I used my credit card to pay for fertility treatments. It took years to pay the debt off, but I don't regret it.

• I struggled to get pregnant for years and couldn't afford fertility treatments.
• I paid for my IUI treatments and my IVF with my credit card.
• Although it took a couple of years to pay off, I don't regret it because I'm a mother.

By the time I married my ex-husband at 34, I had spent most of my "fertile years" actively trying to prevent pregnancy through various methods of birth control.

Little did I know I didn't need them.

I became sick with ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease, in college. After five years of illness, I had major surgery to remove my entire diseased colon and rectum. These two surgeries improved my health immensely but left me with a belly full of scar tissue.

When my ex and I began trying to have a baby when I was 36, nothing worked. At first, we tried being intimate more often. When that was unsuccessful, I spent months charting my periods and basal body temperature to try to time our activities more precisely. After more than two years of trying, we went to a fertility specialist. Ultrasound revealed that my ovaries were not where they should be due to scar tissue.

That's when I turned to credit cards to pay for my fertility treatments.

We started putting intrauterine insemination on the credit card

The fertility specialists suggested IVF or in-vitro fertilization, but it was so much money — more than $12,000 for one attempt. Before moving to IVF, they suggested we try IUI or intrauterine insemination, which is a more targeted way of timing. Basically, if an egg did get through, this would guarantee it met with sperm at the right time to conceive. IUI was hundreds of dollars per session, which I had to put on a credit card.

We tried IUI four times without success. Each period I got was devastating and made me feel like a failure. The nurse said, "Have you considered an egg donor?" I started crying. There was nothing wrong with my eggs; they just couldn't get into my tubes. I was so upset by the nurse's comment that I got into a careless, minor fender bender driving back to work.

We had discussed adoption, but that cost even more than IVF and would take another two years. I was already 39. While we both worked full-time, we didn't have extra money to pay for IVF.

My credit became the answer we needed

I got an offer in the mail from a credit card company. It said I could use a check against a line of credit. It would be a flat 3% interest rate on the amount of the check for the life of the balance until it was paid off. To me, this was like getting a 3% loan from a bank, which seemed like great terms. I could manage the monthly payment and pay it off before a baby would be born. I picked up a second job at a retail store on nights and weekends to help pay down the balance. We went ahead with IVF using the credit check.

The doctors made me read something about my low chance of success. At my "advanced maternal age," I had less than a 40% chance of IVF success. And even if it worked, there was a chance the embryo wouldn't stay implanted, and I would miscarry. We couldn't afford to do it ever again, nor could we afford the cost of freezing fertilized embryos to try to implant them in the future.

I didn't have the available credit to keep writing credit card checks. We agreed this would be our final attempt at becoming parents.

It was a success, and my kid is a teenager now

I had to inject drugs into my body every day before and after the procedure. Retrieving my eggs was difficult for the doctors because of the scar tissue; they could only get six. Four were successfully fertilized, and then there was a three-day waiting period to ensure they were viable for transfer. Three embryos made it.

I had to decide whether to put one, two, or all three embryos in, understanding that this could mean multiple births but also that the more embryos I put in, the higher my chances of success. It was my only chance to make babies. I had all three embryos put in.

I beat the odds and gave birth to my son. My son is a teenager now, and he is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

While it ended up taking several years to pay off the debt because I quit the second job after I had the baby, I have no regrets about using credit to pay for my fertility treatments. It allowed me to become a mother.