Friday's Thoughts

This week has been insane.  My mind is just a blur.  A blur that I can't quite turn off.  So here I am to share my random thoughts with you all.

1. Hubby and I have not had a single night to ourselves ALL week.  Every single night since... maybe last Saturday one of us has been out.  Usually that means the one left home is doing dinner, clean-up, putting the boys to bed, post-bed clean-up and prep for the next day all to themselves.  Or I'm coming home to cleaning and prepping to be done since I kind of run that show.  It's been exhausting.  And lonely.  I miss my man.

2. However, this weekend DH and I are GOING AWAY FOR A NIGHT TO OURSELVES!  This is a BIG deal folks.  We haven't had a night away (without the kids) since before I went on bed rest while I was pregnant.  I've been wanting to for months, but DH didn't feel ready to leave the boys with anyone else (I was fine with it lol).  But, we bought tickets to a concert months ago, and were planning to bring the boys and have DH's brother and wife watch them.  Instead, we decided that since my mom was free, we would leave the boys at home with her, and enjoy the night away to ourselves.  I am So. Freaking. Excited!

3. For the concert we are heading down island 3 hours to the city where our fertility treatments were conducted and I spent 7 weeks in the hospital.  I haven't really been back there (besides one quick doctor's visit) since the boys were born. Even thinking about it is bringing up all sorts of emotions.  But not the bad, bedrest, hospital stay emotions that were at the forefront before.  I've more been remembering the excitement and anticipation of going for fertility treatments.  I think it has to do with the fact that we are TTC again.  At the moment, all the pain and frustration and feelings of futility have vanished and I am just remembering the expectation and hope.  Maybe I'm trying to summon those feelings back again.  It's actually a really nice place to be.

4. Which leads me to the next point... TTC!  I am officially IUD-FREE!  The first thing my doctor said when I went for my appointment was, "So, you're trying to get pregnant?"  I guess that IS the reason people have their IUD removed, but with all of our history, the question caught me off guard.  I went into this rambly, long explanation about our history before realizing I could have just answered the question with a simple yes.

5. But... DH and I haven't really talked about TTC.  I mean, don't get me wrong...he was totally on board with my removing the IUD, but I don't think he has really thought about what this actually means, or could mean for us and our family.  He is kind of the after-thought processor.  He doesn't really process things until after they happen, and then he freaks out.  I hope we have a chance to really talk while we are away.  Or forget the talking and just get to business and see what happens, lol! 


Well, it's not even 9pm but my eyes are starting to get blurry and shut down...  It's been a Loonnnng week.  I'm ready to curl up, get a good night's sleep and enjoy my weekend.  TTYL!

P.S. I have a new post on my other blog... check it out!  

TTC... again...

Lately I have come to realize that I am not alone in the blogosphere in how I am feeling.  I think there is a phenomena that needs a name.  There are many around me who are struggling with difficult feelings after going through infertility, conceiving, giving birth, and then being faced with whether or not to TTC again.  Hapa Hopes just wrote a post about this.  Liz at Compromised Fertility recently found out she is expecting after having twins.  Lanie just gave birth to her second, a "natural" pregnancy after not knowing whether she would be able to conceive on her own again.   It's not quite secondary infertility, because either we are just starting to TTC, or deciding whether we want to, and not sure if we will be faced with infertility again. We are not all at the same stage, and yet the feelings are similar.  It brings up a whole whack of emotions that I know were unexpected for myself.  The fears, the uncertainty, the jealousy, the loneliness... it's all there again.  I don't know what the answer is, but knowing that others feel the same helps. 

I had my IUD removed today.

Cue freak out! 

What am I doing?  I have 16-month old, very demanding, very busy twin boys. I'm sitting here drinking tea, "ignoring" one of my boys who decided not to nap during the time I desperately needing alone time, thinking what it would be like to never get alone time again.  Okay, well not for a lonnnng time.  I don't know if I am ready to be pregnant again. 

