The House always wins

Dream Sequence: I'm surrounded by neon lights flashing and the sounds of electronic bells clanging and people cheering. I'm at a slot machine, feeding in coins, pulling the lever over and over. People around me are squealing as they hit the jackpot on their first try. My machine keeps coming up lemons. I think if I just stick with this machine it will pay out eventually. I can't walk away because I know the moment I do it will come up 7s for the next person. But I never do hit the jackpot. I look up and see that I'm not playing Kung Fu Cash like I thought. Instead I'm pulling the lever on Infertility Horror. I realize I should stop and move on to a game with better odds, like blackjack. But I don't want to try blackjack, even if the odds are better, because I know the house always wins. In my heart I know I never will.

How do you keep the failure of IF treatment from coloring all of your decisions? DH and I are facing the end of treatments. We've met with a new RE and have decided to do one more IVF cycle, a closure cycle. He suggested DE, but DH and I aren't willing to go there. We feel uncomfortable with the 50% success rate we've been given. We haven't been all that lucky to this point, so why would we think luck would turn our way now? Of course, we'd be in the losing 50%. We feel more comfortable with moving to adoption if this IVF doesn't work. But even thinking about adoption, I can see how our view is skewed by our experience with IF. I worry, if we do domestic adoption, that we'll be the one couple never picked. If we do international, I fear we'll be next in line and the country will close down. We've seriously discussed adopting through the state, but my concern is that we'll be in the 10% of pre-adoptive placements in which the court doesn't terminate parental rights.

I know the probability of any of this happening is slim, but probability has not been my friend so far. We've beat the odds in so many unlucky ways already. I wonder if I'll go through the rest of my life expecting to be on the losing end or if this will fade with time. . . and possibly a child.

5%

That's what my RE, the one who I've been seeing for 17 months, said my chances are with IVF. . .5%.  DH and I met with her a few days ago and said a very polite, very cordial goodbye.  Her final diagnosis, given my FSH and E2 levels and the boatload of meds I need to get my ovaries going,  is that I have poor egg quality and DOR (diminished ovarian reserve).  She offered me the possibility of a "closure" cycle at her clinic if I want, but we've decided to seek closure elsewhere.  We have a second opinion scheduled next week, a third opinion scheduled the week after, and an adoption seminar to attend this weekend.  I'm assuming one of the clinics will encourage me to cycle with them at least one more time.  That will either be my "closure" cycle or my "get sucked back into the evil chaotic roller coaster of IF" cycle.  Isn't it sad that I can't even consider that this could be my "I'm pregnant" cycle?