I want to have another child. 

Millhouse would like to have another child. 

No one ever said that the child had to be our biological child. 

A friend of mine emailed me today because she and her husband are in the process of adopting a little boy and she wanted to know if adoption would be something that our family would be interested in.  Apparently the agency that she is using has a lot of little girls that need home and she immediately thought of us. 

My initial reaction to the email was to tell her that we are not interested.  And that is what I did.  I thought that as much as this come be something that could complete our family, I was certain that Millhouse would be against it.  So I said no. 

Then tonight I came home and told Millhouse about the email and he reacted in a way I never expected.  

He’s interested. 

We have a lot of research to do.  There are a lot of people that we have to talk to and find out how exactly we would go through the process of adoption.  It’s a very long road that we are looking into walking but for the first time in a long time….I’m hopeful.

Is over. 

I didn’t take my second cycle.  I didn’t chart this month either.  And I didn’t test for when I was ovulating. 

I know that Aunt Flo will be here shortly.  My telltale pimple arrived about two days ago, my mood swings and hot flashes have started and my boo boos hurt.  

These are all signs that I loathe but I know what they mean.  It means that Aunt Flo is suiting up and she will come riding in shortly.  In the months past I convinced myself that these were signs that maybe, possibly, wish on a star, spit on a mushroom and turn around three times and hope against hope that I might be pregnant.  This month I know better.  I know that I am not pregnant.  I know that these are all signs smacking me in the face and practically screaming at me that I am not pregnant and I am accepting that. 

Will I be upset when Aunt Flo shows up?  Most likely.  

Am I going to cry?  Most definitely.  

But I know that this may not happen.  I know now in my heart that the odds are Maks having a sibling are extremely slim and yes, I have given up. 

Millhouse hasn’t gone to the doctor yet.  He said he would go at the beginning of the month but 14 days in January and he hasn’t made the appointment yet.  And I am not going to make the appointment for him.  If he doesn’t want to get the one last test done then I am done forcing him.  

If he doesn’t want to try, then there isn’t much I can do. I can’t do this on my own.  I am going to stop.  I cannot do this anymore.  I feel like a failure.  I feel alone. So I am giving up.  It is not the strong thing to do.  A strong person with go to fertility clinics, they would take shots and hormones; they would go to specialists and keep trying.  

But I can’t. 

I feel like I’ve failed myself & my son.

Husband:  if you are reading this.  STOP RIGHT NOW!  I am not going to divulge any secret information about our relationship to the internet.  Nor am I going to air my grievances about something that you know nothing about.  I am going to b*tch about something that you are sick of hearing about.  I am going to talk about something that you have asked me to stop talking about and since you are refusing to discuss this with me, I am going to discuss it with the interweb.  Why?  Because I need to talk about this, I need to get this off my chest.  So unless you want to read about a topic that you are sick of talking about then I would stop reading NOW.     

As the title says I am mad at my husband but I am not really mad, I am disappointed and feel very alone. 

Last May we started trying for baby #2.  We weren’t really trying it was more like not being careful.  We adopted a if it happens it happens kind of attitude.  But nothing happened.  So January of this year I decided to get serious about trying.  I told Millhouse this and he was OK with it.  I went to the doctor in February, told him about what was going on and got checked out to make sure that everything was working well.  I got a clean bill of health.  Millhouse declined to get checked out because he ‘knew’ that everything was OK.  I was OK with that because I figured that the previous failures to get pregnant were the result of timing.  So I got some ovulation strips from a friend and got serious about trying.  I started charting, testing and tracking monthly.  Millhouse really wasn’t involved in this part.  His involvement in the trying was limited to the BD.  And that was OK.  I am the planner and this is what I did.  

After 10 months after trying and failing, there was another trip to the doctor for me and out came the medication.  It was official on Monday, the first cycle of Clomid failed.  I feel lost and I need Millhouse to get involved.  I want him to go get tested but he doesn’t want to, he thinks that he is fine.  And that is fine.  But we need to make sure that he is because if he isn’t then all these months have been a waste.  I need him to get involved but the more I ask the more he asks to me to stop involving him.  

