I mentioned Part 1 in one of my posts below - I had a boyfriend in high school and I assumed that I would marry him when I was 20, and we would have four kids, and be blissfully happy and live happily ever after. I know now that that the blissfully happy probably wouldn't have been true all the time, but I really thought that all the the other stuff was possible, even probable. Then when I was 18, two weeks into my freshman year of college, he was killed in a bicycle/car accident. My life plan died with him. For years, I didn't know what to do because I just wanted to fix things so that I could have my original plan work.
But after ten years, I decided that since I couldn't fix things to bring my boyfriend back, I would just change my plan so that I would never get married and have any kids. Two weeks later, I met my husband, and we were married a year later. I was almost 29 when we got married. So the plan was changed a little, but I had found a wonderful man, and I was still relatively young, and I could still have those 4 kids and be blissfully happy and live happily after. So here's where part 2 began.
We got married during the summer of 1995. We decided to wait a year to try and start a family, and it turned into almost 2. In June 1997, I went to my GYN for my yearly appointment, and told him that we were going to start trying to conceive. I was not quite 31. I asked the dr. if he had anything that I should be doing/not doing to optimize our chances, and he just patted me on the head (he actually did!) and told me that he was sure that we would be pregnant within a few months and not to worry. Six months later, I was not pregnant and starting to get worried. We had just moved and both of has new jobs. I decided to wait until after the holidays and find a new GYN and find out if we needed to start any testing or anything. I had an appointment for early March of 1998. Well, in early February 1998, I was late. I took a test. Negative. OK. No big deal. A week later, I was still late. Took another test. Negative. Annoying, but I figured that I would just talk to my dr. at the appointment in a couple weeks. A week later, I was still late. I took another test and it was positive. I didn't think anything about the fact that I was three weeks late before I got a test. I just assumed everything was fine, and called my husband and told him that we were going to have a baby in 9 months. We called everything and told them about the pregnancy. A week later, I had a miscarriage. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I knew that my mom had had miscarriages, but she had always had "female" problems, and I had always been totally normal.
I spent the rest of 1998 being obsessed with getting pregnant again. We discovered that both my husband and I had some issues, but we had conceived on our own, so it was possible that we would be able to conceive on our own again, but it may just take time. I didn't want to wait any longer. My dr. said that we could try artificial insemination for a month, and then the following month, she would send us to a specialist to see if she wanted to do further testing and possibly more intensive fertility treatment. We tried a couple of inseminations in December 1998, and lo and behold, I got pregnant! I was really nervous during K's pregnancy, but it was a normal pregnancy, and she was born at 40 weeks, 3 days in September 1999.
We started trying naturally for another child almost right away. When K was 13 months old, we decided to visit the fertility specialist to see about doing another artificial insemination (AI). We tried a couple in October 2000. Negative. I was surprised because I figured that since it happened right away with K, it would happen right away when we tried again. We tried a couple AIs in December 2000 along with a low dose of a fertility medication (Clomid). Negative. In January, we tried AIs with a higher dose of Clomid. Negative. Wow. I always wanted to have 4 children. Was K just going to be our miraculous, only child? We asked our fertility specialist about doing in vitro (IVF). Our insurance would pay for almost all of it THANKFULLY, and the chances were higher of us being successful with IVF than AI. The specialist agreed and we started meds (lots and lots of them) in February 2001. We did the retrieval in late March 2001. We didn't end up with a lot of eggs, and then they didn't divide well. The dr. didn't think that the cycle was going to work. She had so little faith in the cycle that she decided to put 3 eggs back in, which she usually never does in a patient of my age (34 at the time). But I did get pregnant. E's pregnancy was not a normal pregnancy. There were bleeding episodes, and I went into pre-term labor at 29 weeks. I had hospital bedrest and home bedrest, but she was born at 40 weeks in December 2001, completely healthy. Wow, two healthy children!
