In the Winter of Our Infertility
Dec 29th, 2007 by Nola
With Sun being all of six months old already, and the holidays under my belt, I have been asked recently if Sun will have a sibling. My answer to this question is a simple one. I tell the inquiring party that it isn’t up to me, it’s up to my aging ovaries.
No one in my family knows what CS and I went through to get pregnant with Sun. Brandy’s blog reminds me of it all. Unless you experience a fertility problem, trust me, you cannot understand it.
And so the question CS and I have considered is, would we, will we, do it all again? I say today that I don’t think we will. Not because it was too stressful (and boy was it!), because having had such a success and now knowing how it works, I’d think the second time around would be less stressful.
My main reason to not do it again can be said with one word: multiples. When you do fertility treatment, you see a lot of pictures of babies on the walls–babies the specialist helped bring about. And if you look close, you see a lot of twins and triplets. So many, in fact, that there are more multiples on the walls than singletons.
And when we went through the fertility treatment, twins or triplets were a bit daunting, but we were willing to run the risk. We ideally wanted two children, so twins might actually have worked just fine (two for the price of one!).
But now that we have Sun, we have to think, what if we had multiples now? Would we want that? And truth be told, I’d rather have an only child than one older child and a set of multiples. That’s just being honest with who CS and I are. And sure, we could adopt a single baby the second time around. But, again, just being honest, I don’t have this strong desire to have a second child.
We’ve decided to let things go naturally. If I get pregnant, good; if not, so be it. I don’t expect it to happen. But maybe down the line when Sun is a bit older that urge to have a second child might grow. One thing fertility treatment has taught me is that you don’t know where that line in the sand really is until you are pushed right up to it. And somehow, inch by inch, that line gets pushed.
Stumble it!
We went through the same process when we had the twins, I was 42 at the time and had previously had my tubes tied. Before we began we knew that we would have a reduction (euphemistically speaking), if it were more than twins. This decision was a hard one, but after reading and reading and reading, we knew it was the right one. So, we had four and reduced to three and it was painful (not physically) but I have two healthy, happy children now that were a full term pregnancy. But I still think of this ‘abortion’ of sorts….
Never been through it, but know many who have and you are right - You don’t know until you have been through it. There were things I said to my friend (that never in my mind did I think I it would possibly offend her) that she told me later sent her home in tears. In retrospect, she says she knew I meant nothing by it and was just having a conversation with her, but she took everything the wrong way and got really upset. She despised me when I got pregnant and considered not even being my friend anymore. I didn’t know any of this until after she had her much wanted second child. I appreciate her honesty as now I know to tread super lightly next time!
You know in your heart the right decision. You should not be judged for whatever decision you do make!
It’s hard isn’t it. Yet, you have your sunshine and that must be a blessing every day. One of my dearest friend was at the same point that you are a few years back. She tried a year’s fertility treatment, but stopped because she could physically and emotionally not handle the situation again. So, she and her husband and their son indulge in all the freedoms they can for being a small family.
Hey, multiples scare me, too.
Sun is lucky to have you as a mommy!
I’m not even finished baking the first baby and I *already* have people asking me when I’m going to have a second one. Grrr!
[...] 3. The fear I have already discussed about multiples. [...]