Oh baby

I have been away from this space for such a long time. Its not that I haven't had much to say--I have so many things I've wanted to talk to you about, but what's been on my mind has been too painful to get out and that's babies. Specifically one more baby. For us.

It has never been our intention for the bean to be an only child. Well, OK, there was that period of time immediately after the bean's birth when I turned to the boy and said that I was never going to do that again! But that faded. After a few months I started to think that maybe I could go through it all again. We had hoped for two children, two years apart, so we started trying again when the bean was 18 months old. Even then, I'm not sure either of us were quite ready, but we knew we'd have 9 months to get used to the idea.

I got pregnant easily with the bean and I think we were both hoping that would be the case the second time. We were very superstitious about doing things the way we had with the bean--we inseminated at home, with no assistance from our doctor. This was the way we wanted it--just the two of us doing this thing together (and occasionally the bean waking up at inopportune moments). We soon learned that was not to be. I didn't get pregnant. Over and over again, it didn't work. I was still nursing the bean, so we started the long process of weaning. I still didn't get pregnant.

Our supply of samples from our donor started dwindling and we asked for help. I tried to hold on to my idea of getting pregnant on an unmedicated cycle, but we soon decided that we would throw all the medical interventions we could at this problem. Triggered ovulation, timed inseminations, Clomid. Nothing. We were down to our last try before we would have to make the impossible decision of whether we would spend all our savings on an IVF cycle with no guarantee of a baby or spend all our savings on an adoption with no guarantee of a baby, or just give up. In my mind, I had already given up. Even before the bean was born, I spoke to myself and to the boy about our children. They. There had always been two. I started talking myself into the idea of the bean being an only child and looking for the positives in that.

Our last cycle, we decided to try injectable drugs, which significantly increase the risk of multiples. We love multiples and if we had them, we would love the heck out of them, but we are also aware of the increased risks associated with a multiple birth. (Including the risk of losing your mind trying to take care of more than one newborn!) I had resisted injectables for that reason, but here we were, at the end of the road. So there I was, dutifully injecting my belly, sometimes multiple times a day, until I could no longer find a spot to inject in that wasn't bruised. I went to the doctor every couple days and had more blood drawn than I can keep track of. All the while, I had no hope.

I don't think I ever mentioned this here, but when it became clear that the bean wasn't interested in weaning at 18 month, I decided I would nurse through pregnancy. I had gotten comfortable with this idea to the point of being disappointed when I ended up weaning. I always felt that I would regret weaning before the bean was ready, especially if it ended up that I couldn't get pregnant again. I felt this regret so deeply, and believed so fully that I wouldn't get pregnant, that I decided to start nursing again even before we found out the results of our injectables cycle. I was actually shocked that we were able to get back to nursing after having been weaned for several months, but I was also very pleased.

Now, forgive me, but I have to tell this part of the story in even more excrutiating detail because I love it so much. I woke up 11 days after insemination and took a pregnancy test, which was negative. This was our 7th attempt in over a year and even more than the others, this negative devastated me. Fate has spoken, only one child for you. (Which is a huge blessing! We are so lucky to have even one! But we really wanted two.) I was taking medication that should be stopped if I wasn't pregnant, but continued if I was. I waited a couple days, until the day my period was due and took another test, fully expecting it to be negative, but I needed to confirm before I stopped the medication.

The boy and I were both in the bathroom getting ready and I set the test down on the counter while it developed. The boy glanced over at it and said, "Hey, what's that?" For some reason, I thought it was a joke and I was upset. How can you joke about this when my feelings are still so raw? I picked up the test and squinted at it and saw a shadow. A little faint ray of hope that darkened before my eyes into a reality that we had hoped for for so long.

Because I had started the process of convincing myself this would never happen, I've spent the last several months trying to convince myself that it is happening. Test after test, ultrasound after ultrasound. Are you really in there peanut?

And, oh the irony, that I weaned our bean in order to get pregnant but didn't get pregnant until after I relactated and started nursing again!

Babymaking--Take Two

Attempt #2 was meant to go the same as #1. We arrived at the doctor's office a few days before I was scheduled to ovulate, where an ultrasound was performed to see which ovary was at bat this month. The egg was coming from the left (the one the doctor told us was likely no good) and it wasn't quite ready yet. I was a little bit disappointed because I really didn't want to wait a whole month before we could try again. Walking out of the doctor's office, the boy turned to me and said, "I'd be OK with inseminating the left ovary." That statement changed our whole approach. If we don't care which ovary, then we don't need the ultrasounds. Without the ultrasounds, we wouldn't know when to use the hormone injection to force me to ovulate and we could just let my body pick the timing. If we don't care which ovary, we are back to the plan that we made before the doctor was able to convince us that we needed all of his help. It felt good to give my body a chance and so we decided to roll the dice on lefty.

It took a little work to convince the people at the doctor's office to just give us our frozen samples to take home (they really wanted to prepare them for us), but finally we ended up with a nitrogen tank in our living room. And we waited. And waited. Stress can delay ovulation, did you know? I was worried that I'd mess up the timing and we'd have wasted both the time spent waiting and the money spent on samples. I worried that the samples would thaw out and be ruined before we'd had a chance to use them. Honestly, it all started to get to me and I had a little meltdown. I started to feel like I would never be able to get pregnant from of all this checking and worrying and waiting. It all felt ridiculous and the stress was just too much. I finally let go of trying to control every aspect of this process and trying to be an expert at it. I gave myself permission to be human and, of course, that eliminated the stress I was feeling and allowed my body to get on with it.

