So my appointment with the MFM is on Monday. Dun dun dun. I saw my nephrologist yesterday and he seemed to have been accepting of the idea of me getting pregnant at some point in the future, assuming we have the blessing of the MFM, though he did not seem like he thought it would be a SUPER good idea. He seemed pleased when I told him we were not adamant about getting pregnant in the near future if the risk factors didn’t look like they were in our favor. He said he thought from a previous conversation that this was our plan and we were moving forward with it. I think he remembers how I pretty much bulldozed our way to pregnancy #1.
Of course, this one is different for me. Things have changed. It could easily be argued that we already won the freaking lottery with our baby T (who is not a baby anymore…sad face….but also happy face…oh so much internal conflict about how to feel about all this). I mean let’s face it, we totally did. We got pregnant on the first try, had a relatively easy pregnancy, delivered about as deep into the preemie “safe zone” as you can get, and though Titus had a rough start he pulled through and at least doesn’t seem to have any lasting ill effects from it. He’s an amazing, happy, smart, loving and playful little boy, who makes Paul and I smile and laugh every.single.solitary.day. Even on his “bad” days he is still mostly a happy kid.
For someone who walked into a high-risk pregnancy with doctors who believed there was a high probability shit could REALLY hit the fan fast, everything sort of just worked out. It wasn’t easy, but we made it through.
After seeing what my bff went through this past summer (and let’s face it, is still going through and will be going through for the rest of her life), it only makes me all the more aware of how things could have turned out very differently for us and how life-alteringly devastating it could have been.
So I don’t take it for granted that I have one child, I know how lucky I am to have him and I take note of this every day.
And therein lies the conflict. Should we be happy with our one miracle? Is it too much to ask for another? Are we testing our luck? Is it fair to even try? I wish someone could answer these questions for me. Like definitively. Because if someone could tell me that if we try again things will go shitty, then I’m happy to just forget it. But the part of me that is all hopeful and positive is like, look how awesome your kid is….you could have another one JUST LIKE HIM. Don’t you want that?! And of course the answer is yes. Except what about the risks?
So there’s the risk to any potential baby. I’m terrified of going through what we went through with T again, mainly because, I don’t know if we’d get lucky this time. What if hypothetical baby also got really sick but didn’t pull through? What then? Devastation not only for Paul and I, but T’s life would be turned upside down, our families, friends….We would go on, we would have to for T’s sake, but it would be better to not try at all NOW than to end up with a result like that.
And then there was the risk I didn’t care so much about the first time around. The risk to me. Before T, I did worry for Paul but mostly I hoped that him being relatively young and a total catch, he would survive and go on and hopefully get remarried and live a happy life and be okay. Is that morbid that I thought about all that? Not really, it was just a realistic thing I had to think about. Now the realistic thing I have to think about is the fact that I would be leaving behind an irreplaceable hole in the life of my child because of a choice I willingly made. It didn’t bother me AS much when T was younger, when I wasn’t really sure if having me specifically as a mother was important to him, but I’m clearly now his “mommy” and there are times when he wants ME specifically and it just crushes me to think that I could do something to make it so that I would no longer be there when he wants his mommy. Yes, Paul could still hopefully get remarried and find someone to be a mother figure to T, but he is bonded to me and I have little doubt that it will scar him if I’m suddenly gone from his life.
So yeah. Paul was asking me last night what I need to hear from the MFM and the truth is, I have no idea. I want him to be all like “everything will be fine if you get pregnant again” but he isn’t God and he’s not a genie either.
I WANT another baby. I’m going through that whole, staring longingly at other people’s babies phase again. The one I thought would be solved by having T, but like I said he’s just not a baby anymore. He’s an awesome little toddler, and I’m having the BEST time with a kiddo who walks, talks, plays and has so much personality, but it must be that damn biological clock going off again, begging for those chubby little baby toes, and the distinct little newborn cry.
But it’s definitely a WANT now, not the same gut-wrenching NEED that I felt before we had T.
Of course, I’m kind of spoiled and usually go after the things I just want and don’t need so what does any of this mean?
Who the hell knows.