It's been a long time

I’m not sure if I’m going to blog much (or at all), but I do post on Instagram, so if you’re one of my blogging buddies and you want to see my super cute babies, ping me on Instagram (@mmuttreja).  My account is private, so I feel more comfortable posting stuff about the kids there.

I dropped off the face of the earth.  I didn’t mean to, but there it is.  In mid-August we welcomed Baby Miles.  My pregnancy was completely uneventful.  I exercised until I was about 38 weeks and then I just couldn’t do it anymore.  But I think the exercise made a big difference in making the last trimester bearable.  It was hot and I definitely didn’t love being huge in July and August, especially when chasing after 2 year old Max on a playground.  But I didn’t have the carpal tunnel or any swelling or any acid reflux this go around.  I’m not gonna say I love being pregnant – I do not.  But this pregnancy was a lot easier and more pleasant than my first one.

 

 

 I had a scheduled c-section for Miles.  I just wasn’t interested in trying for a VBAC and both my RE and my OB recommended against it given the events surrounding Max’s birth and the visibility of my internal scar.  The other benefit to scheduling the c-section was that we could arrange for Max’s beloved nanny, E, to come take care of him while I was in the hospital.  E left us in June to go to grad school, but she came back and stayed in our apartment for three nights to take care of Max and I think it made a huge difference for all of us. 

 The morning I was to head into the hospital, I woke at 3am with what I thought were gas pains.  I had a hard time falling back asleep, and I actually never did.  I was just so worried about Max and how he was going to handle these huge changes.  Around 4am, the gas pain got a little more intense.  Around 5am, when I got up to start getting ready, I started to notice a pattern…. Yup, I was in labor.  By the time we headed out to the hospital around 6am, I was having contractions every 3 to 4 minutes.  They were very uncomfortable, but manageable.  Man, was I PISSED.  This was supposed to be my nice, no labor pains birth.  On the bright side, at least we know that Miles wanted to come out on that day.  At the hospital they hooked me up to a monitor and confirmed that I was having regular, strong contractions.  But I wasn’t dilated at all.  After what felt like forever, they finally got me hooked up to some IV fluids (my doc thought that the labor might have started because I hadn’t had anything to drink after midnight, as per orders), and that reduced the pain a little bit.

 They do a thing at my hospital now called “gentle c-section.”  This is a silly name, but the purpose is to provide a few things that make the birth more like a vaginal birth.  We opted to do it.  A little before 8, they brought me back into the OR and the whole situation couldn’t have been more different from the emergency c I had with Max.  Everyone was calm and in a cheerful mood.  Getting the epidural was a piece of cake and not remotely painful.  It did take awhile for me to get sufficiently numb, but the lead anesthesiologist was like, “I got this,” when I started to complain about discomfort and a few seconds later I was totally numb.  It was a little scary and creepy to think about what they were doing – not going through labor and multiple hours of pushing meant that I was more with it and clear headed.  I said something to Jeeves about how what they were doing down there was “gross” and my OB yelled at me, “This is the miracle of birth, Megan!  It’s not gross!”  And we all laughed.  Then, just as they pulled Miles out, they dropped the drape down so we could see him (but not see all my gross guts).  It was a beautiful sight, to see him come right out, umbilical cord still attached, and I’ll never forget it.  They cut the cord, quickly checked him, and within moments, he was on my chest.  I didn’t get to hold Max while we were in the OR, so this was another big difference this go around.  Poor Miles really wanted to nurse, but I couldn’t really do it given my position and the fact that they were putting me back together.  As soon as we were back in recovery, I was able to properly latch him on and he nursed like a sweet little champ.

He weighed in at 8 lbs, and he was long, just like his brother.  From day one, he’s been so different from Max.  Max was the Angry Whopper.  Miles has been a cool customer.   Once again, nursing was a problem.  But I expected it and was able to have a lactation consultant come in right away.  She got me squared away and so, for the most part, nursing went much better this time.  Miles was sleepy and a bit jaundiced – he never needed to go under the lights, but he was pretty yellow for awhile and it took some time to work that out.

Adjusting to having two kids has been…. hard.  Miles is almost 8 months old and it’s still hard.  Max actually handled it quite well.  I’m pretty into Janet Lansbury and I relied heavily on her advice for how to help a toddler adjust to a sibling.  Watching Max and Miles’s relationship develop has been a sweet gift.  They really, really like each other.  In fact, I’d venture to say that Max is hands down Miles’s favorite person.  Max thinks Miles is pretty great too. 

