Since the day I brought Leah home from the hospital I have been counting my lucky stars. Even now I can hardly fathom the fact that she is my daughter. I wake up every morning excited and astonished to greet the baby babbling and kicking off her blanket, ready to start the day. There were so many days I spent paralyzed with fear that we would never know parenthood. And experiencing it makes me want that for all of you so much more.
Two days ago we got a certified letter from my RE. It’s a letter requesting direction on what we would like to do with our remaining embryo. It's also bill for storage fees. We of course plan to keep it, for now. The further we got in to the process of Infertility, the more we felt like just one baby would suffice. Partially was because of the financial implications. We knew it would take plenty of money to get pregnant to begin with, so we assumed we may not be in the position to A. do IVF more than once, and 2. We sort of liked the idea of being able to provide the extras (including paying for college) for one child as opposed to maybe splitting our resources between two. I think another big reason was that I just felt so fragile then. Like one baby would be all I could ever handle.
But now that Leah is here, I look into her eyes and when I think about the amount of love and joy I get from seeing her little face- well I just can’t imagine not at least trying to experience all of that again. I loved being pregnant, and I love watching her grow. And I would love, love, LOVE to experience this all over again. I of course realize that this is a very premature conversation, because A. Umm, i just had a baby five months ago. 2. We don't know if we will be in the position to afford another child. and C. Don't even know if our one remaining embryo would make it through the thaw, let alone implant post transfer. But I will tell you this. I will never go on Birth Control again, and I will never do a fresh IVF cycle again. IVF was fucking hard, really hard. Granted I did not have the smoothest cycle, (Remember the Whore-bag Cyst that delayed my cycle by SEVEN weeks???), Obviously worth it, but still... And as far as the birth control goes, there are two reasons. The first being that because of my clotting disorder MTHFR, I shouldn't be on any progesterone based Contraception pill because it can increase my risk of stroke. (yes, I know there are other options) And second, even though three different RE's told us we had a less than 1% chance of getting pregnant naturally; if we get pregnant and it DOESN'T cost us 20k - I'm okay with that.
Part of me is surprised by my feelings on this, because I was pretty well set on being happy with one baby. But to tell you the truth I have missed being pregnant from the day after I delivered. And now more than ever, I feel like being a mother is something I was made to do. And I hope that we are lucky enough with all aspects to be able to have another baby someday, but if not I know I won't regret a thing, and that we are still very lucky to have the most amazing baby girl ever.