I am mad because I wanted him to do this months ago but his masculine pride refuses to believe that there is even the possibility that the problem may not be with me but with him.  He refuses to even acknowledge that he may be the reason that we cannot have another baby.  In my head I need him to have a clean bill of health for us to keep trying.  I cannot keep going knowing that this may never work and him not getting tested means that there is always that possibility.  

This is breaking me down emotionally and he wants me to stop thinking about it.  He says that I am putting too much pressure on him.  And I don’t understand how.  I started being really vocal about him going to the doctor two months ago AFTER more than a year of being quiet.  After almost a year of doing this on my own, I am asking him to please get involved because I cannot do this on my own anymore and he feels pressured. 

I am mad at him.

I can’t fu*king wait until this year is done and behind me. 

Yeah, I am in a pissy mood.  I am beyond pissy right now I will rip your head off for looking at me the wrong way so consider yourself warned.  

I firmly believe that good is tied to bad, that happy and sad live in the same house.  What this means is that in times of extreme joy there will always be a time of extreme sadness to counterbalance the joy, times of deep darkness will always be followed by a blinding light.  But then the cycle will start again.  The darkness will return but so will the light.  The fairies, the fates, sun & moon Gods don’t want us being too happy so they give us the ying and yang to keep us in check. 

You may not believe in this but I do.  In my head it all makes sense. 

In 2006 happy and sad played me like a fiddle.  I had the happy at the beginning of the year, I got married, and I got pregnant.  Then sad hit me towards the end, my Godfather had a massive stroke.  He was in a bad way for a long time but then he started to get better. 

In 2007 happy and sad hit me again.  I had Maks, the highest high that I have ever experienced in my life.  Sad followed with me realizing what friendship really was.  It wasn’t the lowest low I ever experienced but it was a hard one for me to get over. 

This year has been filled with sad.  Happy has gone on vacation and left me in 2009.  I have a barren womb, after 16 months of trying, there is still no baby and my gut is telling me that a baby number 2 is not in our future.  And I do not mean near future, I mean forever future.  The promotion that I wanted turned out to be a noose around me, binding me to a job that I don’t want anymore, testing my strength and having people from all levels throw me under the bus.  And lastly, I lost my Godfather.  It was a sad that I never expected and one of the hardest to overcome. 

If sad has anything else to throw at me, I don’t know if I can handle it.  I am beaten people.  There is no more I can take.  I know that I sound over dramatic but I mean this from the depths of my soul.  I can’t handle anymore sad.  Even the happy news that used to brighten me is making me cry.  My cousin just told me that she is due in April with number 2 and I started bawling.  I am happy for her but so sad for me.  

I want happy back and I am hoping that he shows up again in 2010.

Now back to researching custom water bottles.

I would have taken my first Clomid.  I would have started my first ever Clomid cycle. 

This terrifies me to the very core.  

I am not scared of taking medicine or anything like that.  I am scared that it won’t work.  The same thoughts keep running through my head, what if this doesn’t work?  We have put so much hope into this one little pill and what if it doesn’t work?  I am scared that the first cycle will fail, then the second cycle will fail and then the third and final cycle will fail.  

I don’t know what we will do if they fail.  We are hoping that things work out in the first three cycles because if they don’t we don’t have a plan.  I am not sure that I can handle what would come next if we decided to keep going.  

It scares me.

That would be me. 

I have decided that after a year of trying that Mother Nature needs some help.  So I have enlisted the help of Clomid.  It is supposed to help.  Apparently it has a very good success rate, a pregnancy within three months.  Unfortunately for me I cannot take it this month.  The day that I was supposed to start has passed so I have to wait until next month to start.  I am disappointed that I cannot start right away but after a year I am willing to wait a month.  Also, it is a good thing that I have a Medicare supplement plan because these pills were expensive.

I am not sure how I feel about being medicated though.  I am usually anti – pills but I am willing to give this a chance.   But I think that we are not going to take this any further than the next three months.  If Clomid doesn’t work, I think that we are just going to give up.  Emotionally I don’t think that we can take much more.