But there are things I didn’t consider.  For instance, I assumed that once we got through the initial adjustment to having another kid around, everything would be fine with Max.  But actually, anytime Miles conquers a new milestone and becomes more of a person and less of a baby blob, Max struggles.  The great thing is that Max takes it out on me and Jeeves, and never on Miles.  But that doesn’t make it any more fun.  For instance, when Miles started eating solids at 6 months, Max began a 2 week period of snotty boundary testing and general grumping.  Then he adjusted and things were good for a bit.  Last weekend Miles started to crawl.  Cue Max having tantrums for no discernible reason and throwing toys.  In retrospect, this makes perfect sense.  It just didn’t occur to me until we had a second child that the adjustment period is more than the first month or two.  Yesterday’s disaster was that I introduced Miles to water via a cheapo sippy cup and Max really wanted his own sippy cup.  Sigh.

 One especially tricky phase has been sleeping accommodations.  We live in a 2 bedroom apartment, and while we will hopefully move eventually, it’s entirely likely that we will always be in a 2 bedroom and the boys will have to share.  I think there are a lot of pros to having them share a room.  But right now it’s a lot of cons.  Max is, as Jeeves said, the Michael Phelps of sleep.  He is a really great sleeper, Olympic caliber.  Once he learned how to fall asleep on his own, it was smooth sailing.  I had high hopes for Miles – he learned how to fall asleep on his own with no help and no tears – he just did it.  But unlike Max, who learned how to fall asleep and stay asleep till morning (or at least get himself back to sleep), Miles tends to wake in the wee hours.  He doesn’t wake up crying, he talks, burbles, grumbles, and eventually he will either go back to sleep or he will start crying hard because he wants me to come hold him and nurse him.  Sometimes Max sleeps through it, sometimes not.  Conversely, a few times Max woke up and cried for us and wanted to come sleep in our bed (something he never, ever wanted before Miles moved into his room).  We’re working it out, but it’s a lot trickier than I anticipated.

 Add onto this that Jeeves’s work has never been busier, I am constantly drowning in laundry and dishes, I am tired, the kids have traded off being sick all winter long, that I myself was extremely sick in January with sinus and ear infections, and my own job has become a mix of deadly dull and aggravating (but also extremely flexible for when the kids are sick which makes finding a new job seem very unwise), and what you have is a struggling mom.

Still, getting to do the newborn thing, this time with a baby who only really cried if he was hungry or had a dirty diaper, was, dare I say it, kind of fun.  And, more importantly, Miles completes us.  It feels like he was always in our family, just not physically present until August, and I think we all feel really lucky to have him.  But I have to say, I am done with infertility.  We are so incredibly lucky that we got to have this family, so incredibly lucky that treatment worked for us.  But I'm glad I don't have to go see an RE again.

For I am involved in mankind

I’ve let more time pass than I intended.  I know the people who still read this understand.  So, to catch up!  I am now 19 weeks pregnant!

January was rough.  Max got a cold, which turned into an ear infection, which turned into a ruptured ear drum.  The literal next day, a pipe burst a few floors up and caused a massive flood in Max’s room.  Max had to sleep on a pack n play in our room.  That night he woke up at 4am, coughing…. Except he wasn’t coughing, he was puking.  Yep, gastroenteritis on top of the ear infection/rupture.  After he got over that, Rajeev caught it, and so did our nanny.  Meanwhile, I caught the cold, but couldn’t take anything for it because pregnancy.  I got so sick, I was convinced I had strep throat, but after a waste-of-time visit to an urgent care, I learned it was just a virus.  Get plenty of rest!  Yeah, right.  Why do they even bother saying this to the mom of a sick toddler?  My in-laws insisted on coming to “help” one day, but Max was so clingy with me that there wasn’t much for them to do… other than catch Rajeev’s gastroenteritis, which is just what they did.  It was horrendous.

Thankfully, February got easier.  First off, we got the results of our Mat.erniT21 test – no anomalies, and we’re having another boy.  I sort of assumed from day one that we would have another boy, so this was not a big surprise, and I was so happy and relieved that he appears to be healthy.  But I’m not gonna lie – I did have 30 minutes or so of mourning the loss of a mother/daughter relationship.  My sister asked me if I was sad about the outcome and I said, “No, I’m not sad at all that I’m having another boy.”  This doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t have been nice to have a girl, but I’m honestly okay. 

