Discussing a third

*milestone update*  Teeny Tiny officially has a vocabulary of 2 words!  If I ask "who am I?" she says "mama!"  If I ask "who are you?" she says "bay-bay!"

And now on to the real post.

As I was bitching and moaning about this period last night, it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks - I might actually be capable of getting pregnant on accident.  For the last 20 years, that's just never been a reality for me and suddenly, my whole comprehension of what could or could not happen suddenly shifted.

In the past, on the rare occasion I had a period, there really wasn't much to it.  I could get away with just wearing a pantyliner since my body didn't have a whole lot of material to expel.  Then I had my first postpartum period and of course it was pretty heavy.  Didn't think much about it since it was the first period in a year, of course it was heavy.  Then 2 months later, another period and again, it was heavy.  Now 2 months after that, and good lord I can't believe all this was ever stored inside me!

It suddenly occurred to me that hey wait a minute, this is a full, proper, healthy uterine lining I'm shedding here.  And I must have ovulated to signal the shedding.  This is happening every 2 months.  HOLY CRAP!!!
Now of course, my body changes don't change the issue on K's side of things.  But being responsible adults, we had a sit down to discuss the possibility and desirability of a third.  Many a man has been told his swimmers are no good only to be surprised later.  I figured we should discuss whether or not we actively want a third or if we should consider some form of birth control other than "it probably won't happen".

We have some reservations about a third.  But those reservations are pretty much the same reservations anyone has about having any baby.  Do we have the room for another?  Finances are already a problem, would a third be devastating?  How will that take attention away from the girls?

K's primary reservation has always been the IVF process.  Does he want another baby enough to go through all of that?  That's where he's really be teetering on the fence.

My primary reservation has been that I was so miserable during the newborn stage.  I love each new stage that the girls get to and I really don't miss the one I'm losing, how much of their development would I be missing because a newborn was taking all of my attention?

But I have been daydreaming about it a little bit.  How I missed out on newborn baby snuggles because I always had to put down the one that was happy and pick up of the one who wasn't.  How a lot of my misery was rooted in the fact that I simply didn't know when the miserable three hour loop would end.  I have an idea of that now.  With only one, K and I could switch off night time responsibilities a lot easier so each of us would get more sleep.  If I got pregnant today, by the time a baby got here, the girls would be old enough to go to the drop-in daycare center for a few hours if I got overwhelmed.  Heck, they would be old enough to grab my water for me if I got trapped on the couch.  That alone would be a big help.  Of course then the question becomes whether or not they would choose to, but that's a whole different issue.

I've thought about how I would do things differently.  I would probably try harder to get nursing down (I'm assuming the next baby would be a singleton born full term without all of the preemie concerns) but I would probably still pump.  Hopefully have the best of both worlds of being able to just whip one out when the baby was hungry as well as have someone else be able to feed it.  I probably wouldn't be so obsessed about my supply since I now know that my body will produce enough for three even if I just follow the advice for getting enough for 1.  And without the preemie concerns, I probably wouldn't be so determined to ensure that the next baby got only breastmilk, I don't think I would be as opposed to supplementing with formula for a full term baby.  That whole feeling of the world over my shoulder judging my every move, hopefully that wouldn't be there.  That was soul crushing with the girls.

So, we've come to the conclusion that while we don't have the same burning desire for a third that we had for a first, if it happened, our reaction would be celebration and not "oh shit".  We don't think it will happen, but we are looking at the reality that for the first time in my 38 years on this planet, it actually COULD happen.  That's pretty exciting!

We still have the same plan for the embryos in storage.  When the girls are about 3 and I'm about 40, we're going to really look at how strongly we want a third and decide if we want it badly enough to go through everything again.  Maybe since I now seem to be providing a hospitable environment for an embryo naturally, perhaps they would allow us to thaw one every month and just transfer it at the right time to see if it would stick without going through massive amounts of medications and expense.  But we'll make the final decisions then on whether or not we want to use the embryos we have or let them go.

Last night during our discussion, we pulled out the medical records from when this whole adventure began and did some googling on K's test numbers.  We wanted to know if his tests came back indicating his ability to get me pregnant was impossible or just improbable.  We didn't really come to a final conclusion on that (I think it was more on the side of improbable) because I stumbled across a new fertility clinic in the area.  For those of you that have been with me for a while, you'll recall that I despised the clinic that took over the one I was originally at.  To see a new clinic in town thrills me to pieces!  Looked around their website a bit more, it's MY doctor!  Woot!  While I hated the clinic, my doctor was awesome, and I was his last patient there because he had the same opinion of the clinic that took over that I did.  He's back in practice!  I emailed last night to see if they offer embryo storage because I'm currently sitting on a bill for the next year.  If I can get them transferred somewhere else, I'd rather pay someone else to store them than to put more money into that clinics pockets.  It's such a relief that no matter what we decide for our future, I don't think we're ever going to have to deal with my pain in the ass clinic ever again, I have other options!  So, if you're in the Pacific Northwest and looking for a fertility clinic, there's a new player in town.