Wish.

Of COURSE it takes me days to sift through all the crap I’ve been thinking and come to a clear, crystal edged point.

That, my friends, is why I blog.

So I finally figured out that my issue with trying for another kid has nothing to do with not being ready for another baby. Or another pregnancy.

On the contrary, if I found out tomorrow I was pregnant, I’d be over the moon. I’d of course worry about how it was going to all work out, but my overwhelming feeling would be utter happiness.

So my feeling about wanting another has everything to do with not wanting to go back to a doctor.

Because I am finally HAPPY. I love being O’s mom. I love everything about my life right now.

And I THOUGHT that I had finally made my peace with infertility. Because if we hadn’t been infertile, we wouldn’t have O. We’d have someone else. Who I am POSITIVE I’d love in the same way I love O.

But it wouldn’t be him.

Then I think about the idea of trying for another. And I go back there. That place.

Where I get bitter that it can’t be about me, and J, and creating a sibling for O.

It doesn’t work that way for us. It requires a visit to the doctor. To discuss at length my cycles post O. And cycle day 3 bloodtest. And then another HSG – because I’m sure Dr. HIT will want to be able to visualize Ute NOW, after she’s septum-free AND stretched out after a pregnancy.

And J will have to go, too – drive all the way the hell to Boston to do his thing for an analysis.

And then there will be the drugs. The estrogen pills. The patches. The monitoring of my lining. All while coordinating who does dropoff and pickup at daycare.

And then the transfer. Which J might be able to be at, but maybe not, depending on when it is and where O needs to be. So it’s entirely possible that I could get pregnant WITHOUT HIM BEING THERE.

And see, that’s where it falls apart for me.

Because I STILL WISH it could be different.

I wish that the only thing I’d have to coordinate and DECIDE is whether I’m as ready as I can be for another baby and having s.ex during the time where I’m ovulating.*

So really, what it boils down to is the fact that right now I don’t actually want to GO BACK there.

To that place where I have to use a third party in order to make a baby. To that place where I get USED to the blood draws, and the ultrasounds, and the stirrups. Because that was our NORMAL.

And that’s the part that sucks, the part I wish was different.

Which is funny – in a ironic sort of way. Because now that O’s here, IT DOESN’T MATTER how he got here. I love him THE SAME WAY as my best friend J loves her daughter, who was conceived without doctor assistance.

I’m a mom. He’s my son. And it doesn’t MATTER that I had to take shots and get monitored and have embryologists create him by injecting a sperm into one of my eggs.

He’s amazing, and awesome, and I’m so lucky to be his mom.

And I know that likely I’ll feel the SAME WAY about a sibling, should we be lucky enough to get pregnant again.

But at the same time?

I still wish that it was different.

And what it boils down to is this.

I wish we weren’t infertile.

And I suppose that will never go away.

________________

*My caveat: by saying this by no means do I assume that it’s EASY for EVERYONE. This is NOT a diss on fertiles. It’s just a wish for something that we can’t have.

Wordless Wednesday: Time Lapse.

(Or: How Did This Happen So Quickly?)

Click here for more WW images.

A little more clarity.

So my post yesterday got me thinking (big surprise, I know. That’s why I love blogging).

And talking with some of my friends, too, really crystallized the issue for me.

I think it all boils down to the fact that I feel like we have to make a DECISION to try for another.

BECAUSE we have to go to a doctor. Get more tests. Arrange insurance to ensure that we are covered for whatever it is we want to do. Plan dropoffs/pickups for the monitoring. Et cetera.

It’s much more a decision point now. Rather than tossing the birth control into the toilet and saying “let’s see what happens,” J and I feel like we need to say that we’re ready for another.

To justify the COST of having to go back to the doctor again.

Now, see. I DEFINITELY don’t think that J and I are ready to announce yes, we’re ready for another.

But. I think if I were to magically fall pregnant (HA!) we WOULD be okay, in the sense that I wouldn’t be freaking out about it.

