All the Sun For You

A mom, two boys, a husband, and a whole lot of adventure!

Category Archives: Bryson


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Reality

So a couple of weeks ago, I was all pumped up about getting my first AF in years, and was super excited to start trying for another baby.  I was all, “we are going to try naturally, hurrah!”  A lot of the ladies I follow have been getting surprise BFP’s and that sort of motivated me – I thought, “if it can happen for them, it can happen for me.”

But it really can’t – or it really shouldn’t.  Everyone getting their surprise pregnancies have similar IF diagnoses.  We do not.  I don’t follow a single person with our diagnosis (that I know of) with the exception of one blogger I’ve followed for years.*  When she first started her IF journey, she was told that they could get pregnant naturally, but that it would take 5 years (statistically).  Well, she did have a surprise BFP – almost exactly 5 years after her RE told her the odds.

I don’t have 5 years.  And I’ve come to realize something else.

I like my RE.  I like knowing that when we go back to try, that I’m only trying for a set cycle and I’m not getting my hopes up every.single.month.  I was using OPK’s this past week to see if I’m going to be back to my regular 26.5 day cycle, or if the breastfeeding was going to make it longer or shorter.  I got no positive surge – but I started testing on day 11 of my cycle.  Too late to start.  I’m not concerned – we know I ovulate just fine so I’m sure I tested at the wrong time.  This past week, every time I would POAS, I was stressed.  Every time I saw that open circle (I use the digital ones), my heart would sink.  Why?  I knew what the problem was (late testing), but it still stressed me out.

I went to Tar-get yesterday and had a month’s supply of OPK’s in my hand when I looked at Matthew and thought, “I don’t want this stress.  I don’t need this stress.  I’m happy right now.  Why am I willing to mess that up?  THESE WILL MESS THAT UP.”  I literally said out loud to him, “we don’t need these.”  I put them back on the shelf, and walked out of that store confident in my decision to not put myself (or B, or Matthew) through the stress that comes with testing.

It was a simple decision.  I was looking at my little boy who lights up every single day of my life, and I realized that this is not the time to be stressed.  This is the time to savor.  This is the time to absorb every hug, every kiss, every snuggle because this time will be gone in the blink of an eye.  Every single OPK test that I used last week interrupted that happiness, and that’s unacceptable.

And then there’s this.  We have 7 frozen embryos and we would really like to give them all a chance.  Honestly, we probably have between 0 and 2 potential babies in the freezer.  We could use them all up and have no baby in the end, or we could get one or a couple of babies out of them.  Who knows.  But if we would have a surprise BFP – we would will still have 7 frozen embryos whose fates we would need to decide.

No.thank.you!

So for now, we will just go with the flow and not test.  Not try.  If there is a miracle, surprise BFP in my future – it’s going to be just that.  A surprise.  Not something we timed intercourse for.  Not something I tested for and stressed over.  No.  There is no need for stress in our lives right now.  That time is coming soon enough with an upcoming FET.  I want to savor this time because it’s going to get a little more complicated soon enough.

And I will say this again.  I look at Matthew and truly think, “you are all I need for children.”  I would love another 1 or 2 kids for all of our sakes, but if Matthew is destined to be an only child – I am happy with that.  Because I am over-the-moon happy with him!

* I just re-read one of the blogs I follow and one of them DOES have our diagnosis.  I am still not changing my plan as outlined above, but it’s nice to see that there is some hope out there!

** Congrats to all of you with your surprise BFP’s!  I am really, really happy for you!


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Hope Floats

Something big happened – I got my first post-pregnancy period.  Not exciting to anyone but me, I suppose, but it’s worth a post.

All this time, I’ve worried about weaning Matthew solely because I need to get that first period post-nursing so that we can move onto TTC Matthew’s sibling.  I have written several posts and comments about this topic, I was so upset about it.  Our RE said it would take 2-6 weeks given that I’m still nursing him exclusively (aside from his 3 meals a day) – he nurses 4 times a day still.  I figured that it would take 6 weeks for me to get my first period once he was weaned – but I got it today!  Why the exclamation point?

Well, this means that my cycles are coming back and when I am fully done nursing (some time in July – notice how that got moved out from June?!), then the first post-nursing period will come on cue and we can begin our FET!  I decided the other night that I am nursing Matthew into July just to help my own heart get through it, and if that pushed our FET process to September or October – then so be it.  But if I’m cycling now, then that means that we can still start our FET in August, most likely, even if I nurse into July because I won’t have to wait 6 weeks for a period!

And then there’s this.  We can start trying naturally now.  I even asked B today if we could run some tests to see if anything has changed because maybe we don’t need IVF/FET – maybe with his new paleo lifestyle, things have changed and we can (gasp!) get pregnant naturally or with an IUI.  He enthusiastically said yes, so I will call our RE next week to get that setup.