 We went for a nuchal translucency as well and the little cookie was moving around like a little firecracker.  The tech actually struggled to get the measure of the nuchal fold because the kid just didn’t feel like cooperating. 

 I talked with my OB about whether I should do an initial anatomy scan this time.  Last time, that's the scan where the doctor thought maybe Max had club feet and made up some statistic about how there was a 35% chance that he had it and we freaked out for a month.  Dr. R understood my concerns and said the main reason to get a scan now is that they can almost always catch major brain or heart defects at 16-18 weeks, but that it is totally fine to wait till the full anatomy scan at 20-22 weeks because we would still have time to deal with any major issues. 

 

All that being said, Jeeves and I agreed we would rather know sooner than later.  So I went for the initial anatomy scan and everything went perfect.  Perfect, perfect - could not have gone better.  Our tech struggled a tiny bit with getting a shot of his spine, but ultimately did manage.  In another couple of weeks I'll go back for the full scan and hopefully everything will continue to look good.

 

Pregnancy has been pretty boring.  I had severe fatigue during the first trimester, in some ways worse than the first time because now I’ve got Max to chase after.  But I had no food aversions, no bloating, nausea, etc.  And now that I’m in the second trimester, the fatigue is gone.  My belly finally popped out and I have to wear maternity clothes or bigger shirts and elastic waist stuff.  And now I can't sleep on my tummy or back, so just yesterday I pulled out the old body pillow.  It's taking some getting used to.  But it sure is cool to feel a baby moving around in there again. 

Anyway, I’ve been worrying lately about handling two small children and how hard things are going to be.  I’m definitely anxious.  And although I feel insanely lucky that we got pregnant with the first IUI this time, part of me wondered if we could have waited.  That thought was replaced after I finally received my medical records from our RE.  My AMH this go around was a 1.89, which given my age (almost 38) is actually pretty good.  And because I knew my AMH, I never bothered asking what my day 4 bloods were - figured it didn't matter.  When I was flipping through my records, I saw that my FSH was something like an 11.5.  That's a good deal higher than it was 3 years ago when I was doing this.  And I realize that one FSH level doesn't necessarily mean anything, that  combined with my declining antral follicle count definitely made me realize that we made the right decision to go for a second child when we did instead of waiting another year or more.  I'm not young in terms of childbearing and my body was slowing down.  We got very lucky.

 

That's what life has been like here.  No complaints.  I've been feeling a little depressed about the level of political discourse across the board.  Yesterday John McCain wrote an op-ed piece in the NY Times that made tear up at work.  It's his tribute to Delmer Berg, who was the last living member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (Americans who fought against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War).  Berg was a Communist.  Obviously John McCain is not.  But McCain clearly has a lot of respect for what Berg did, and notes that after he returned from the war, he went on to start a business and spent his free time working for causes he believed in.  It's not very long, and worth a read.  To that end, I have been musing on the quotes that McCain included from Hemingway and John Donne, so I'm including the latter here, the themes of which I am trying to carry in my heart to teach my own kids, even when it's so different from what I'm hearing everywhere else.

 

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

 

 

Known and Unknown

I apologize for not updating sooner.  Everything falling around the holidays made blogging tough.  So, where I last left off, we were going in for a very early ultrasound, where I was 5w5d (or 5w4d?  I’ve never really gotten the hang of counting this stuff).  When we went in that morning, I logically knew that all we could really hope to see was a gestational sac and a yolk sac, but I was still hoping maybe there would be more.  Dr. P told me that all she wanted to see was a sac in my uterus and that it was too early to see much else. 

Sure enough, all we saw was a sac.  It was 13mm, which my doctor was very pleased with.  She said sometimes we can see a yolk sac and sometimes we can’t.  We didn’t see one.  Of course later when I went home I read some stuff online indicating that it was a bad sign if you didn’t see a yolk sac when the gestational sac was 12mm or greater and I proceeded to spiral.

We were instructed to come back in 11 days, at which point the doctor would want to see a heartbeat.  We celebrated Christmas, and went on a little vacation with Kate and her family for New Year’s.  I, of course, couldn’t drink and was limited in my food options.  All of which would be fine, except as the day of the ultrasound crept closer, I felt more and more negative about it.  I started mapping out in my head whether they would want me to have a D&C right away, and if so, what day would actually work for that.  Morbid stuff, I know.  The fact that we didn’t see a yolk sac seemed ominous to me and the idea that there could actually be something alive where there had just been an empty sac 11 days before seemed absurd. 