Let’s call a spade a spade. It’s unlikely that we’ll conceive without doctor intervention.

And that’s the rub. Because it sucks that we even have to CONSIDER whether we WANT to go back to the doctors when it comes to thinking about building a family.

Because who said I had to be happy with one? Why do I feel like I should have to JUSTIFY my family building choices? Why do I have to be READY to start again, when others don’t have that issue?

But didn’t I say, when we were trying for O in the first place, that I’d be HAPPY with one? I mean, am I asking too much now?

Blah blah blah. It’s a bad rathole to go down, and there really isn’t much good that can come from it. We’re still infertile. We’re SO fortunate to have O in our lives.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try for another at some point.

And I think that’s where I stand today. Which, you know, is FINE. This year isn’t the right year to go back to the doctor. We’ve talked about going back to Dr. HIT next summer to repeat the tests and talk about the possibility of a FET.

And that timeframe is one I’m comfortable with. Right now anyway. I may get to next summer and decide that I’m STILL not ready. In which case we’ll readjust.

I still have no idea how far I’m willing to go for a sibling for O. Even now, thinking about a consult at my clinic sort of repulses me. I just don’t want to go back there.

Not physically. Not emotionally.

Anyway. I’m clearly sorting through all of this stuff right now.

Maybe it’ll become a little clearer with some time.

Tangled.

There’s a lot on my mind these days, but none of it really makes for a coherent post.

Case in point:

O has recently ramped up the tantrums. And the not listening. The throwing of toys. The fighting us over something as simple as sitting in the carseat. It’s exhausting, and it makes me sometimes question my worth as a parent. 

I HATE having to use my body to physically subdue him so that I can strap him into his carseat. I don’t WANT to overpower him.

I WANT him to sit in his carseat without fighting me.

But that’s not happening right now.

_____________________________

A woman on my board is in the middle of trying to donate her 3 leftover embryos, and when a match feel through because a couple chose another with 14 embryos, she expressed bitterness that they went with “numbers” over “quality.” Because she got pregnant with two babies from one transfer of two embryos. 

And I felt anger over her judgment of the infertile couple. Because, to me, embryos don’t necessarily equal babies. I mean, we went through NINE embryos before ONE turned into O.

The way I’ve always managed THAT part of IVF is to minimize the importance of the embryos. To me? An embryo represented a SHOT at a baby. And looking at it that way? Why WOULDN’T that couple go with the 14 chances instead of 3?

But O was an embryo.

And look at him.

So I wonder if I’m starting to grieve over the lost ones.

I don’t know.

__________________________

I am also growing increasingly conflicted over the idea of having another baby, a sibling for O. I mean, HYPOTHETICALLY I want him to have siblings – I am tremendously grateful for my own siblings, and I know J is happy that he’s not an only child.

Then, the SPACING of siblings is important too. Too much and it’s like starting over again (and they’re not playmates). Too little and well, you’re not really ready per se.

Right now through next year would space a sibling for O pretty darn well.

But the thought of going back to the doctor.

The monitoring.

Using up our embryos, having to think about another fresh IVF cycle.

Or the opposite: a pregnancy.

And then a newborn.

WITH a toddler this time.

I’m not sure I’m ready for ANY of that.

Truth be told, I’m not sure I’ll EVER be ready, either.

______________________________

So all three of these things are tangled around my heart and mind right now. I’m not sure how to break free.

I think right now, I’m wondering if I’m going to get the WANT for another baby. I certainly don’t have the desire right now. Mostly I’m TIRED and O takes most of my energy and (lately very low) well of patience.

How will I manage to find the energy to do this for TWO kids?

But.

Let’s assume I DO have some sort of desire for a baby which pops up in the next year or so. I mean, I keep and catalogue all of O’s clothing for the next one. J and I mention often having multiple kids. Et cetera.

So fine. We decide we’re ready, we want to have another.