We decided that we wouldn't try and prevent a future pregnancy, but our insurance had changed and we no longer had infertility coverage, and we didn't want to go through all rollercoaster of fertility treatments any more either. I still hoped that we would have another, but really tried to accept that perhaps my plan of 4 children wasn't going to happen.
I got pregnant when E was 8 months old. Wow, all this trouble get pregnant before, and now I would have children that were 17 months apart. A week later, I miscarried.
By December 2003, E was 2, and I was 37, I told myself that I was going to have to live with a different plan. I gave everything baby away except for the high chair and crib because E was still using them. I found out I was pregnant. I just assumed that I would miscarry. I always miscarried if I conceived naturally. I made it to 5 weeks, 7 weeks, and then the bleeding problems started. There was a problem with my placenta. Things would probably resolve on its own. I wasn't convinced. I made it to 13 weeks. OK, it was the second trimester, I think I'm going to have this baby. I had pre-term labor again, more bedrest. But lasted until 40 weeks 3 days and had a normaly healthy baby. However, it was discovered at delivery that he had a true knot in his cord. The dr. said that we were really lucky that he made it. I had 3 children! And S had come to us without any medical help! I would just be thankful. Who cares about my plan for 4 children?
As the months went by, I was grateful and thankful for my three children. But there was still moments where I would see families with four children and have little pangs. But it would pass. I was lucky. Most of my friends had had two or three children. They had had them easily. We had really had to work to have our three children. It really was amazing that we had three.
Then in July 2006, when S was almost 2, I was late. It just couldn't be true. I was almost 40. We had fertility problems. But sure enough, I was pregnant. The bleeding and placenta problems started at around 8 weeks. But I told myself that I had problems with S's pregnancy, but it had turned out o.k. My natural conceptions that ended in miscarriages all happened before 8 weeks. Everything would be fine. More bleeding problems at 10 weeks. But the baby looked fine. Did the nuchal fold test at 11 weeks. The baby wasn't in a great position, so they wanted to check it in a couple of weeks. Another bleeding episode at 12 weeks 5 days. I went in for an ultrasound and the baby's heart had stopped beating. WHAT????? How could this be? I was past all my miscarriage dates. I was almost in the 2nd trimester. Everything that I read said that if you see a heartbeat at 7 weeks (which we did) that your chances go down to less than 5% that you will have a miscarriage.
I was a mess for about a year. I couldn't believe that I had finally gotten myself used to the idea of not having 4 children, THEN to get pregnant, only to lose it at almost 13 weeks. But by the fall of 2007, I was doing o.k. again. I had finally really accepted that my plan of four kids wasn't going to happen. I really enjoyed being with my three wonderful children. My life was busy with all of their activities, I was doing a little daycare, and I was starting my fifth year of teaching preschool.
And in December 2007, I found out I was pregnant with Christopher.
Now, PLEASE don't think that I just kept getting pregnant to fulfill this dream of having four children and that my children are just numbers or physical representations of what I think is an ideal family size. Please don't think that I kept getting pregnant to replace the babies that I lost. But I can't be the only one who has plans and dreams about how their life is going to go. And it seems like so many times in my life that I've been so close to getting to have that dream, and then it is so tragically snatched away. And for me, it is so hard for me when I finally realize that I have come to the end of a path, and that there is no way to really fix things so that the plan will work.
I know I'm not the only one who has to learn to live with different life plans, and different paths. I know that life almost never goes according to plan, mine or anybody else's. I know that life usually isn't easy, and that it is mostly just about getting through, hopefully with lots of help from your family and friends. I believe that you have to have sadness so that you can have joy, and that if things were were always easy, you would never truly appreciate all that you really have.
But right now, it really does seem like I've had more than my fair share of sadness and trials. And it is hard for me to know that there will likely be more sadness, trials and broken dreams in my future. But hopefully, a little happiness too. Hopefully.
- Andie
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