I think I'm done.

Before I left Nashville for the second time this summer, I had my annual gynecologist appointment. Since I was already there, I asked if she would check my AMH again.
Why not?

A few days later, the result came back: 0.64.

Another number. Another indication of diminished ovarian reserve. Another message telling me to follow up with a fertility specialist, as if I hadn't spent the last several months doing exactly that.

And something about seeing that number made me stop and ask myself a question I hadn't really allowed myself to ask before: what am I trying to do here?

I had already started one egg-freezing cycle and stopped after monitoring showed five follicles and my doctor estimated roughly a 30% chance of success. I had told myself I could try again. Maybe another month would be better. Maybe my body would respond differently. Maybe a different cycle would give me a different answer.

There is always another maybe.

What egg freezing actually costs

But fertility treatment isn't only follicles and AMH and percentages.

It is waking up for appointments. Blood draws. Ultrasounds. Emails. Phone calls. Scheduling. Rescheduling. Pharmacy coordination. Shipping. Refrigeration. Medication. Needles. Rearranging travel and plans and your life around the possibility that your period might start on a particular day.

It is also money.

I spent thousands of dollars getting to this point. And before my cycle started, I bought all of my medication. They tell you that you can wait, but waiting feels very different when you're the person imagining a shipping delay in the middle of a time-sensitive treatment cycle.

So I ordered it.
More than $4,000 worth.

I used about a week's worth, and now the rest sits in my refrigerator.

There is a very convincing argument that says I should try again simply because I already paid for it.

Fertility treatment has a strange way of turning information about your ovaries into information about yourself.

My body isn't capable.
I'm not where I'm supposed to be.
I waited too long.
I failed.
This was my last option, and I couldn't even do this.

I know those things aren't objectively true. But knowing that doesn't mean you don't feel them.

The drive back to Brooklyn

After getting my AMH result, I drove fourteen hours from Nashville back to Brooklyn. Somewhere during that drive, I think I finally understood what I wanted to do.

Nothing.

Not another protocol. Not another attempt to optimize. Not another round of trying to wrestle certainty out of something I fundamentally cannot control.

I want to let go.

I'm not saying I'll never have a child. I'm not saying I suddenly don't care whether I become a mother. I'm not even saying there won't be moments when I wonder whether I should have tried one more time.

I'm saying I'm done trying to secure that future through egg freezing.

I didn't fail

And for the first time in this entire process, I'm trying to believe that choosing my peace of mind is also a valid outcome.

Maybe this is what nobody told me: sometimes stopping isn't what happens when you've run out of options.
Sometimes stopping is the option you choose.

Making it official

The day after I got home, I emailed the clinic to cancel my reservation for the next cycle and ask about getting my prepayment refunded. They confirmed it the next day.

That was it. No ceremony. Just an email, and a reply, and a reservation that no longer existed.