregnant. The stress builds and builds and, in my experience, hits its peak after two to three years of unsuccessful trying. For many women infertility is the most upsetting experience of their lives, a tragedy that causes as much stress as does a life-threatening disease.”

What I’m learning though is that I’m reacting like a typical husband in an infertile heterosexual couple. Domar writes from this perspective, but many things apply to me as the non-childbearing partner. She continues, “Infertility affects every aspect of a woman’s life, from her relationship with her family and friends to her career. Often the first thing to be affected is her relationship with her husband, and for many couples infertility is the first crises — the first real test — of their marriage.”

“Most couples I counsel say that, looking back after their infertility is resolved, they realize that the experience brought them closer together, that they forged a deep bond during the process. While they’re in the middle of the infertility crisis, however, husbands and wives often find themselves out of step with each other. Although many couples agree that they both want to have children, I have never in my career seen a couple who are in the same place at the same time regarding pregnancy and infertility.”

I’ve learned that this has nothing to do with gender or being a husband. As a couple, because we are individuals, we respond differently to the infertility challenges. Another example told from the straight viewpoint but again, applies: Domar writes, “They ask themselves, ‘Why isn’t he [or she] reacting the same way that I am?’ The woman wants the husband to be more upset; the husband wants the wife to be more rational. They fight about it. They withdraw from each other.”

In our case, I believe I’m being more emotionally supportive and empathetic than a man might be. But then again, sometimes my practical side gets the best of me. Especially when it comes to money and that’s where we are at right now.

As far as I know Abigail Garner doesn’t have children yet, but she offered some great advice when I interviewed her previously about money. She said, “I recommend that hopeful couples agree on a financial cap in advance, and then take a break if they exceed that cap. Use the break to refocus on the relationship, get a sense of your financial picture, and reassess the tough questions about how — and if — they want to proceed. The relationship is in serious jeopardy when one or both of the people in the couple start to resent the financial sacrifice but won’t bring it up with their partner.”

Jeanine and I agreed that we would try three rounds of IVF. This is beyond the numerous artificial insemination tries last year. As we creep towards our third attempt, it’s easy for me to be practical and think we should move on to adoption or use donor eggs instead. But Jeanine isn’t quite ready to relinquish her role as bio-mama. This is where I need to be more understanding and less of a bean counter.

But “spending money” is riddled with lots of emotions and issues that predate Jeanine… most go back to my childhood and the unhealthy relationship my parents had with money. Childhood, parents, and babies — everything cycles in life and I’m learning through this experience a lot about myself and Jeanine. Hopefully, at some point, I will get to learn about my child. Another $12,000 might be all that it takes to get us there.

I give Queercents readers regular updates on the running tally. Here are the posts in case you want to see how I’ve marked the journey to date:

The Expense of Donor Eggs
Coping with the Cost of Infertility
Advice from Others
Lesbians Buy a Family
The Baby Making Business
Baby Race
Donor XY