Infertility AND baby-related post

News about current pregnancy below!

I can't remember if I wrote about both my sister and my friend having problems with infertility.  My sister has been trying for over a year, my friend has been struggling with secondary infertility for over 3 years.  Both have had big news recently regarding their own struggles.

My sister went through two surgeries in the last 6 months to remove fibroids from her uterus.  After the second surgery, she requested an AMH test, since her last two showed declining numbers and she was concerned.  Her doctor went ahead and did the test, and discovered that she had low ovarian reserve and recommended egg or embryo donors.  She was crushed for a while.  At the time, I was newly pregnant and realized that I would not be able to donate eggs to her for over a year, assuming I am successful at breastfeeding this time around, so I felt pretty bad about the whole situation.  She finally made an appointment for a consultation at the clinic where I went to conceive my twins, and they told her that even though she may have diminished egg quantity, her egg quality should still be that of a normal 36-year-old (that is to say, not fantastic but not bad), and that she should be able to do IVF (if not just IUI) with her own eggs.  They're doing a clo.mid cycle just to learn how she'll react to the meds and gather information for future cycles.  So that's a relief, and I'm hopeful that they'll be on their way to having a baby within the next 6 months.

My friend has been through secondary infertility for at least 3 years.  She currently has a 5-year-old son and first told us about their problems a year and a half ago.  Until now, they had no diagnosis, and they've been doing medicated cycles at Ka.is.er (but not IUIs, except maybe the last one).  They finally decided to see fertility specialists, and in preparation for IVF, yesterday she had a hysteroscopy.  Her husband met us for dinner last night while she was at home resting and told us that the hysteroscopy found that she had extensive scarring in her uterus from the way the placenta detached after her first birth, and there was no way she could get pregnant or carry a pregnancy without surgery.  Apparently she'd even mentioned the difficulty she'd had delivering the placenta to several of the doctors she'd seen at K.ais.er, and she was blown off each time.  Needless to say, they're both angry at the wasted time and money, and all the treatments they've already done that never had any chance of working.  I'm heartbroken for what they've gone through, but hopeful that a relatively simple fix at this point will solve the problem.

And now, on to me.  I'm 14 weeks pregnant with a ... BOY!  I can't tell you how excited I am.  The whole family seems pretty on board now, and I'm just thrilled for the holiday season this year.  In fact, we have a ton of stuff going on from now until New Years really - my kids' first violin concert, music festivals, preschool graduation, a visit to my brother's family up in Washington, another potential trip to visit family in Italy, my kids' fifth birthday (!!!!), several camping trips in the works, starting kindergarten at our neighborhood school, fall (I LOVE fall!), Halloween, our new little one coming, then Thanksgiving and Christmas as a family of five.  I'm just so excited to have so much to look forward to right now.

My midwife suggested that instead of getting the gender results on the phone, I ask the nurse who calls to write it down and leave an envelope for me, so I went ahead and did that.  The problem was, my kids were home and playing nicely and I didn't want to interrupt them to drag them on a 10-minute trip to the doctor.  These are the times when I wish we had a "village" - maybe another neighbor at home who could run over for 10 minutes while I made a quick trip to the doctor, for example.  Alas, I don't have that, so I eventually promised them a smoothie or milkshake to get them into the car, then rushed to pick up the results.  Thankfully the envelope was sealed, so I wasn't tempted to open it before my husband got home.  I took the kids to their swimming lesson, then home to wait, and when my husband got home we all went and sat on a bench in the sunshine in our backyard, made our predictions, and opened the envelope.

Tadpole was immediately upset, mostly because in the previous few days she had decided she wanted to name our new baby girl "Stella" and now that name wouldn't be appropriate.  But she took the disappointment in stride and spent the next few days talking about "our new little boy".  Since the kids still lack any real concept of time, I kept explaining that the new baby wouldn't be born until around Halloween, which of course immediately made them demand certain Halloween costumes (which change every time we bring it up).  So Tadpole spent the next few days alternating between being panicked that we weren't ready for our new little boy (Oh NO!  We don't have any toys for him!  We don't have clothes for him!), to asking every day if he was born yet.  After about a week or so of that, she seems to have lost interest.

My plan right now is for the new little one to sleep in Tadpole's room, since her bed is currently in Turtle's room, and we have a futon in her room.  We can move the desk into the garage and set up the crib where Tadpole's crib used to be, and along with the futon and our beloved IKEA Poang chair, we'll have a pretty nice little nursery.  Longer term, Tadpole will move back into her room, the baby will move in with Turtle, and we'll bunk their beds, which will make plenty of room for their toys and other things.  Even longer term (or shorter term, if it comes to that), we'll combine our office and guest room and give one of those rooms to one of the kids.  A 5-year age difference might make room sharing hard, although I do have a friend whose daughters do it.

We could actually even bunk the beds sooner while Tadpole's still in there, just to make more space.  I'm just not sure how much of Tadpole's stuff to move out of her room, since she'll probably be keeping that room in the long term, but I do need to make some space for baby stuff.  I'm hoping to have a discussion with the kids in which we would all make the "decision" together to let the baby use Tadpole's room while he's little, and then Tadpole will get it back when he's older, but I am a bit nervous about being able to steer that conversation where I need it to go without causing any revolts or tears.

A friend told me about a resale group on Fa.ceb.ook in our town and I've already used it to buy almost everything we're going to need, all in excellent condition, at really good prices.  Between that, a few preschool sales, and friend donations, I've got a bouncer, a mini-cosleeper, a pea-pod sleeper (great for camping!), a carseat and matching jogging stroller, some great wooden toys, sleep sacks, hooded towels, an in-the-bed cosleeper, nursing cover, two nursing pillows, and probably a few other things I've forgotten.  I've still saved a high chair, crib with mattress and sheets, tricycle, some clothes (but not nearly enough), some toys and books, cloth diapers (which I think my friend has right now, I need to get them back), and the bicycle trailer.  I will definitely need a baby bathtub, a diaper bin, and more clothes, especially since this kid will be born in the fall and my twins were born in early summer, but I have a friend who has a little boy who will be two right around when my son will be born and is promising me some of his old clothes.  So that helps a lot.  I'm trying not to have to purchase almost anything new this time around.

I'm also already thinking about things like preschool, since I don't want to end up in a situation like we're in now, where I don't really like our school but my kids have made friends and I didn't ever want to upset the situation.  I think they're happy there, but I don't want to go back with our next kid  Now I know the importance of researching and enrolling early, and I have multiple ideas of where to look.

Well, this has gone on and on and ON, so I'll end it now and put you out of your misery.  I am trying to keep things in perspective and recognize that things are going to be HARD with two kindergarteners and a brand new baby, and in a few more years I'll be back to figuring out what I want to do with my life and my career, etc., but for the moment, I'm just overwhelmingly happy and joyous, and I really want to enjoy it while I can.