what now?

Since our daughter's birth,  my husband and I had agreed that one day we would try with our one frozen embryo to give her a sibling. If it worked, great. If it didn't, we would call it a day. Seven years of fertility treatment is enough.

I had made my peace with that.

I thought he had too.

Since our negative beta, he and I have not talked much about what we will do now, apart from ten seconds after I hung up with the nurse and said, "it didn't work," and his nearly-instant response was, "you know, we could try it again."

Uhh...WHAT?

We decided to let it lie for awhile. Schedules have been busy and we've had company, and there hasn't been time to have the discussion. Probably in the next week or so. I am not sure what to do with the fact that I really feel done with all of this: sad, that there won't be another baby, so much so that I try not to think about it very much, but not desperately unhappy. Quite content, much of the time, with the life we have.

I think perhaps his hopes had gotten much higher than mine. After all, we'd done IVF twice before and I had, technically, gotten pregnant both times - only one viable pregnancy, of course, but this was the first phone call we'd had which was an instant negative. Game over.

When we started all this, seven years ago, we ended up in a discussion about how much money we were willing to spend on fertility treatments. I was willing to break the bank. Spend it all. We could earn more, but we only had a certain window of time to have a kid. I would have borrowed, begged, and stolen to get it done.

He, on the other hand, calmly and wisely (not that I assessed it this way at the time) said that we needed to acknowledge that all the money in the world might not get us a child.  That we could break the bank, beg, borrow, and steal, and end up broke, indebted, and childless. Which would suck. (He had a better way of putting it.) That we needed to be able to love the life, and live the life, we actually had, and not just long for a future we might not get.

Now, our positions seem to be reversed. So very odd, what this stuff does to you.

nope.

So, perhaps the radio silence from o'er here clued you in, but the beta results yesterday were not good. Negative, to be exact. Definitely not good, although I would still take that over the "first beta positive, second beta disastrous" of 2009.

(I mistyped that last sentence "definitely not god," which has a certain truth to it, perhaps.)

Anyway. We were certainly disappointed. More so than I would have guessed. I have another post about that, but not for today.

Something else momentous happened yesterday, though. On my way out the door to my bloodwork appointment, I waved to my daughter and said, "I love you," which I say many times daily and every time I leave her, and for the first time she said, quite clearly, "I love you, mama."

Definitely God, there.

Thanks again for all the good wishes.

*twiddling thumbs*

While it's undoubtedly true that I don't have as much mental space to dedicate toward "constant, occasionally panicky deliberation of future hcg results" this time around, waiting for a pregnancy test post-transfer is still...well, I suck at waiting. That's pretty much it.

No home tests yet. Have managed not even to buy one, which is quite a feat for me. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get one today. Or not. Or maybe. I don't know.

You know how you want to know, but then you don't want to know if it's not positive, but then you do want to know just in case it's negative because you can prepare yourself for that call for the nurse, but then again you might get a false negative so you probably shouldn't take the test before the official one, but then you have to wait all the way until Saturday which is, like, an eternity, so...

...ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Exhibit One of How Much I Suck At Waiting.

That's about it for life around here. Thrilling, right?

p.u.p.o.

So. Now we wait.

All went well today - and thanks so much for your good wishes. I checked my phone shortly before we went into the transfer room, and it was delightful to know people were thinking of us.

Totsicle survived, and the transfer went without a hitch: three times now, and I think I have finally perfected the art of full-enough-bladder-without-hideous-discomfort.

Beta is next Saturday the 22nd, though we have told our families it's the 24th, to give us either a.) a few days to deal with disappointment, or b.) time to get through the second test. Once bitten, twice shy.

I am under no illusions whatsoever that I will be able to resist the pee stick. Drugstore. Tomorrow. Then, the wait really begins.

5...4...3...

The countdown is on.

Transfer is at 2:30pm today.

For all the ambivalence, worry, uncertainty, and confusion I've had during this cycle, all I want today is for this to work.