My first thought when I saw the blood was, “well, I guess I’m not accidentally pregnant.”  How silly is that?  After all the IF business we went through to get Matthew, I thought that maybe, just maybe, we could get pregnant naturally without a single period?  I mean – it happened to my younger sister who only has one ovary.  HA!

This all reminds me of one of my favorite corny movies – Hope Floats.  At the end of the movie, she says, “Beginnings are scary. Endings are usually sad, but it’s what’s in the middle that counts. So, when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance to float up. And it will.”

Here I am at the beginning, all over again, and my hope is already floating up.


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Yeah – It Doesn’t Work That Way

It hit me today that I will NOT be doing our FET in August like I thought.  When my friend was over today with her daughter, we talked through my cycle and I realized that I won’t get my first post-nursing period until August, at which time my RE wants to do a mock transfer.  They will put me on BCP on day 1 of that first cycle and then the FET will be about 45 days later.  We’re looking at September or early October, which is when we did the transfer for Matthew.  I am totally cool with this – but it did surprise me that I hadn’t thought through this earlier than now.

The good news of all of this is that I’m obviously not obsessed with TTC/IVF like I was when we were trying so hard to get Matthew.  When we were working on getting him, I would build spreadsheets to figure out when I may cycle if this one, or that one, didn’t work and if I had a chemical pregnancy, etc.  I was a crazy woman.  This time?  My RE said we’d do the cycle in August and I just figured, “oh, a  transfer in August.”  No – it does not work that way  😉  So late September it will be if I get my period when I expect it.

Again – totally cool with it!  It means I have even more time with just Matthew, which is ultimately what I want.  The idea of another baby makes me a little sad because Matthew is my bestie and I don’t want that to change.  But I do want him to have a bestie that is closer to his age than his dear old mom – and that is why we’re doing this when we are.  He LOVES other kids and really needs to have one of his own at home  😉


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Resolution Coming in 2 Weeks

I took a big step today and made an appointment with our RE for March 13th to discuss when to start the process on Baby #2.  I meant to call back in January to set this appointment up for March, but I kept putting it off for some reason.  I don’t really know the reason – I just know that I wasn’t ready to commit to a discussion on the topic.

My dilemma is this – I’m still nursing M.  I only planned to nurse him for 6 months, but it’s gone so well (not to mention that I truly enjoy it!) that I just kept doing it.  I’ve been pumping all along because I figured I’d need to stop prior to his first birthday to do all the pre-testing for an FET if we wanted to space the kids two years apart.  So I have a deep freezer full of breast milk for when I stop nursing M.  The problem is that I don’t want to stop nursing him.  I enjoy it.  I love that I’m the only one who can provide this for him and that it affords me 4-6 long snuggles a day with my favorite little guy.  I will stop when he’s a year old because I want him to have the independence to be able to go on play dates and drink from sippy cups (and keep on playing while doing so) versus cozying up to dear old Mom when he’s thirsty or hungry.  I am emotionally ready to stop at one year.  I’m not emotionally ready to stop prior to one year.

I wasn’t too concerned about this because I figured our RE would want me to stop nursing for, say, one month before testing and then moving onto a cycle.  Stopping at one year would then put a cycle in August and that would be that – if it worked, the kids would be 22-23 months apart which would be great.  However, I saw on someone’s blog last night that their RE won’t do the testing until she’s been done nursing for 1-3 months.  That is what gave me pause.  That is what has me upset because if that’s the case, if I quit nursing at the end of June when M is 12 months old, I wouldn’t be able to test until he’s 13-15 months old and then cycle probably a month later (so between him being 14 and 16 months old).

All of this has then led me to think about child spacing and the fact that IF-ers don’t really have the opportunity to plan such things.  When you require IVF (or an FET), you only get 3, maybe 4, chances at conceiving in a given year.  If we cycled in August (which is my current plan) and it worked, then the kids would be 23 months apart.   Now, I’m no newbie to IVF so I don’t expect it to work the first time.  Then, you get pushed out to late November, which would put the kids 26 months apart (which would be good).  If that didn’t work, then we’d push out to March which would put them 29/30 months apart, and so on, and so on.  Very quickly, your child spacing plans could go to crap and you could easily end up with kids spaced way further apart than you had hoped.  Or – maybe it would work the first time and the rest would be history.

I just don’t know what to do.  This is why we’re meeting with our wonderful RE on the 13th.  I’m actually excited to see him – I like him a lot!

Until then, I’m just going to keep on nursing M and enjoying every minute of it (even the minutes that occur in the middle of the night because he’s not the best sleeper!).