It’s not as easy for us as it is for other couples.

No, it means seeing Dr. HIT again. And then repeating the tests on both of us. And proving to the insurance (new now!) that yes, we’re still infertile. And then the monitoring. And the transfer. And the progesterone. The 2ww death spiral.

And as we know, embryos don’t equal babies. We have three frozen right now – two from the cycle which gave us O, and one from our first cycle.

I’m not sure if the two from IVF #3 are frozen together. And I can’t risk a twin pregnancy, knowing that O was breech, early, and little.

So we can only do a single embryo transfer. Ever.

So maybe two tries. Maybe three.

Then what?

And then.

I wonder: Is it really even WORTH it?

Aren’t we lucky enough?

Maybe we should just be happy with what we HAVE.

_________________

I mean, clearly we don’t need to make any DECISIONS for a while.  And truthfully, I am okay with cruising for a while, just focused on our family of three.

And also. I am not on birth control right now – haven’t been for almost 18 months. (Come on, it COULD happen. Right?) So maybe we won’t have to make any choices.

Still though. It’s hard to ignore the pregnancies around us.

Or the innocent questions: “Are you thinking about another?”

Yes.

I  THINK about another.

But I come no closer to an ANSWER.

Wordplay.

Being home with O this week hasn’t been without its merits.

He’s talking more and more. Complaining, in his own language. In fact, yesterday at the pediatrician’s office, J said that O gave his doctor quite a lecture after she swabbed his sore throat.

(Not strep – at least not yet – first culture came back negative. We’re still waiting on the second culture. But his throat was very raw, so we now have an explanation for the lack of eating/drinking.)

But what is really exciting is that he’s saying REAL words now too.

Like, for example. Button.

Which, you know, is his favorite thing these days. Anything with a button gives J and I at least 5 minutes of quiet time, while he presses every one.

So yesterday when I walked past our oven, which is built up into the wall, he pointed at it and said “ba-TING!”

And I stopped. And said, “you want to play with the buttons?”

And he said “ba-TUN!”

And reached out with an extended pointer finger and pressed on the panel buttons.

So for the rest of the day, every time he wanted to play with my cellphone, blackberry, the remote, the microwave – he’d look at me, point, and say “ba-TING!”

And then “MAH! ba-TING!” (This when he had the remote in his hand and I wanted it back to turn off the TV.)

It was so freaking cute.

And a big deal, actually. Because button is the first two syllable word he’s said where the first syllable doesn’t mirror the last.

And I can say without reservation that watching him figure out language is the best part of being his mom right now.

I’m fascinated by the way he learns. How he’s been holding “conversations” with people. The housepainters (another post for another day. But I’m ready for them to be done!). People in stores. The cat (even though Puck makes it KNOWN that he doesn’t want to be spoken to – back turned. Tail twitching. It’s actually pretty comical).

And when O does this, even though most of his words are gobbledygook, his cadence and tone is EXACTLY what you would expect from someone speaking to another.

It’s just awesome.

And I can’t wait for the day where he and I can have Car Talk, too.

Accomplishment.

O has had a fever since Monday night.

It peaked at 103.1 on Tuesday afternoon.

Thankfully it receded from that high.

But it’s stubbornly remained hovering around 102 ever since.*

We learned the hard way on Monday night: Motrin on an empty stomach = me cupping my hand to catch puke before it hits the floor.

(And. Why is it that my defining mom moments are at 3:30 in the morning, when I’m covered in puke?)

But anyway. O’s not eating, because he’s not feeling well.

And given how sick he gets on motrin without having eaten, we can only give him tylenol.

Which lasts about two minutes.

So the nights?

Have been ROUGH.

He wakes up crying. I go into his room and give him some water and feel his forehead, hoping that the fever’s broken.

Then he puts his arms up and I pick him up. We rock for a ten minutes and he rests, his hot little body cradled in my arms.

Then I put him back into bed and he rolls over and goes back to sleep.

