Slippery Slopes and Incredibly Bad Timing

So another cycle went by with a big old negative result on the inhumanely expensive early pregnancy tests. I can't help but think that we've been plagued with horrible timing in our attempt to have this second child. We really didn't have any difficulty getting pregnant the first time (with Eliot) or the first two times this time around. Then the personal tragedies just started piling up.

As if having 2 miscarriages wasn't already traumatic enough, in the 6 or so months that we've been trying since the second miscarriage, at least 4 of the 6 or 7 times I've ovulated something has happened. The first cycle that we tried after our second miscarriage, one of my dearest friends (and aunt) died. The next cycle my great-aunt, with whom I had been close as a child, passed away. Somewhere in there I received my graduate school rejection letters. Then Kenzie, one of our dogs, became gravely ill. There was a reprieve in early summer, and I believe we did get pregnant if only briefly due to the symptoms I experienced and to the fact that my super regular period came abruptly 5 days early. Not sure what our excuse was in July for not getting pregnant, but my cat died this last ovulation period. It is entirely possible that our infertility - perhaps not the miscarriages - but the months when we haven't conceived can be attributed to poorly timed sex because of external stress factors.

Yet, tomorrow we have our first appointment with a fertility specialist. Rationally, I'm willing to acknowledge that we may not be pregnant because of bad timing and we just need to try harder. On the other hand, every period brings with it disappointment, grief and even greater stress that aggravates the remnants of libido I still have. I want to know if there is something else wrong that we might be able to avoid, prevent or circumvent. It was I who suggested that we take this step. I, who 6 months ago was adamant that we would not use interventions and that we would accept that were were only meant for an only child if it came to this. Now I approach this appointment resolved that I only want to diagnose the problem, and to discover what our options are. I cannot imagine the expense financially and emotionally of continued fertility treatments and IVF procedures. I say that now, but what will I say after another few months of unsuccessful attempts? The line that I've drawn in the sand has already been washed away once and redrawn. How far will we go to have another child? I've lost 11 months in this quest. When we started I was 38.5. Now I'm 39.5. Eliot is four this weekend. Even if we get pregnant next week, I'll be 40 when I deliver and Eliot will be almost 5 years older than his sibling. We'd hoped for just less than 4 years age difference. (Funny how we were so confident that they would be 4 years apart). I wonder what if anything will make us draw a more permanent line in the sand? Will it be exhaustion or sibling age difference or maternal age or financial expense of getting pregnant again? I wish I could know now so that I could have some definitive deadline. In the meanwhile, I find myself sliding slowly down this seemingly endless slope.

Hormone Induced Amnesia

I can't tell you how many things I've forgotten to do since we began this journey. As I was beginning to plan my son's birthday party, I was jolted by the thought of the birthdays we had missed: three of Eliot's first cousins; all in the 3-7 year old range, too, darnit. I mean if they'd been teenagers or infants, well, I could have gotten away with it, but when you are 3, you know it when you get a present from all but one of your family members. *sigh* So, Amazon to the rescue, but still... when your present is 10 weeks late, well, it hardly seems like a birthday present at all, does it. (sorry, Ava).

Children's birthdays are really only the most egregious of the lapses in memory. I also forgot our anniversary back in October, my parent's anniversary in December, and to send Mother's day cards to my grandmother and mother. I can't tell you how many times I forgot to arrange the dog walker (sorry puppies) because of some adjustment in my work schedule. I seem to live moment to moment. I can handle same-day appointments. I look at the calendar on my computer and see where I need to be that day and usually I manage to arrive there. But anything that requires preparation or forethought, like presents that need to be researched, bought and mailed 2 weeks in advanced: impossible.

Part of it is that I'm working more. There's no question it's difficult to juggle a kid, puppies, cats and a house when both parents are working. There's just less time for everything, and there's no way to describe the 100 meter dash that happens between getting home from school and getting the kid in bed. In a matter of 2.5-3 hours, there is the 20 minute bike ride to school, the extraction, the remembering to pick up the stray bits of clothing that he managed to spread about the preschool grounds, the 20 minute bike ride back home, the arrival home to the famished pets, the picking up of the poop that lines the path from the gate to the building where we store the bike, the doing of the morning dishes in order to clear enough space to pull something (usually left over or frozen) together for dinner, the feeding of the now starving pets, and all of that is before the 45 minutes of cajoling, coaxing and threatening to get the child clean before climbing into bed. [Does it strike anyone else how crazy I must be to actually want another child?] By the time 8:00 roles around keeping track of who has an upcoming birthday is the last thing on my mind.

Still, I really think that a big part of my absent-mindedness can be attributed to hormonal imbalance. Ok. Maybe not really imbalance due to actual hormones, but there is an imbalance of my system. Like 45% of my resting brain power is constantly churning away trying to figure out when we should have sex in order to get pregnant, whether we had sex the right time, whether that weird tenderness in my boobs means we actually got pregnant and then trying not to buy the super sensitive home pregnancy tests in order to see if I actually am pregnant. Then there are the hours spent researching why I didn't get pregnant or why I lost the pregnancies. The hours spent in doctor's offices or labs having blood drawn or at the acupuncturist all add up so that your brain is overloaded with the quest to have a second child. It's amazing I manage to dress and get lunch packed for Eliot most mornings.

I wonder if that what people mean when they stop trying. Not that they've stopped having sex (because that's when they all get pregnant, right.. when they've stopped trying?). I wonder if it simply means that they stopped buying the kits and the herbs and they've stopped thinking about it endlessly. I really don't know. I wish I did. I wish that was something I could do. It'd be good to have my brain back again.