After deciding to move forward with any decision, step two should be devising a plan to get out! This rings true for everything from buying a home to fertility treatments. There is an end point to everything. That little saying that carries SO MUCH weight, “This, too, shall pass”, is so very true. All things will pass, all things come to an end.
The sad part (one of many) about infertility is that you never want to stop trying for your dream. You never want to have to say, “I don’t want to move forward with these treatments anymore.” BUT, the reality of the situation is that you can’t go on forever. At some point you are going to have to realize what may work for others is not going to work for you. We had to do that. We had to make a decision to stop. When we did, we knew that we had tried everything, and continuing to “throw spaghetti at the wall and hoping it would stick” was just breaking us mentally and financially.
Our major fault…we didn’t have an end point before we started. We never expected IVF, and all the things we did after that, not to work. We never gave up hope. THEN, there was that day, after WAY too much money was spent, our mental health had suffered, our relationship was nearly broken, and our faith had all but disappeared, and we were in the trenches, we had come to the realization that continuing to move forward was insane. Literally, insane! We fully expected a different outcome with the same procedures. Yes, we switched doctors 3 times, but it wasn’t meant to be.
That’s when we took a logical business planning approach and applied it to our lives for every decision we made from then on out. We learned-When you make an emotional decision you will have an emotional reaction. When you make a logical decision you will have a logical reaction. From that moment on, every decision we made or will make will be made with a logical approach and an exit strategy. We DON”T get emotionally attached to a decision, and we know how it will end when we are finished.
A great example of this would be the fact that we are going to build a house-we are designing it with resale in mind. Although we plan to live there for the remainder of our lives, we have no idea what the future holds. Even if we do die in the home, the house will have to be sold at some point, so we are designing it not on trend, but with classic ideas that have sustained through time.
If you can’t devise a way out for yourself, then it is not a good decision!
If you make a plan to go through with something, know when you are going to stop. Literally discuss and picture what that end would look like, and feel those feelings. What does it feel like? What, if anything, should you do to prepare yourself for that possible end? Do it in the beginning, plan logically, so when the inevitable end does arise, you will have a logical, resolved response. You will be able to walk away without fear or regret. You will have RESOLUTION.
Written by: Dayna Mohan