Rinse, repeat. Multiple times a night.

So I skipped my run on Tuesday morning, since I was up from the above puke incident from 2:30 until about 15 minutes before my alarm rang at 5am.

But I have another race coming up. Two weeks from today, actually.

So this morning, as exhausted as I was, I dragged my sorry ass out of bed.

And I ran.

And about 10 minutes into my run, I started to feel GOOD. Really good.

I didn’t do the entire 5k this morning – ran only about 4k.

But I ran the whole time.

And. After three nights of very interrupted sleep?

This morning’s run was my accomplishment.

*J has walking orders that, if O’s temperature is still high this morning, to call the pediatrician’s office. Can’t hurt to get him seen if they think he should come in, though I expect this is likely a virus.

Love.

I wish I had a witty title for this post.

But I can’t quite put into words how much I DIG my son.

And where he is right now, in terms of his learning (and mad skillz).

He’s just amazing.

It seems like he learns a new skill with every day that goes by.

He’s now into sitting in his own O sized chair to eat his meals. He has mastered the use of a spoon for his morning oatmeal applesauce.

And when he’s done, he reaches out his messy hand* and signals me to clean it off. Then he grabs bear and walks away in the search for his toys.

He’s talking more and more these days. He says a LOT of words we recognize – mama, dada, bear, maisy (meh-meh!), kitty, apple, out (“owwwww!”), car, ball, cheese, bink, me, (“ME!”)- to name a few.

But he’ll also come up to either J or I, look at us fixedly, and start a conversation. He’ll say “Dfadfakgb! Abtgrstoik!”

(And of COURSE we’ll respond with an amazed look. And say “Really? What happened then?”)

He knows that you talk on the phone with it up to your ear. He’ll pretend with most everything that it’s a phone, hold it up on his ear, then hold it out so that I can talk on it too.

Usually I say “Hello? HELLO? Oh! You want to talk to O?” And then I’ll give it back to him and say “it’s for YOU!”

So the other day, he held it to his ear, frowned and waited a beat. And said “mama?”

Then held it out to me.

You know, so I could talk.

[goggle]

He just recently discovered that he loves the slide at the playground. And he loves to run full speed (holding onto our hands of course) into the waves in the ocean.

He still loves his bath. He’ll stand up and look like he wants to get out, but when we ask “want to get out?” he will sit down back into the water as quickly as he can.

He comes home with more sand in his shoes from the sandbox than I can even imagine. His favorite sandbox activity at school is to pour it over his head.

He loves buttons. He wants to press the buttons on the TV when it’s on. He just recently discovered that his crib aquarium has a button on it to change the music. That’s his new favorite hobby in the mornings – we hear him changing channels over the monitor. Over and over and over again.

He’s also taken to helping me on the weekends. This weekend, for example, when I was putting clothes into the dryer. I’d put them on the open door for him, and he pushed them into the dryer. And he even closed the door for me when he was done.

It’s interesting. I really thought I’d be sad to leave the Baby O behind. There were moments where I mourned losing his infancy. Weaning, for example.

But he’s turned into my little boy. Complete with little boy stinky feet, dirty, skinned knees, dirty fingernails, and sand in his shoes.

And with each passing day, I am more and more amazed at the person he’s turning into. I love that he looks for us when he’s unsure. I love that he wants to be held and cuddled when he doesn’t feel good. Or he’s tired. I love that he will come over when I’m making dinner and want to be picked up.

I love this life I’m living.

I love being his mom.

*The left. Always the left. He uses his spoon left handed. He throws a ball left handed. He stacks blocked left handed. If I had to guess, he will be a lefty.

Wordless Wednesday: Starfish.

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Beating the proverbial dead horse.

On allergies, of course.

(AGAIN with the allergies! Oy!)

(I promise this is the last in the series for a while. Kay?)

I took O to the allergist this morning for his MMR “challenge.” They do a skin test and then a subcutaneous test with the vaccine. If both are negative, then he can get the vaccine.