This little cookie, as we had taken to calling it, turned into Shrodinger’s cat for me – simultaneously alive and dead until we saw it on the ultrasound.  Not helping matters – I caught Max’s terrible cold, but had to act with the data that was known – I was technically pregnant and therefore could not take any cold medicine. 

 The night before the second ultrasound, I texted with Adi, whom some of you may know from the bloggy world.  She asked how I was feeling about it and I explained about how I felt very negative.  She asked why and I said, “I just feel like there’s no way this could work out.  Like I’m not allowed to be that lucky.”  And kind Adi responded, “I think if other people get pregnant their first try you’re allowed to have a second baby on your first IUI.”  She added, “Max is pretty awesome, but I promise you that you haven’t used up all your happiness.”  Her saying that meant a lot to me as it really hit the heart of the matter – we are so happy and I feel so lucky to have Max that it feels like I am asking too much if I ask for more of it.  As if happiness in your family is finite. 

I think I’ve mentioned on here before that I’m in a small private Facebook group of other (mostly) infertile moms who had babies at the same time I had Max.  I reached out to them too the night before the ultrasound and they wrapped me up in their positive words.  The morning of the ultrasound one of them posted: “Remember we are all in there with you.”  All this love alleviated some of my fear, and I felt as though, maybe, no matter what, I would be okay.

 There is rarely a wait at this RE’s office, but perhaps because it was the Monday after the holidays, they seemed swamped.  I didn’t get called back till 20 minutes later and was freaking out a bit because our nanny who was home with Max had to leave at a specific time.  But we finally got called back and Dr. P came in quickly.  She told me that according to them, my EDD is August 21^st and without further ado, let’s see what’s happening.  As soon as the probe was in, I could see that there was stuff in the sac now, though I did not immediately see the heartbeat.  But within a second, we could see a good, strong heartbeat, and Dr. P turned on the sound so we could hear it too.  There was a fetal pole measuring right on time and this time I could clearly see the yolk sac.  I let out a huge sigh of relief.  And with that, and a hug, Dr. P released me to my OB.

I’m currently 8w3d, still very early.  I saw my OB last week, got another peak at the cookie who was looking perfectly fine.  I go back in two weeks to get blood drawn for the cell free DNA test.  Fatigue has hit hard.  I get queasy if I’m not diligent about eating frequent small meals.  I’m still exercising.  Still doing progesterone suppositories (blech) until I hit 10 weeks.  But otherwise there’s not much to report.  Neither my RE nor my OB think I’m a good candidate for VBAC, and I wasn’t especially interested in doing that anyway, so a c-section would be scheduled for my 39^th week.  If everything works out, we could have another baby by mid-August.  It is surreal for both Jeeves and me to think that less than two months ago we went into the RE’s office for the first time in three years, and now here I am, 8+ weeks pregnant. 

Thanks for the kind comments – I really appreciate it.

A Little Bit

Hey all.  Sorry for not writing sooner.  The last two weeks have been kind of a blur/rollercoaster.

The second week of my two week wait was tough.  Aside from the general impatience, Jeeves went to the west coast for work for three days.  Luckily Max had been going through a phase of sleeping and napping for longer, so that helped, and he was generally in a good mood all week.  Although, he did ask for "Dada" during bedtime routine, so we would FaceTime with Jeeves, and he seemed to like that.

On 11dpiui, I woke up, took my temp and was immediately depressed - it had dropped down to 98.0 from 98.4.  For me, that has always signaled a negative cycle.  On 12dpiui, my temp went down to 97.9.  I was sad, but I had been more depressed the day before and I had accepted that this cycle had failed.  I think one of the reasons I was so bummed about it was that I had such large follicles when I triggered - I have never had a totally negative cycle when my follicles were that big.  So I guess I really, really got my hopes up.

I unburdened myself to my Facebook infertile moms group and they totally said the right things (no one told me it was too early, and there was still a chance - they just embraced how shitty the process is and reminded me that this is just the start of the journey and not the end).  It helped a lot.

At 13dpiui, my temp rebounded slightly to 98.0, and I got a little hopeful... till I looked at my charts for the last 5 months and realized that my temp has rebounded to 98.0 the day before I get my period every cycle.  Oh well.  That day I had some slight cramping and a little bit of pink tinged discharge, which made me wonder if my period was about to start.

