Many people, if not most, come to adoption as a way to grow their family after trying to conceive a biological child and failing. I know there are people out there who don't fit this mold, but I think it's a reasonable assumption that many do.

Some people start thinking about adoption early on in their venture into the realm of fertility treatments. For some people it's the very last resort. In my family, we had one of each. After my first miscarriage I started thinking about adoption but it wasn't until after my last miscarriage (mc #5) that my husband started thinking about it.

But how much is too much? Should you just let nature take its course? Should you undergo tests and evaluations? Try fertility drugs like clomid? Get shots? IVF? Surrogacy? Use donor eggs or donor sperm?

When is enough, enough?

This is a very, very personal decision. Only you and your partner can decide how much is enough. My husband and I drew the line at anything more than fertility drugs; our problem was not the conceiving part, anyway, but the staying pregnant part. I was not interested in IVF or donor sperm or eggs or surrogacy. But that is me, not you.

I know a woman, a former co-worker, who is on her 4th IVF attempt after 5 years of trying She's just switched fertility clinics to see if a new clinic will have better results. Her brother's girlfriend just chose adoption for the child she and my friend's brother conceived...and my friend and her husband didn't even consider adopting her nephew.

???????

Here's an excellent discussion of things to think about when starting fertility treatments and deciding when to stop. For us it was a matter of time as well as emotional drain. We wanted our children to be closer in age then they would be if we kept trying.

I will say that the day we adopted our son I wondered why we hadn't done it sooner. Compared to the 2 1/2 years of trying to get pregnant and losing the pregnancies and all that uncertainty month after month after month...it was the easiest way to get a baby that I could imagine. Paperwork, money, travel - voila - here's your child.