# When do we admit defeat?



## edroses (Aug 30, 2013)

At what point is it time to admit defeat? It's been a few years of trying and I'm not sure I can keep going through the heartache of each cycle. Isn't it easier to just give up? How do you motivate yourselves to keep going?


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## Clairabella (Mar 19, 2012)

I've been wondering the same thing edroses, when do you say "enough is enough" 

I feel as though life is passing me by while i wait for something that will probably never happen now but then keep trying to find the energy to think bout going again xx


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## Hbkmorris (Apr 7, 2010)

I also question myself every few months. I've had so many cycles I'm losing count and all negative one's not even a whisper of a BFP.. 

I think it's a lot to do with your inner self and to try and remain positive at all times. If you believe in miracles one day our dreams MUST come true. Saying that I've not won the lottery yet!!!!! 

I'm fighting age now so I fear my last cycle truly will be my last. Money and costings are the only thing keeping me from really carrying on. 

xx


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## Candy76 (Feb 19, 2011)

I haven't really got an answer either.

For us its a mixture of having run out of money and emotional energy.

We are a all female couple, so no chance of an accidental pregnancy.

Anyway, after 6 years of waiting for the next appointment or tx or recovering from a BFN / MC plus having lost most friends and having isolated ourselves from most people with children, we felt we couldn't put our lives on hold any longer. For us it was when we realised it would destroy us if we kept on having tx.


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## tattybogle (Oct 23, 2010)

I think there is no answer!
sadly it is usually when the financial and emotional debt gets so high that it risks your relationship with your partner that you decide to give up. I like to think that for me an accident could happen as the doctors have not been able to find a reason for my inability to conceive but in reality I am forty next year and have been trying for eight years. Deciding to admit defeat is never going to be easy and I feel for everyone in this position. Big hugs TB


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## becs40 (Apr 9, 2013)

We've admitted defeat. Before we set off on the ivf route we decided we would give it 3 goes. It was a hard battle to get treatment in the first place involving me really struggling to lose 5 stone because of other medical issues. We also didn't qualify for NHS treatment so cost was a consideration. Each time we tried the ivf I spent a couple of weeks before each cycle fasting for 4-5 days a week desperate to not even gain 1lb because of the clinic being so strict. That certainly didn't help us in the treatment. We decided to rush into our 3rd cycle before Xmas for 2 reasons, firstly we had a big family Xmas to look forward to as a welcome distraction but secondly we felt that it drew a line on things to look at other options in the new year. 
It is desperately hard and still very raw but at the same time feels like a huge relief to gave the pressure lifted. I've always said the most unfair thing with infertility is the constant building up and crashing down of hope. If someone had said to me as a teenager I wouldn't be able to have children I don't doubt the pain would still be there but you wouldn't endure that pain again and again every month for years.
We've always said we would try and adopt and think we would have done even if we'd been successful on the last attempt. So the hardest thing now is letting go of all the "little" things I'd always dreamt of, the moment you see that positive test, the first time you hear a heartbeat, first scan, telling friends and family, feeling it kick, planning a nursery and choosing names, the first words, first steps etc and concentrating on the bigger picture. That being we will have a child, we will be a family, we will have all that Christmas excitement, the first nativity, jumping in puddles, playing in the park, baking together, drawing and colouring together, cuddles in bed in the morning and hearing those precious words "I love you mummy". We can still have all those things and if I had to choose between which things to have and which to not have it's definitely the right way round.
It doesn't stop the pain of course not but each day becomes easier to see the long term picture and not the short term one.
The short answer is the time is individual to everyone and only you will know what is right for you but my advice is to try looking at the bigger picture and see if it helps to clarify your decision.


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## Rowan22 (Dec 29, 2008)

Hi edroses,
I don't know the answer and there's a sense in which we haven't given up quite yet because we're still hoping to have a child via surrogacy, though every week that hope gets less and less. I had to give up hoping that anything would happen naturally a couple of years ago because of health issues. We were rejected for adoption for the same reason (I'm afraid that's not always the answer, by the way, you're no longer in the hands of mother nature but social services can be just as cruel). I hope you find a way forward that's right for you. I'd agree about looking at the big picture, though. Is there any form of alternative parenting that might be right?

Rxx


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