I'm a little terrified that they will call mid-morning and tell us that our totsicle didn't survive the thaw. (And by "a little," I mean, "a whole freaking lot.")

Whatever appendages you'd like to cross today on our behalf - prayer, good intentions, etc. - will be much appreciated.

6 hours to go.

plugging along

Ultrasound and bloodwork today. I'll hear back this afternoon on the bloodwork, but barring any unforeseen weirdness, we are All Systems Go for the 13th.

In so many ways, this whole experience is so much easier than the first time around. For one thing, I have way less time to be stuck in my head about it. Time to sit and think deep thoughts about my future as a parent, or the prospect of not having kids, and what each of those two possibilities means for my own identity, confidence, and sense of the future?

HAHAHAHAHA.

The last thing I thought deeply about was whether or not watching "Elmo's Potty Time" more than three times in one week would permanently damage my child's brain. (Verdict: no.)

Last time, I was so careful about every little thing. Lu.pron to be taken at some point from 7-9pm each night? No problem. 8:30pm on the dot, every day. This time? Well, it's generally been taken someplace in the 7-9pm window, except for the two times I completely forgot until 10:35pm, said, "OH SHIT," jumped off the couch, and ran to the bathroom like an Olympic sprinter. And yet, in spite of my extreme imprecision, the triple-stripe lining looked spectacular today.

Take that, Overly Developed Sense of Control.

I dropped the ball on scheduling acupuncture sessions but snuck in for Friday because of a last-minute cancellation. My daughter has developed an obsession with "Mama shoss?" (Mama shots?) and asks if I am going to do this every time I go into the bathroom. Or, as I discovered on Monday, every time I take off my pants: frantically trying on black suits in the Macy's fitting room, she pointed at my stomach and asked over and over again, "Mama shoss?" while I tried to explain to her that I don't have to do that until ni-night time, and hoped that the woman in the room next to me would think I was diabetic and not a drug-crazed heroin addict.

I feel twinges of guilt about taking the whole thing so lightly - or, at least, so much more lightly than last time. And yet it can't be helped. "Kids have so much energy because they siphon it off their parents like midget gasoline thieves," I read the other day, which is true times one hundred. There just isn't enough time in the day to be as intentional about this cycle, and yet as much as I understand that, it also taps into all my secret fears that I will not be able to love this child as much as I love my first one.

There. I said it. I think that's the problem.

I suppose every parent, or at least most of them, has felt this way. It still makes me worry. I'm sure that, upon seeing another baby's face, I would be absolutely as smitten as I was the first time around, but as long as this baby is just a vague possibility - just an abstract hope - it can't compete with the adorable realness of the baby I kiss and cuddle and read stories to and snuggle with.

What if I don't love this baby as much? What if, somewhere down the road, this baby finds out that I forgot to take my Lu.pron shots until 10:35pm twice and didn't have as many acupuncture appointments and occasionally felt conflicted about even having another baby?

I mean, I don't know how this kid would find out any of this unless I said something about it, but you know what I mean.

There are two possibilities here. One, the kid finds out all of this and gets pissed off, in which case the therapy profession has at least one future patient on the way.

Two, I am completely nuts, in which case the therapy profession might still benefit.

Having written this all out, I think I am going to go with option number two. If you want to vote differently, just let me know.

second time around

So, I've been on Lup.ron for about a week and a half. Started the estrogen patches two days ago (which resulted in a KILLER headache for awhile, so hallelujah for ibu.profen).

It still seems very odd. I'd like to think of something more profound than, "odd," but there you have it; surreal, perhaps, that I have to put my toddler to bed in time to get down to the bathroom and inject myself with the same medication that helped us get to her in the first place. I keep thinking that I'm in a dream, and someone is going to wake me up and tell me I never had a baby, that we have to do it all over again.

But then I go into the family room and trip over three baby dolls and her beloved play lawn mower, and reality comes back.

Transfer date is set for September 13. Not much more exciting news here (other than the emerging potty interest by above-mentioned child WOOHOO). Will keep you posted.