So in love with these two!

I meant to share earlier, really, I did. Time after time I wanted to click the “publish” button. But the timing never seemed quite right. Even though I haven’t posted in over and year and I don’t comment frequently on other blogs, I still keep up with all of the blogs that I read during our time trying to get pregnant. Every single one of them. And sadly, there is still a lot of heartache going on in the blogosphere. It seemed that every time I was ready to publish that blog post, there would be more devastating news. To make a pregnancy announcement in the wake of a failed cycle, miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy would just be in poor taste.

And so I waited. Waited for the perfect timing. And, as with most things in life, there really was no perfect time. There was always one reason or another not to say something. And after a while the fact that I was hiding a pregnancy kind of became a source of embarrassment to me, like “I haven’t said anything in X months…how embarrassing it would be to come clean NOW.” And before I knew it, I was in my third trimester.

The other day I was reading through my old blog posts. Both from after Nina was born and those from when we were still trying to get pregnant. Reading those posts made me realize how much I cherish having that record of all we experienced on our path to parenthood and beyond. And it made me realize how much I want to continue that record so that I can look back on these times and remember all of the details that so quickly become fuzzy in my head.

So I pulled on my big girl panties and clicked the “Publish” button. And here we are. I’m 30+ weeks pregnant and due at the end of October with our son. Twenty six weeks have passed since that first positive test and neither my husband nor I can really believe that this is happening. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of how fortunate we are to be in this position.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about our family lately. I know that the chances of us having another child without the help of an RE are virtually non-existent. It took us two and a half years, 5 IUIs, 3 IVF’s and a whole lot of heartache to finally achieve that elusive pregnancy. I’m not sure that we can go through that again, especially since it’s not just the two of us anymore…there is a third person to consider now. I remember turning to my husband shortly after Nina was born and saying “we have to find a way to make this happen again.” I loved being pregnant, I loved being a mom and couldn’t fathom not having that second child that we’d always pictured. One of the women in my support group is 95% sure that she does not want to have more children, that the one that she has is enough for her. I just could not put myself in her place or even begin to comprehend how that could be. I needed to have those two children…how could I possibly stop with just one?

But as time went on, I began to question the idea of two children. Many women fear that they won’t be able to love their second child as much as the first one. My fear was just the opposite…that a second child would take away even one tiny bit of time, attention, love, snuggles or kisses from Nina. Nina is my world and I want nothing to take away from how special and important she is. As I tossed these thoughts around in my head, I became more open minded towards the idea of Nina being an only child. The concept became acceptable to me, especially considering all of the crap that we wouldn’t have to go through if we didn’t have that second child. I remember sitting with a group of friends from my support group telling them that while I not-so-secretly hoped that I would be THAT woman who had to jump through hoops to get pregnant the first time, then magically got pregnant naturally on her own the second time, I would still be OK if it was just the three of us. I feel so incredibly lucky and blessed to have Nina…it seemed somewhat like tempting fate to try again.

My vision of our future changed and I began to see us as the family that we currently are, not the family that I always envisioned us to be. And it was great. The stress of wondering how we would manage to get pregnant again faded away and all that was left was enjoyment of our family, just as we are.

All of that changed on Valentine’s Day, 2011. On February 14th, I got up, peed on a stick, and sat there feeling foolish for setting myself up for the disappointment that I knew would be coming in just a few short moments. I’d been there so many times before. Not really believing that I was pregnant, but still holding out hope that some way, somehow the test would be positive. Only this time, the disappointment never came. What came instead were two pink lines.

Shock. I was in shock. I’m pregnant. And there was not a single pill, injection, ultrasound or violation of my cervix involved. The only “assistance” we required to make a baby was a weeklong cruise with lots of sun, booze and sex, apparently. Yes, I am now that woman that all of the obnoxious doctors (Dr. Ass Clown included) use as their anecdote as to why you need to go on birth control after having a baby, even if it took you forever to get pregnant the first time. Now I can be the anecdote for the “just relax, then you’ll get pregnant” assvice. Of course, to be fair, I went on my fair share of vacations while we were trying to get pregnant the first time, lot of good those did for my reproductive batting average. As much as I hate to prove Dr. Ass Clown right about his assvice, I absolutely couldn’t be happier that in this one case, he actually WAS right. As I told him nearly a year ago, if we were to get pregnant naturally, that would be the best possible outcome.

And so now, here we are, waiting out the early weeks and hoping for nothing but the best. I am so, so terrified to even acknowledge the pee stick with two pink lines on it, for fear that letting it become reality will somehow take it all away. I try to downplay the importance of it by reminding myself that this was so “easy” to achieve and we didn’t have to make any time, emotional or financial investments, so if it were to go awry it wouldn’t hurt as much as if we had made all of those investments. And in the same moment that thought leaves my mind, it is filled with the realization that this would likely never happen again. This is our once in a lifetime shot to have a baby without a whole mess of interventions, and the enormous weight of the situation falls on me again.

Could be so lucky that this might actually work? Every fiber of my being hopes that we are.