Jeeves came home and on 14dpiui, I woke up and my temp was up to 98.2.  What the heck?  I was supposed to go in for my beta test during morning monitoring hours and I decided to pee on a stick before I went to see what was going on.

Positive HPT.

What the what?

But it was light. I mean, it was there, but it was definitely light.  Much lighter than either of my HPTs with Max or with my missed miscarriage.  I had a chemical pregnancy on my first IUI back in 2013 and when my beta was around a 32, I took an HPT just so I could see a positive test for once.  That's what this looked like.  LIGHT.

All day I steeled myself for a phone call where I'd be told my beta was super low and that it was unlikely this was viable.

The nurse called at 4:30 - beta was 77.  They were fine with that number.  At my old clinic, they wanted you over a 50.  Still, 77 is much lower than my first beta with Max or with my miscarriage. They were concerned with how low my progesterone was - only a 7 point something.  With Max I was around 36 at the same point.  So they started me on prometrium suppositories (which is super fun).  Still, at least now I had an explanation for why my temp had started to drop.

A week ago, at 17dpiui, I went in for the second beta.  270 - a doubling time of 39.7 hours.  Progesterone had bounced up to 17.  This clinic doesn't make you come in for multiple betas once you get that doubling.  And I'm grateful for that.  Who knows if this is going to work out, but at least I don't have to keep torturing myself with blood levels.  Instead, though, they want me in for an ultrasound this Wednesday - I'll only be 5 weeks and 5 days.

5 weeks and 5 days is where I was when I started my ultrasound debacle with my miscarriage.   I'm definitely anxious.  If this isn't going to work, I would have preferred a chemical pregnancy to another missed miscarriage, and I would have preferred a negative to a chemical, obviously.  I assume they want to check me tomorrow so early because they want to make sure it's intrauterine and not ectopic, and with the holidays and then the weekend, there's limited time for that.  I just keep reminding myself not to expect to see much, hopefully a gestational sac and a yolk sac, and not to freak if there's no fetal pole or heartbeat.  

So that's where things are right now.  Wendy and I have been saying that I'm "a little bit pregnant."  I've been very tired, but I'm not always sure if that's from the pregnancy or just from the fact that I have a toddler.  On Friday I had a rough day with Max and didn't get a chance to eat enough, so while fixing Max's dinner I became lightheaded and nearly fainted.  But other than that, I don't feel pregnant, though I know it's still early.

There's the update.  I'm a little pregnant.  Hoping this isn't going to be a miscarriage.  Hoping that if it was just a late implantation, that everything else is okay.   

Cycle Day 18

Howdy!  Thought I’d write a little update about my IUI and my thoroughly exhausting Thanksgiving.

So, last week on cycle day 11, I went in for monitoring.  Dr. P checked me out and found my lead follicle was now up to 26.5mm(!), and a second one around 20.5.  The one on the left was about 18.5mm.  My lining had improved a little to about 7mm and change, but she still wanted it thicker.  She sent me for blood work and said that depending on what that showed, she would recommend that I take the Ovid.rel shot that night and come in Friday morning for an IUI.

The rest of the day was super tiring and stressful.  I came home, went to the gym, E came to look after Max so I could do my Thanksgiving cooking and pack us up for our trip to Jeeves’ parents’ house.  Before I could get any cooking done, a bunch of stuff with my father’s estate blew up which devolved into me having an argument with the paralegal who works on the estate and having to ask the attorney to weigh in.  It was ridiculous and aggravating.  Finally I was able to make my pumpkin pie and the brine for the turkey, but there was no time to make the green beans.  I packed for Max and me, sent E home, and waited for Jeeves to get back from work.  Irritatingly, he had gone to a work lunch that ran very late and the end result was we didn’t get out of the apartment till 4pm. 

In the meantime, the IUI nurse called and confirmed that I should take the shot that night and come in for IUI on Friday. This was, of course, not the most convenient timing.  We would be out in White Plains visiting Jeeves’ family.  What should we do with Max – leave him with the family?  Take him with us and trade off going into the medical building? 

