I may have mentioned in my bio that my husband and I are trying to have another baby together. You know, because we have nothing better to do and we just have scads of free time and money on our hands. (Or not.) That’s all well and good, but here’s the thing: For some reason, we can’t quite get pregnant this time around.
Huh? Yeah, that’s right. We can’t seem to get pregnant this time. It was pretty easy the first time around, with Angelo. Who would’ve thunk it’d be so darn hard this time??
Of course, I went into this whole “let’s have another baby” business - two years ago - with cavalier visions of seeing a positive pee test stick within 90 days, just like it went down when we tried for Angelo. Nope.
At first I laughed it off, convinced that the crazy stress of my life at that particular point in time was just too much for my poor reproductive organs to take. I imagined that they were putting their little feet down and demanding that a baby NOT take root there for the time being, because we (my reproductive organs and I) were operating in the Level Orange danger zone at that point just getting through our day in one piece mentally and physically, with all that was going on with Angelo’s health and the demands of my career breathing down my back. In my mind, desperately trying to edge out the tiny bit of panic that was starting to creep in, I would think to myself, “Okay, okay - that’s cool, let’s not get all jacked up about it! We’re just contemplating another baby, for Pete’s sake, not trying to single-handedly tackle the problem of world peace. Geez…”
I managed to keep myself from completely FREAKING OUT over not being able to conceive for, oh, another six months or so before the panic came back and just kicked down the door rather than bothering to creep back in. I sat in front of my Ob-Gyn at my annual appointment and told her that I was “a little concerned” at how long it was taking me to get pregnant. She sat there calmly, cool as a cucumber, and asked me all the usual questions: Is your cycle regular? Are you using fertility predictor kits or tracking your fertility through temperature, etc.? How often are you “trying?” Yada, yada, yada.
When I’d satisfactorily answered all the questions, she ordered a few basic tests. Let me just stop here and mention that there is actually a reason why I freak out over this “little problem” I’m having conceiving: I have a family history of premature menopause. My mom was all DONE with menopause by the time she was 41, and my paternal grandmother went through it in her late 20’s, which is why my dear old dad is an only child. Since I first started thinking about eventually having a family while in my mid-twenties, this skeleton in my family’s medical closet has haunted me. Which is why, about nine months before we began trying for Angelo, my doctor ran a bunch of tests on me to see if I was still fertile, since I had been on the Pill for 12 years straight and the Pill can mask signs of menopause. I prayed constantly until she called me with the results of those tests to say that everything was normal. And there I was praying again that she would run those same tests and come back with the same NORMAL results.
Thankfully, she did and everything appeared to be fine. All indications are that I am okay. And, since Dan and I conceived Angelo relatively quickly, and he and his ex conceived Alexis the first month of trying, it seemed unlikely that it was a problem with his swimmers. Nonetheless, when I sat before my Ob-Gyn again just two months ago and again mentioned my deepening concern over two years of trying unsuccessfully for another baby, she suggested that perhaps we have his swimmers checked out.
I proposed that plan to Dan. But Dan turned pale and clammy and nearly passed out at the thought of having to either set foot in or send his guys to a lab. (He’s “not good” when it comes to medical stuff, generally speaking. For example, he passed out in our first childbirth prep class for Angelo after the educator merely showed us a drawing of a woman’s body in cross-section both in it’s normal state and during pregnancy. And he’d already been present for one birth, so it’s not like he hadn’t gone through all of that information once before. Poor guy…) I think we’ll give that a few more months, let him mull it over and get used to the idea. It’s not like we’re under the gun or anything.
In case you’re wondering, no, we haven’t consulted with any fertility specialists, or tried Clomid, or had any further or more invasive testing. Why? It’s simple: Our insurance covers ZERO fertility testing or treatment and our financial situation is such that we simply can’t break the bank going to extreme measures to have another baby when we already have a beautiful, healthy, amazing little boy together. We were blessed with one incredible miracle, one child who is so unbelievably perfect for us, and we cannot justify going broke simply to have another.
And, there’s more… My younger brother and sister-in-law have been trying for a baby for nearly five years now with no luck, and after countless tests, rounds of Clomid, IUI and other efforts, for them it has come down to in vitro as the only remaining option for them to have a child of their own. In my heart, I feel that if a Supreme Being has to choose between giving us a second baby or finally giving my brother and his wife one, I want that Being to choose them. My brother and sister-in-law are wonderful, loving, happy, gentle people, and I want so much for them to be parents, because I know how badly they want to be parents. I am so confident that they’d make great parents that Dan and I chose them to be Angelo’s guardians in the event of our untimely demise. If it has to come down to us or them who are divinely given a baby, I hope it’s them.
All that said, I have consulted a good friend of mine who is a Reiki Master, and I’ve had her do Reiki on me, hoping to unblock any negative energy that might be inadvertently undermining my fertility in ways that Western medicine cannot detect. During the sessions, both my friend and I have experienced the most vivid images of me with a little girl, one who looks so much like Angelo only with feminine features and long, dark, curly hair. It shocked me so much during the first session that I burst into tears and couldn’t stop. I truly felt that I was seeing myself with my daughter who had yet to even be conceived. My friend, Andrea, also has gotten this impression during our sessions that I am going to find out that I’m pregnant in October. Crazy stuff, yes? Maybe. I hope not. I guess time will tell….
You know I’ll keep you posted if I ever do see that positive pee stick. Heck, I may not even need to post about it - you might just hear me screaming the news from the top of the highest mountain. In the meantime, I’ll just be sitting here, hoping like mad, and enjoying life just as it is with my amazing little boy.