The allergist told me that it was unlikely he’d have much of a reaction to the MMR – there was only a little bit of egg protein in it.

And O did so well. Both the skin and sub-q tests were negative. So he got the shot.

I also came clean with the allergist. Told him that we had been feeding O pasta that had egg in it and didn’t realize it until he showed signs of stomach trouble. I also told him about the ice cream incident on Sunday night.

He confirmed for me that likely O’s sensitivity to eggs WAS worse now because of the repeated exposure.

But he was quick to reassure me that there is a learning curve with allergies. And that O seemed to have a moderate reaction to eggs thus far, which is promising.

And egg allergies are VERY common in kids under 2. And most of them grow out of it.

All very good things.

Still, though, the allergist underscored the importance of reading labels. And he reiterated that we never know when O might have a severe reaction to eggs – avoiding is the only way to keep him safe.

Finally, we talked about the flu shot. He told me that likely O WOULD have a reaction to that, since they actually INCUBATE the flu virus in egg. He told me that if O’s pediatrician recommended it (which is likely, given the swine flu epidemic this year), they can “desensitize” him so that he can have it without a reaction.

It means a morning in the allergist’s office.

It means that they’ll give him 3-4 doses of the flu shot in escalating doses. And wait in between, to make sure he has no reaction.

So that’s that. And in the meantime, we just have to be vigilant about knowing what’s in the food he eats.

The good news is that since we eliminated all forms of egg from his diet, O has slept through the night. And now that he’s not so tired, his time in the toddler room is better. And he’s happier.

So that’s something, at least.

Anyway. Thanks to all for the comments and suggestions. And the support, too. It’s much appreciated here at chez Serenity.

Mindset shift.

O was HUNGRY last night.

After eating TWO hotdogs and some cheese and cucumbers and tomatoes, I decided that I’d share with him some of my favorite Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

Which he ate without question.

He adores ice cream.

A half hour later, I knew something was up.

He was crying and trying to get out of the bathtub.

Which NEVER happens.

He didn’t really want his evening sippy of milk.

And then I had to rock him a good 15 minutes in order for him to be okay enough for me to put him in his crib.

And within the hour, he was crying.

He had thrown up.

(I KNEW it when I heard him cry.)

I thought maybe he had eaten too much. Or that the hotdogs were too much for him.

I was hoping that he wasn’t getting sick.

So when J came in, holding the ice cream pint, and said “guess what has eggs in it?”

I just hung my head.

I seriously had no idea. Ice cream? Seriously?

It’s milk and sugar, frozen.

Apparently not Ben and Jerry’s.

This part is TOUGH.

Because we’re not used to reading labels. We’ve never had to think about what’s IN food before.

But if we don’t, our kid has a belly ache. And gets sick.

(And, you know, could potentially go into anaphylaxis shock and DIE.)

My best friend J, who has a host of allergies (and who I’ve tried to kill with nuts/fish before, too, btw), told me this morning that we shouldn’t feel guilty.

She says that there’s a learning curve here. A mindset shift.

I’ve been trying not to feel guilty about the pasta thing. Because we DIDN’T know that there were eggs in it.

And even though he’s likely more sensitive to eggs because we kept, you know, GIVING it to him… we didn’t know.

This seems different somehow. Yeah, we didn’t KNOW that ice cream had egg in it.

But it’s our RESPONSIBILITY now to FIGURE OUT if things have egg in it. To read labels.

So J and I have to change our mindset now. Before he puts anything in his mouth, we need to ENSURE that we’re comfortable with the ingredients.

We can’t just share what WE’RE eating with him anymore.

Because the SCARIEST part of all of this is that we don’t know what might happen the NEXT TIME he gets exposed to eggs. He might just have a similar reaction – sick tummy.

Or he might lose his ability to breathe.

And I would never forgive myself if something happened to him because I was too fucking stupid to do something as simple as read a label.