On the long, trafficky drive out to White Plains, we discovered that Jeeves’ mother had become very ill and was at the ER with his dad. [I will tell you now that she is okay].  I won’t go into the details about how Jeeves’ parents didn’t bother calling us when they originally went to the ER and that finding out where they were took various phone acrobatics on my part.  I will attempt not to complain too much about the fact that if we had known how sick my MIL was and that they would not be home, we would have stayed home too and come out Thursday morning.  Instead, we arrived at the house, got Max fed and put to bed, and then had to heat up dinner and entertain Jeeves’ auntie and uncle who had arrived after us from out-of-town.

My MIL and FIL came home late from the ER and although she looked very ill and tired, all of the tests had come back negative and they had given her some Zof.ran to curb the nausea. 

I have many, many feelings regarding the Thanksgiving weekend.  One of the ones that hit me hardest was walking into a dark house where older people live when one of them is ill.  It reminded me very, very much of coming into my dad’s house the last few months of his life.  It was difficult and unpleasant.  I was also exhausted and angry.  I forgot to pack a bunch of things for myself and for Max and I laid into Jeeves about how I feel like he expects too much of me.  I felt angry in the disparity of time that we spend with his family compared to mine.  I felt frustrated with my in-laws’ house which is not remotely childproofed and requires either me or Jeeves to tell Max “no” dozens of times in a row and to hover over him lest he break something or pick up a knife left carelessly on the coffee table or tumble down the stairs.  I felt anxious about the IUI, and I was in a lot of physical discomfort from my swollen ovaries.  I became impatient with Max, who wasn’t eating and wasn’t sleeping enough.  And at the bottom of all of this, I missed my parents so much I ached.

Anyway.  Wednesday night I gave myself a shot, which went fine.  Thursday, Jeeves’ brother, SIL, and nephews arrived, and my SIL and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner.  It went well enough, but I was on my feet cooking for most of the day and it was tiring.   Adding to this, we have to share a small bedroom with Max (this could be a separate post all together.  Basically the sleeping arrangements are completely unfair because Jeeves’ parents can’t stomach pissing off his brother.  But then instead of letting us have a larger bedroom after his brother leaves, they moved his auntie into the room).  The room is too small for us to have both the pack n play and our bags, so we have to keep our bags in the entry hallway.  Also, the shower broke in the guest bathroom, and the downstairs toilet clogged.  Jeeves said at one point that staying in the house is like staying in a hostel.  I couldn’t agree more.  And I’m too old for this shit.  Also, whenever we travel, Max wakes up at 6am and refuses to go back to sleep.  Did I mention that I was tired?

Thankfully, on Friday my SIL agreed to get up and watch Max while we went for our IUI (we are a little reticent to leave Max with just my MIL and FIL while my MIL is not feeling well).

The IUI was in many ways very different from when I was at my old clinic.  We checked in at a scheduled time (as opposed to just coming in during morning monitoring hours) and were sent to the andrology lab.  Jeeves did his part, and I was given a time to come pick up the sample.  Then we went and ate pastries.  We went back at the appointed time, picked up the sample, went back to the main waiting room and sat until I was called back.  The doctor who performed the IUI was pleasant, though less skilled with a speculum than my primary RE, and we chatted about my previous IUI experiences, Max, and his birth.  Then it was done and I stayed lying down for 15 minutes.  On the whole, it was a more pleasant experience than at my old clinic.

The rest of the weekend sped by, Jeeves got sick, we visited Kate’s family, and had dinner with my sister and her family on Saturday (which was, surprisingly, one of the nicest parts of the weekend for me).  We went home Saturday night and I could have cried with how happy and relieved I was to be home.  After barely eating for three days, Max proceeded to eat everything placed in front of him on Sunday.

So, I’m 5dpiui now.  I’m hopeful.  The fact that I’m hopeful leads me to believe this will fail because nothing can ever go easily.  I mean, we got so lucky that IUI worked for us with Max, what on earth makes me think that we could be so lucky that it would a) work this time; and b) that if it did work this time that it would work the first round?  Oh well.  The benefit of doing this with a 17 month old around the holidays is that I have a lot to distract me during the two week wait.

Cycle Day 10

Well, it's been awhile again.  It's the usual reasons, just life in general.

I'm not pregnant.  At the end of September, after what looked like a promising cycle that resulted in a period, I decided to at least call and make an appointment with a doctor.  The earliest they could see me was mid-November, so I took the appointment and we kept trying on our own.  Unsuccessfully, obvs.  
We went to a new doctor.  It's closer to where we live now and they have better statistics for IVF than our old clinic, should it come to that.  We went to meet the new doc a couple of weeks ago and we really liked her and were very impressed.

