So why am I writing today after months and months of NOT writing? I've actually been thinking about writing for the last couple of weeks - feeling like I had some things to work out (that's pretty much the only time I feel like writing). You see, my son turned one in December and I have been thinking about the whole trying again thing. And then when I logged on to catch up on my blog-reading this morning, I quickly scanned through the titles and saw that several of the ladies are pregnant or maybe pregnant or thinking about trying to get pregnant again. I guess when your baby turns one you start thinking about having another? Is it because the kid has been sleeping better and you are starting to feel like a normal human again? Or maybe its because everyone starts asking "when are you having another?" And while the rest of this post is mostly about how happy I am and how blessed I feel, please allow me a moment of bitterness - if one more person tells me that they are sure that this time it will be easy because "now my body knows how to do it," I swear to God, I will punch them in the face. I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. There. I feel better.
I have always imagined myself with more than one child. For most of my adult life, I pictured myself with a house full of kids. Than after the losses and the fertility issues, I resigned myself to two. But now I am not so sure. I know I WANT another child. I want that for myself, for my husband. I want my son to have a sibling. And ever since he was born, I was of the mindset that after he turned one, we would go back to fertility treatments and try again. I would get pregnant within the year and boom - we would have another baby before I turned 40 (you would think that I would have learned my lesson about making plans and timetables and all that, but some habits are hard to break ya know?).
But here's the thing. I am very, very happy. I feel better and more complete and more content than I have felt in years, maybe my whole life. Having my son, being his mother, watching him grow, parenting with my husband - these things bring me so much joy. I think I would be okay if he was my only child. In fact, I would be much more than okay. Its not what I PLANNED, but so much of the last few years are not what I PLANNED. I never PLANNED on losing my baby. Or having a miscarriage. Or having trouble getting pregnant. Or having a c-section. Or having chronic pelvic and abdominal pain (which is a whole 'nother post entirely). So maybe the whole "having another child" part of the plan will not happen either. Could I live with that?
I admit, around the one year mark, I started going down the planning road again. I completely weaned my son (BECAUSE I WAS READY) so I would get my period back and my cycles going (I never had a period while I breastfed - but a week after he was weaned Auntie Flow came rearing back with a vengeance. Oh and my big boobs literally disappeared overnight and I am left with what a friend of mine calls "Flapjack Titties." Boo.). I started thinking about the timeframe (we'd start trying in March or April because I've gotten pregnant twice in April so of course it would happen again right? Duh.). I called fertility doctors and centers to find out some cost information (I have different insurance now so we would need new doctors - oh and we have NO fertility coverage anymore). I made a budget and started working a temporary part time job to try to save some money.
But then I started to feel like, oh no.....here we go again. The "trying to have a baby" train - schedules and planning, worrying about timetables and money, thinking about injections and bloating and hormones and mood swings and lots of doctors visits with a toddler in tow and the waiting and the potential (inevitable) disappointment or, God forbid, losing again. I know I don't have to say this but, for some us, trying to pregnant is awfully hard on your heart and your body. Not to mention your bank account. And I will admit, the money is a big issue for me. It would all be out of pocket for us. We had 50% coverage at Kaiser before. And two incomes. So our three IUI's were totally financially doable. But now we have no coverage, one income and even older eggs. Multiple IUI's, IVF? We could blow through our savings. Money we might need for me to stay at home with my son for another couple of years. Money we definitely want to use someday to put down on another house (since we can't sell ours - we are SO underwater) so that our son can go to a better school. If the fertility treatments cost us nothing, I honestly think we would try. I think I could probably deal with the other stuff. I've done it before. But I don't think I want to spend all our money trying to have another baby when I need some of that money for the child who is here now. Before I had Finn, I would have spent my last penny trying to have a a baby. And I don't think I need to say that all the stress, heartache, waiting, injections, bloating, etc, etc feels MORE than worth it now that we have our son. I was willing to do almost ANYTHING to have a baby. But I feel different now that he is in my life. I feel content. I feel at happy and at peace. I am so very blessed. Do I want to do it all again? Do I NEED to do it all again?
So anyway....a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting on the couch on a rainy afternoon while my son was napping, thinking about all of this when it just occurred to me that.....I would be okay if my son was my only child. The thought sort of just came to me. I thought - "You are so happy right now. Finn makes you so happy. Things are good. You don't HAVE to try again. You would be OKAY if Finn was your only child" And this was a big shift for me. I had never, NOT ONCE, thought, believed or imagined that I would only have one living child. And once that thought was out there, it felt okay. I didn't say anything about this to anyone for over a week. Not even my husband. I just wanted to see how I felt about it after a few days. How that thought made me feel when I thought it again. And it continued to feel okay. When I talked to my husband about it, he was pretty much on the same page as me (have I mentioned how wonderful my husband is? Well, he is WONDERFUL.). He has many of the same reservations and concerns about doing fertility treatments again. We talked about possibly just trying the old-fashioned way.....knowing of course that this most likely means that we will not get pregnant again (I'm not gonna lie, he also mentioned perhaps just having lots of sex for the fun of it for a little while). We talked about adoption. We talked about how much we love our wonderful little son and how life would not be horrible if it was just three of us. It was a good talk.
So I think at this point we are not jumping back on the train. And I feel good about this.
But I will admit that when I saw the blog posts about some of the ladies being pregnant, it made me a little sad.
Update
9 years ago
