Back to basics, kinda
You may have noticed (or not if you're new to these parts) that there isn't a whole of talk about my infertility here nowadays. After all, I got lucky, I got a 'golden ticket,' a miracle, a BAY-BEE! And believe you me, I don't ever forget that for a second.
Back in my teens and twenties, I swore up and down I never wanted to have children. I mean, I proclaimed it 10 ways from Sunday--never, not me, no sir-ree, etc. Mind you, I got married at 27 and was still swearing up and down I never wanted kids. But then something changed. I don't know what or how or when. In my mind, I could see A as a father and knew he'd be wonderful at it. I didn't have as much confidence in my own capacity to be a mother but knew I'd do the best I could.
By the time I was 30, I was ready to give it a go. Who'd have known that it wouldn't just happen? And then, when it didn't, and when three different RE's didn't know what was "wrong" with us, why we weren't getting pregnant, I became all the more determined. After all, aren't most of us raised with the notion that if we work hard enough at something, we'll eventually get it? So A and I pressed on...and on. You all know the drill: the tests, procedures, surgery, drugs, ad infinitum. Throughout it all, I remembered those years of proclaiming up and down that I didn't want children, and figured I was getting my (former) wish and being punished. Yes, irrational, but when you're in the grips of a fight for one of life's most fundamental aspects, rationality takes a back seat.
And then, a diagnosis by our fourth RE. Shortly thereafter, pregnancy, miscarriage, and pregnancy again, followed at long last by a baby. I remember always saying that if I did get pregnant, I wanted a boy. Again, I swore it up and down. But then, a bad quad screen and an amnio put it all into stark perspective for me. Turns out that I didn't care if it was a boy or a girl, so long as the baby was healthy and alive. Cliched, yes, but it took the terror of waiting 10 days for the amnio results to bring it all home for me in black and white. I will carry that knowledge with me always.
Why we got lucky when others who are so incredibly deserving are still fighting to get their miracles, I don't know.
All I know right now is that trying for a second child feels right to me, to us. J brings us/me more joy, love, and happiness than I ever knew I had the capacity for. Sure, there are some shit days where I just want to tear my hair out and scream at the top of my lungs, or perhaps go for a long drive and not return, but those are few and far between so I'll take the good with the bad.
The point of all this is to say that, at 37, I find myself at the edge of the cliff, looking down. I'm about to jump into the abyss, the trenches of IF, once again. We'll see what happens. Fools that we are, we'll try on our own for a few months, see where that takes us. And if it takes us nowhere, we're back to Dr. Blood to reevaulate. Ultimately, if a second biological child isn't in the cards for us, then so be it.
I'll go retreat under my rock now so as not to be pelted with the jeers of those still waiting, still trying, still hoping for baby #1. But before you cast that stone, please know that I'm just as scared, just as hopeful/hopeless, just as wishful as you are. And I'm hoping like hell that we all get what we wish for, be it a first child, a second, or more. Infertility isn't cured, and it isn't any less terrifying, the second time around.