At my ten day checkup one of the other doctors asked us again about birth control. I replied that we’d be over the moon if we got pregnant naturally and didn’t have to spend over $30,000 and two and a half years to have a baby. He reminded me that it can, and does, happen. He questioned why we needed IVF in the first place, and without warning, the waterworks came on. I tearfully told him that I have crappy eggs and that of 53 eggs retrieved during our three IVF cycles, only seven of them even made it to day five and of those, only three were blasts. He reiterated that without birth control unplanned pregnancies can occur, and I once again stated that that would be the ideal scenario and I’d really look forward to that. He gave me a look, and dropped it at that. It was as though my comments were the absolutely strangest thing he’d ever heard.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I noticed that I was all of the sudden getting less output from my pumping sessions at work. I replaced the membranes on my pump, but was still getting significantly less milk than normal. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, so a quick Google search suggested that maybe I was getting ready to ovulate, or get my period. Hmm. This got me thinking, as I had recently noticed the return of some obvious fertility signs. Some blood streaked EWCM along with the decrease in milk supply was a no brainer: I was going to ovulate. About a week later, I had some light pink CF and started getting cramps. Sigh. It was the writing on the wall…my period was coming. I remember complaining to my husband about my cramps and that it was a sure sign that I was going to get my period on vacation. In fact, I was so sure that I was going to get my period that I packed a box of tampons and a package of pads in my suitcase so that I wouldn’t have to buy them while on vacation.

All vacation long I waited for my period to come. And waited and waited. Those cramps that I’d been feeling disappeared and there was no more spotting to be seen. I felt great. Weird. I started thinking. Blood streaked EWCF is supposed to be a sign of high fertility and pink CF about a week later, along with cramps. Hmmm. It couldn’t be. I couldn’t be pregnant, could I? There’s no way I could be “that woman” and end up pregnant before I got my first post partum period, could I? I decided that if I still hadn’t gotten my period when I got home, I’d take a pregnancy test. Meanwhile, my mind was spinning. I was lost in a daydream about how absolutely fantastic and miraculous it would be if I were able to get pregnant on our own. How great it would be to have two children so close in age (challenging though, I’m sure). How much fun it would be to share my pregnancy news with my support group members and how painful it would be to have to break the news to my friend who continues to struggle with infertility.

My daydreams were bolstered by a rash of what I like to call “much easier than the first time” second pregnancies. Two of the women in my online support group have already given birth to their second kids and two more are currently pregnant. One woman from my real life support group got pregnant on her first IUI whereas her first baby took 11 IUI’s to conceive (her husband is sterile, so they use donor sperm/IUI). It just seems like the second time around is going a lot easier for many of the women that I know, so why shouldn’t it be that way for me too?

We returned home and despite my resolution to test, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The thought of it was too scary. Of course while a positive result would make me ecstatic, a negative result would signal the return of infertility, and all of the insanity that comes with it. I didn’t have any pregnancy tests on hand and wasn’t feeling brave enough to actually go out and buy any, so I compromised and took the only OPK that I had left over. It wasn’t even close to positive so I figured that I wasn’t pregnant and that I’d be getting my period any second. I kept waiting and waiting and waiting. Still no period. By this time it was two and a half weeks after that blood streaked EWCF and I knew that if I was pregnant, it would definitely show up on a test.

I bought some tests.

I POAS.

As the dye ran across the test, a faint second line came up immediately. My heart started racing and I was in shock. It can’t be. There’s just no way. I held the stick in my shaking hands and continued to stare at it.

Slowly but surely, the second line faded away and all that remained was the control line. The test was negative.

Despite knowing that the test was negative, I couldn’t stop myself from returning to check on it every few minutes, just to make sure the line hadn’t somehow magically reappeared. I knew that chances of me being pregnant were virtually zero, but I had managed to let myself believe that it could actually have happened. As great as it would have been if the test had been positive, I was surprisingly OK with a negative. It was a bit of a reality check, I suppose. A reminder that I shouldn’t let myself get caught up in trying to get pregnant again. The fact is that we probably are never going to get pregnant on our own. In fact, I’d be surprised if we’re ever able to get pregnant with a biological child even using ART.

As it turns out, I never even ovulated. I’m guessing that my body was gearing up to ovulate and just never quite got all the way there. Anyway, it’s now three weeks after that fake-out ovulation and my body is trying to ovulate again, and this time I think it’s for real.

Despite knowing that we’ll likely never get pregnant the old fashioned way, I find myself falling into the same trying-to-conceive-insanity that was my life not so long ago. Sigh. How does one let the return of fertility, or in my case, infertility, not rule their every waking moment?

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Things are going great.  Nina is such a doll and we can’t get enough of her.  She will be four months old next week and I honestly have no idea where the time has gone.  We are trying our best to savor every moment with her, and I think we’re doing a pretty good job of it.

Miss Ladybug

And…her right hand!

The left hand will do occasionally, but the right hand is really where it’s at. She makes me laugh when I’m changing her clothes and she can’t get to her hand because it’s in the sleeve of her shirt, she’ll try to eat her sleeve since she can’t get to her hand. I’m easily amused, what can I say?

We are having so much fun with Nina. I can’t believe that tomorrow is my last day with her. I’m back to work on Thursday and have been trying to soak up as much time with her as possible, hence the lack of posts lately.

That hospital holds nothing but memories of Nina for me. We took our birth classes there, had our version attempted there and finally gave birth there. It was the first time that we’d been back there since February 18th and it brought back all kinds of memories for me. I remember the excited yet scared and nervous anticipation I felt that morning as we drove through the dark city to the hospital. The way the front desk woman looked at me with big eyes and asked if I was alright. Waiting in the registration area and telling the woman who checked us in that we were going to have a baby girl that day. The walk down the same hallway that we walked just two and a half short months ago.

It was very powerful to go back to the hospital, this time carrying our sweet baby with us. As I toted little Nina around the hospital with people cooing over her, I realized for the thousandth time that she is for real. We returned to the hospital for the first time no longer anticipating the arrival of our girl, but basking in the glory of her. We’ve finally got what we always wanted so much.

“I never knew how much I wanted a daughter until I had one.”

Sometimes my husband is wrong. In this case he couldn’t possibly be more right.