… There will be no reconsiderations on the size of our family.

I had my annual appointment with Dr. H two weeks ago.  He asked where we were on family planning, I told him about our recent decision to stop at 2 kids, he talked about wishing he’d had a third but that two is easier, and then we talked about my uterus.  He said that between my post-delivery appointment last August and now, he’s “lost two kids to that.”  I asked, “a uterine window?” and he said, “I don’t think you understand what you had.

He explained it quite frankly.  That what I had (uterine window) was simply a pre-rupture – that given its location, size, and the size of Bryson, that even minor laboring would have caused a rupture of “catastrophic proportions.”  The uterine window is what happens just before a rupture – it’s all that’s there keeping the baby in the uterus and it’s only a very thin, clear membrane that is incredibly fragile.  He said that if we chose to have a third baby, that it must be a singleton (“MUST”) and that he’d deliver at 36 weeks to reduce my risk, “but I lost one of those babies at 22 weeks and the other at 34 weeks –  a planned 36 week delivery wouldn’t have saved them.”  My chances of having another uterine window are between 40% and 50%.

So we’re really done.

Hottie asked, “did you ask Dr. H if he would have let M (his wife) have another baby if she’d had the same thing?”  I said I didn’t ask because it was obvious – he would not have.  They stopped at 2 because of their first pregnancy being septic and the second one having a health risk to the baby (but she was fine).  As he said, “having a third would have been playing with fire.”  That’s how we feel too.

I walked out of there a little sad.  A little relieved.  A little devastated.  A little at peace.

I mean, there is something to be said for knowing you’re done because you just shouldn’t have more.  We have a very good medical reason to stop, and we’re taking it seriously…  so that’s it… we’re done.