And also a little shocked.  Based on how well we responded to IUI last time, the new doc (Dr. P) thought we should do IUI again and she didn't see any reason to wait.  She went through the tests she'd want to run (AMH, thyroid, the usual FSH/estradiol combo, and a saline sonogram) but said all of them could be run while we were doing an IUI cycle.  So, a few days later when my period started, I went in for morning monitoring and we got started.  I'm taking Clomid again, but this time it was for days 4-8 instead of 2-6.   

So far my test results look pretty good.  My antral follicle count was nothing exciting, but it was pretty standard for someone my age.  My AMH is at 1.89.  That's certainly down from the 2.77 it was 3 years ago, but that's not surprising given my age and it does put me above the 50th percentile for my age group.  My other blood results have been normal.  Today was the saline sonogram.  I was apprehensive.  The doctor wanted to make sure I didn't have scar tissue from the c-section, which I wasn't super worried about.  But after the HSG, I had pretty bad cramps for a solid 18 hours.  Thankfully, the saline sonogram was a lot easier than the HSG and it was over very quickly.  And I didn't have any cramps.  Woohoo!  The results - I have a very, very small polyp in my uterine wall, but Dr. P doesn't think it will prevent me from getting pregnant.  She recommended leaving it for now, unless we wind up doing IVF in which case it would have to be removed.  No scarring from the c-section.

Then she checked out my ovaries.  Aside from the usual hot flashes, I didn't have any symptoms until yesterday when my right side started to really bother me.  Sure enough, I have two follicles on my right ovary, one of which is already 23mm(!) and the other is 18mm.  On the left I have one 18mm follicle.  My lining, though, is still pretty thin.  I go back tomorrow morning for a check and I suspect that Thursday or Friday we'll wind up having an IUI.

I was feeling pretty negative about the cycle until today.  I was worried that nothing would develop or that I had somehow already ovulated (I just had a cycle where I ovulated very early).  But I'm feeling more optimistic today.  And it helps that I really like the new RE, a lot more than my old RE.  Her bedside manner is light years better.

Anyway, on to my son!  Max is 17 months!  He walks and runs.  It changes things.  Activities outside the apartment are more complicated.  He just cut his bottom molars, which was super fun.  He's a terrible napper, great nighttime sleeper.  He loves to be read to.  Current favorite books are Room on the Broom, The Gruffalo, Dragons Love Tacos, On the Night You Were Born, A Pocket for Corduroy, Chu's Day, and the usual rotation of Sandra Boynton books.  He's a sweet, happy boy and he really makes every day better.

Food - he eats pretty well, but he definitely has strong preferences.  I try my best to get veggies into him, and to introduce new flavors.  It's definitely a lot of work.  He loves being chased up and down the hall of our apartment building.  And even though the idea of taking care of two year old Max and a newborn sounds about as possible to me as climbing Mt. Everest, I know we'll make it work.  And if we don't have another and it's just the three of us, that will be okay too.  Here's my happy guy:

But I do not know yet what that can be

          When he had finished, Alice would say, "When I grow up, I too will go to faraway places, and when I grow old, I too will live beside the sea."
         "That is all very well, little Alice," said her grandfather, "but there is a third thing you must do." 
         "What is that?" asked Alice. 
         "You must do something to make the world more beautiful," said her grandfather.
         "All right," said Alice.  But she did not know what that could be.
                                                        --Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney 

Not long after my early August post, I got my period and we decided to get serious about trying for number two.  I sort of started charting (I say "sort of" because I periodically forget to take my temperature in the morning - it's just not habit yet.), used some OPKs, and I even went back to acupuncture.  Things went pretty well, I ovulated, we timed things right.  And then last week we were on vacation and I didn't take my temperature at all.  

I wondered if we could possibly be so lucky to get pregnant on the first try this time.  I could see that Jeeves was feeling a little hopeful when he asked when I'm supposed to get my period.  Yesterday was our first full day back from vacation and even though it was a Sunday, Jeeves had to go to work.  I was feeling depressed, but quite energetic and not tired at all thanks to some extra sleep.  I wondered if my depression was cause-based or maybe PMS?  Or maybe pregnancy hormones?  But I knew I wasn't pregnant.  I just knew. The lack of tiredness was a dead giveaway. That night I wondered again if maybe it had worked?  I decided to take my temperature before I went to sleep, just as a baseline.  It was 97.6.  My temp was never that low when awake while pregnant with Max.  So there was my answer.

