me_irl

Not trying to poke a bruise, but depending on how important it is to you, where you live, and your financial situation, you likely still have options. At least in the US there are states that require insurance to cover IVF treatments.

I'm close with two couples who live in one of those states and took advantage of that recently.

One in their late 30s, IVF worked (~2 year process for them) and they're out ~$3k all said and done.

With the second couple, the wife was 44 when they started working with a fertility clinic, husband in his mid 30s. Unfortunately they were unable to produce any viable embryos from the wife's eggs, and the couple couldn't emotionally handle another egg retrieval attempt.

They still have a kid though, born when the wofe was 45. Egg donors exist just like sperm donors. So they were able to use the IVF process with donor eggs and the husband's sperm to get an embryo, and have that implanted. The wife was able to carry their child in her womb and be pregnant.

Egg donors are expensive, they say it was ~$30k. But they do have a few more viable embryos from that on ice, so they have the potential for multiple children out of it.

The clinic the second couple used also apparently had a successful IVF pregnancy with a 50 year old.

I know four couples that just needed some medication (I think it's just hormone pills and shots). There's also a similar amount I know who went the adoption route.

I'm most familiar with the second IVF couple's journey, as they tend to be open people, they more often needed someone to just listen, and one of them is related to me. Their approach struck a chord with my wife and I, and effected our own discussions on having children: "Once you've decided to have a kid, if that is the most important part of it to you, sometimes you just need to just work your way down your options to find out how they'll get here".

If you're comfortable in your decision, if you truly know that options aren't available for you through talks with a doctor, if you tried and found that it was just too much emotionally... I mean no shade or judgement. I just know a surprising amount of people who have had fertility issues, and people don't tend to talk about it, so there's a good chunk of people out there simply unaware of the chances they might have.

Apologies for the ramble. This is very near and dear to me, just hope it helps someone.