The doctor said that there is sometimes a super-ovulation phase after taking out the IUD.  My period just recently returned since stopping breastfeeding the boys.  Technically, my chances are "up."  I know it's not a guarantee.  We may not be able to get pregnant again.  But we might.  And what if we did... soon? 

What if I had complications like the last pregnancy?  What if I ended up on bedrest while caring for 2-year old twin terrors?  What if we try and try and don't get pregnant.  Then what? 

Clearly, you can see that I am conflicted.  But deep down, I think I do want it to happen.  Otherwise I could have postponed taking out the IUD.  But I didn't.  And so... we will see... 

TTC after Pregnancy after Infertility

I feel like I haven't blogged about anything "real" in a long time.  What I mean by "real" is my own personal thoughts and feelings.  Yet lately this blog land space has been on my mind.  I miss it.

I've also had a lot of thoughts regarding infertility on my mind again.  So here we go.

Is it just me, or are a lot of people in the blogosphere finding themselves suddenly pregnant after pregnancy after infertility?  Maybe it's just the friends who I follow on here, but it seems to be a common theme.  That, or the decision to TTC for a second time.  And that's where I find myself.  No, not pregnant, but trying to decide whether to TTC again.

Our boys are nearly 16 months old.  Which, if we suddenly found ourselves pregnant, would give us a new baby right after the twins enter their terrible twos.  Are we not CRAZY for even considering that?  But I can't help it!  The thought is suddenly consuming my mind.  And I'm trying to figure out why it all of a sudden is so important to me.

Part of my brain has this notion that I can "trick" my body into getting pregnant easily again if I just try right away.  I only recently got my period back (sort of), and maybe I can suddenly get pregnant before my body realizes it is infertile.  Does that sound crazy?  I know I have heard others who feel the same way.  And I have seen it work!  So in a way, I feel like the pressure is on and I need to get on this fast before I lose my chance...

It may also be that the boys are definitely NOT babies anymore.  We have full-on toddlers in the house.  Which is wonderful, and fun, and exciting, and exhausting!  But I miss my babies.  And I feel like I want to experience all those beautiful baby stages again... this time not in shock and not while recovering from a fairly traumatic pregnancy/birth experience.

That is part of it too.  I can't help but want a normal pregnancy/birth experience.  I definitely feel like carrying twins, plus being on bed rest, plus having tons of bleeding/pregnancy complications, plus the NICU, plus post-partum hemorrhage was NOT the normal experience.  It's not that I'm ungrateful for my experience, but I just wonder what it would be like to experience a pregnancy without all the complications... or has infertility and my trauma ruined me of that?

I also think that if we do have a third child, I want him/her to be close in age to the boys, so that he/she is not a third wheel and left out all the time.  I feel like a child closer in age would allow them to break out of their "twinship" and befriend the other sibling more.  I don't know if we would go for a fourth, so that may be all we have.

I don't even know for sure if we want a third child.  We are a pretty happy family as it is.  I just can't stop thinking of trying for another one...

There will be no surprises for a while, as I still have the IUD.  We jumped on the birth control wagon as soon as we could since we really didn't want a surprise right away.  The shock of parenting newborn twins just scared us too much!  I'm back on a waitlist to see my OB and have the IUD removed, so this isn't going to happen anytime too soon.  I'm really just trying to figure out if it is what I want.

Okay, I know it is what I want.  I'm just trying to figure out if the reasons for me wanting it are rational and  reasonable.

So there you have it.  Oh, and can I just say that infertility definitely has changed sex for us forever (or at least it seems so!).  Yes, there are still those spontaneous, fun, enjoyable times... but how bad is it that when I go to the bathroom and see some ripe CM sitting there, my first thought is, "WE NEED TO HAVE SEX RIGHT NOW!" before realizing that I'm on birth control and not even capable of getting pregnant.  Yet it was like an uncontrollable urge!  I'm pretty sure that's not exactly how sex was designed to be.