This morning it was 97.3.  Definitely not pregnant.  A couple of hours later, my period came, a day early.  Jeeves and I were both a little bummed.  It's silly, really.  Most fertiles don't get pregnant the first month they try, so what's the likelihood that an infertile couple like us would?  I knew that these couple of months of trying are just to cover the bases before going back to the doctor and the logical part of my brain knew that we would be going back to a doctor.  But another part hoped we'd be that urban legend (not so much a legend - aside from the fact that I personally know 6 women who got pregnant naturally after IVF, I read a study recently that suggested up to 20% of previously diagnosed infertile women experienced spontaneous conception after live birth of a child conceived through ART).  

My mind raced ahead to the doctor and what would happen if our tests this time indicated we were worse off than 3 years ago when we were originally tested.  A friend of mine from my infertile moms group did IVF and now has a son a couple of weeks older than Max.  They had a diagnosis of male factor.  When they were testing years ago, he had low count - usually around 2 million.  They had a frozen sample but decided to destroy it because frozen isn't usually recommended.  A few weeks ago they went back for testing and he now has zero sperm.  Zero.  In typical Megs fashion, my mind can't help but think of that story.  Sure, my numbers were good 3 years ago.  But I'm 37 now.  What if my eggs have gone to shit?  What if they tell me that IVF isn't even recommended because my numbers are so bad?  What if Jeeves goes from 1% morphology to 0%?  

Well, the answers to those "what ifs" are that we will probably walk away if a doctor tells us that treatment is unlikely to work for us.  I know families who have used donor egg or sperm or have adopted when a second child can't happen with their own gametes.  Or some couples who decide they want to foster or adopt for a second child anyway.  And while all of those possibilities would have been considered if we had been unable to have Max, now that we have Max we are more limited in how far we're prepared to go.  And I personally feel that I cannot dedicate years of my life to this endeavor again.  So even though I think it is usually very silly to draw a line in the sand when it comes to family-building, for now I need to draw a line in the sand and say if a doctor tells us we are unlikely to have a child through ART, we will stop.  We will move on with our lives.

The thought of being told that we are done makes me sad.  And I do realize that I have jumped way, way ahead of myself.  But I think back to the first month we tried before we knew what was coming, and I just need to make this leap right now.  I needed to scratch that itch.

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, it is probably apparent to you that I am a planner and I need contingency plans.  

It was a hazy and very humid day in Brooklyn today and I decided to take Max down to the swings by the water.  It's a good stretch of the legs.  As we were walking, my mind went to that place wherein a doctor tells us that medical intervention is unlikely to give us another child.  And after feeling sad, I started wondering what I would do after we decide that we're done trying.  I didn't know.  I remembered a children's book called Miss Rumphius.

My friend Meg gave me a copy of Miss Rumphius for my birthday at some point in my 20s.  Miss Rumphius tells the story of Alice, who as a child listens to her grandfather's stories of his life.  And, as the quote above explains, she decides to do three things in life: travel to faraway places, grow old by the sea, and do something to make the world more beautiful.  Alice grows up, becomes a librarian, and becomes known as Miss Rumphius.  She's able to accomplish her first two goals with ease, but struggles to figure out how to make the world more beautiful. (Spoiler alert - she figures it out, and passes along her words of wisdom to her great-niece).  It's a really wonderful story - I highly recommend it.

At each point in her story, Miss Rumphius doesn't map out and plan every little thing she is going to do.  She has a general idea of the goals in her life and when the time feels right, she works on a goal.  

I do not know yet what I want my life to be if we are done building our family.  I think I want to go work in a library.  And I want to resume traveling to faraway places, something that will be easier as Max gets older.  And I want to do something to make the world more beautiful, though I do not yet know what that can be.  And that is okay.  When the time comes, I will move forward, I hope with enthusiasm and alacrity, but I'll settle for grace.  And I will accept that right now I am working towards one goal.  I'll try not to leap too far ahead or make up contingency plans if we are ultimately unable to have a baby.  I'll let myself feel whatever I am going to feel about it.  Today, I felt a little disappointed that this cycle didn't work out.  I felt a little sad to remember the taste of that disappointment when my temperature drops, and to realize I may have many more cycles of that ahead.  I will remember there are many good things ahead too, not the least of which was my son's giggles as I pushed him on the swing.