The timing was the big issue. Attempt #1 was easy--doctor told us when to do everything. Without doctor's help, it was on me to decide when all this should happen. I was getting anxious that we'd miss it and I decided that would be the worst case. Its better to be early than late (but not too early). I finally got too nervous to wait any longer (I'd let go a little, but not completely) and I told sweetie it was time. We did our routine two days in a row and the sweetie was wonderful. There were some nerves the first month, but on the second attempt, the boy was a pro. Afterwards, we waited for confirmation that I'd ovulated. And waited (sound familiar?). I had planned that we would have one insemination the day before ovulation and one the day of. And I was wrong. We were too early by one day. The boy had performed perfectly, but I had let us down. And again, I let go and all my remaining stress left. We were both disappointed and started looking forward to next month so we could try again.

Not long after this, we went away to get engaged. We came back and I was a mess. Everything felt wrong in my, uh, girly bits. I decided maybe this trying to get pregnant thing wasn't agreeing with me. I'd gotten a bad cold immediately after inseminating the first month and now this? I was not amused, and not quite sure what was happening to me.

Now, before we got on this ride, the sweetie and I had decided how many days we'd wait before taking a pregnancy test. Too early, and you risk getting a false negative, too late and you're driven crazy with the waiting and not knowing. I wanted to have the day in mind before we started so that I wouldn't be tempted--I could tell myself to just be patient and wait for test day. Test day happened to fall on a Monday and all weekend, the sweetie was impatient. Test now, test now, test now!! Monday was so close, though, so I was able to convince the boy that it was best to wait.

Monday morning I woke up early, went to the bathroom, and took the test. With this particular test, you wait three minutes and if there are two lines you're pregnant, one line means you're not. I took the test, half awake, and tried to keep an eye on my watch without waking up too much. The night before we'd both said we thought it would be negative since our timing was off. I just wanted to see it be negative and go back to bed. I glanced over at the test. It was early, maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I thought I saw a shadow where the second line should be. I waited a few more seconds and looked again. Strange, the shadow had gotten darker. I rubbed my eyes and kept watching, wide awake at this point. Finally, I couldn't deny it any longer. I saw two lines. Two lines = pregnant.

I came flying out of the bathroom and crashed my way into the bedroom. I grabbed the boy and turned around, heading back into the bathroom without pausing. I'm actually surprised the boy was able to get feet on the ground before being literally dragged down the hall. There certainly wasn't time for such things as glasses. "Do you see two lines??!!" The boy leaned close. Even without glasses, there it was. Two lines = pregnant.

We looked at each other, speechless.

Two lines.

Pregnant.

It freaking worked!

Babymaking--Take One

Dear blog,

I have a secret. The boy and I are trying to get pregnant. More specifically, the boy is trying to get ME pregnant and although we've told a few family members and friends, it still feels like I'm divulging something top secret by talking about it here.

Until recently we've talked about children as a possibility for some point in the future, likely two years off. That all changed in March when I was "diagnosed" with endometriosis. I put diagnose in quotes because a definitive diagnosis can only be obtained through surgery. So, we suspected that I had it in March, but it wasn't until my surgery in May that we knew for sure. The interesting thing about having a suspected diagnosis of endometriosis is that, if you're not too familiar with it (and I wasn't), you'll most likely google it on your blackberry on your way out of the doctor's office. If you're like me, the first hit you get will inform you that its the leading cause of infertility among women. You may also learn that most women who are able to get pregnant with it, do so within 3-6 months of their surgeries. So, we decided to get moving on this babymaking thing sooner rather than later.

We chose to use anonymous donor sperm from a sperm bank that required a doctor's approval before they would ship to us. So, off I went to see the doctor. I was curious what he might have to say about our chances of getting pregnant with the endo. Well, he was very negative and suggested that we might have the best luck using intrauterine insemination (IUI), which is a procedure by which the sperm is delivered directly into the uterus through a long catheter threaded into the cervix. He wanted us to try only inseminating when I was releasing an egg from my right ovary, since the left ovary had all of the endometriosis on it; to use an injection to trigger me to ovulate at a specific time; and to perform two inseminations per month. He also wanted to put me on medication to stimulate my ovaries to release multiple eggs per cycle, but I resisted that one. We were adamant that we wanted to do the inseminations at home, rather than the office. Luckily, the doctor was open to this and showed the boy how to perform the insemination (and let us practice in the office with the speculum, which was interesting!).

When the time came, we went in for an ultrasound and learned that I was getting ready to ovulate out of the right side. The next morning, I had the injection to trigger ovluation and the following two days we picked up the sample at the clinic and drove it home for the inseminations. Two weeks later, I took a home pregnancy test. Negative.

I felt, at the time, a little uncomfortable with the whole process, to be honest. I eat organic produce. I've eliminated animal products from my diet and I'm working on getting them out of my home. Yet a month ago, I injected myself with a syringe full of hormones taken from pregnant guinea pigs. I'm starting to wonder if maybe there's a better way.