Back on the Wagon?

This is an incredibly odd feeling.

After I stopped breastfeeding, I went back on the Pill. Chances are, due to J’s somewhat incapacitated sperm, I will never get pregnant on my own. But after hearing too many stories from IVF/twin mothers whose doctors told them, and I quote, “Your ovaries will never function properly on their own” and the like, and then they got pregnant when their twins were like three months old, I was determined that I would not become one of those stories.

And I haven’t been sure if I even want more children. J does, for much more complex reasons than mine, and I respect those reasons wholeheartedly. But I have been thinking more and more lately, and I feel confident that I could do this again, and that I want to do this again (the baby, not the IVF, etc). But they probably go hand in hand.

I refilled my prescription right before we took off for vacation, and through the chaos of packing, it didn’t make it into my bags. Subconscious or accident, you ask? Either way, I felt kind of free, and didn’t make too big a deal of it, either way.

Yesterday afternoon, I was reorganizing some of my bathroom cabinets, throwing out the eighteen jillion sample-size bottles of perfume I’ve managed to accumulate over the years. Oh yes, and organizing all my products by use (face lotion, body lotion, hair products, bath products, etc). I am slightly anal when I have the time and inclination.

I came to the bottom of the cabinet, and realized I was at the shelf. The very important shelf that, at the front, contains tampons and liners. The shelf that, at the back, contains a sharps container full of used needles, a fertility monitor and boxes of sticks, and an extra Follist*m kit.

I felt like the breath had been knocked out of me. It’s only been a year and a half since I used all that stuff daily, but you know the adage out of sight, out of mind. And while it’s never really out of mind, infertility has not consumed my daily thoughts as it once used to.

I sat down on the toilet, and pulled out the sharps container. I took out a needle on top, one of the long, thick PIO injections, and twirled it in my fingers. Am I ready to do this again? Can I stand the disappointment and hoping? I’m not as afraid of the physical pain from injections and retrieval as I was the first go around. I feel like labor and emergency c-section have shored me up on the pain-front. But I am afraid of the emotional pain, and how it might be different than it was before. And knowing that we’d have to start over from the very beginning, since we had no extra embryos, is a bit intimidating to me.

I poked around through the Follist*m kit, and marveled at the miniature (in comparison) needles used for those injections. That’s the easy part, I thought. Then I pulled out the fertility monitor, and tried to remember how to use it. Which is where I find myself now, on the Clearb*ue website, downloading instructions.

I’m not a big believer in “signs” and such, but this morning over breakfast, J asked if I’d had any thoughts about “more rug rats,” as he so delicately put it. We haven’t talked about this in months, and I thought it odd that he brought it up now. Well, now that you ask...

So as of now, we’re trying but not trying. I’m ready to give it a go a la natural, but need a bit of time to work up my courage to all of the IVF stuff.

I’m feeling a little ambivalent about it all, and that makes me feel really guilty. I know that this is the right time for our family to do this, and I know that it could take a long time, or may never happen. I don’t want to get too excited, but I’m afraid to not be exited enough.