I apologize for all the ‘woe is me’ posts, I know that I have been going on and on lately but I really can’t help it.  It is how I feel.  This whole process of trying to get pregnant again has me defeated.  I feel like such a failure.  I am so confused, sad and just not me.  I don’t understand how something that happened so fast and so easily the first time is so elusive the second time around. 

I am not by any stretch of the imagination unhappy with my life.  Please don’t think this.  I love my son.  He is my world.  I love him more than words can even begin to describe but it is I always wanted more than one child.  I was very vocal about wanting one child.  I told anyone that would listen that I wanted 4 kids, born a year apart all before I hit my 30’s.  It was so bad that my boss asked me on my first day back from mat leave if I was pregnant because she knew that I wanted to have another child right away. 

But I am a month away from my 30^th birthday, Maks is 2 and ½ and I can’t get pregnant.  

I chart, I track, I test, I eat yams, I tilt my pelvis after sex, I check CM but nothing.  It’s been more than a year and nothing.  Now I know that this is nothing compared to what others have gone through.  I know that there are people out there that are on medication, getting invasive tests, surgery, injected, dissected, prodded and probed.  I know that I have gone through nothing compared to them.  

But I don’t want to go that far.  The build up of hope that comes crashing down every 30 days is wearing me down emotionally.  I don’t think I am strong enough to take trying that far.  Emotionally I don’t think I can do it. 

I want to give up.  In fact I think I have given up.  I canceled my charting accounts, I have hidden my ovulation testers, I am trying really hard to tune out all things baby and just focus on all things preschooler.  

But it is hard.  

I don’t want to give up but I don’t think that I can keep going.

I can’t remember if I wrote this post of not.  My mind has been so jumbled lately I just don’t remember.  If I have I apologize for the repetitiveness but it just seems like this is always on my mind.

Whenever I express my frustration with not being able to get pregnant, I always get the same answer; when you stop thinking about it, it will happen.  No matter who I talk to, they will say that. 

And as much as I appreciate the sentiment and I know where they are coming from, this is what I think when they say that:

How do I stop thinking about it?

How do I stop crying when Aunt Flo shows up?

How do I stop hoping that I am when Aunt Flo is a day late and then breaking down with the test says not pregnant?

How do I stop wishing, hoping and praying that the minus sign turns into a plus sign twenty minutes after I have taken the test?

How do I stop getting angry at people that tell me how easy it was to conceive the second time?

How do I stop looking at the dates on the calendar and thinking about whether or not I am ovulating?

How do I stop that stab of sadness that hits me right in the stomach when I see a baby belly or a newborn?

How do I stop the feeling of jealously and envy that follows the sadness when I see a baby belly or newborn?

How do I stop the guilt when Maks tells me about his friend’s new siblings?

How do I stop the anger I feel when people tell me that I should really get off my butt and start trying because I am not getting any younger/or that I am selfish/ or that Maks really needs a baby brother or sister?

How do I come to terms with the fact that my kids may be further apart in age that I ever wanted them to be?

How do I come to terms with the fact that I may only ever have one child?

How can I approach a doctor about secondary infertility?

How do I approach my husband about secondary infertility?

How do I stop thinking about it?

How do I stop trying when no matter what I do, see, read, or talk about, my mind is always thinking about having another child?

 How do I do that?

 I don’t know how. 

 Do you?

***WARNING:  Beanz and all other prudish readers out there ~ this post involves sex.  More specifically it involves my sex life.  It does not go into detail about positions or anything but it does mention sex and my sex life.  Beanz STOP reading right now because you are a prude and the thought of my sex life is as disturbing to you as our parent’s sex life.  If you continue reading, you cannot convulse, gag or complain later.***

 I want another baby.  Millhouse wants another baby.  We want to be pregnant right now.  I was all excited because my period was 2 days late.  And unbeknownst to me so was Millhouse.  He was double counting on the calendar just like I was.  He knew what day it was supposed to show up and he double counted to make sure that that day was the right day.  When it didn’t show up he counted when I wasn’t looking, adding and subtracting factors.  Getting more and more excited with me as the days passed and nothing showed up.  

 But Aunt Flo showed up and I cried.  

 Up until the day when Beanz told him that Mountain Dew was effecting his manhood, we had been telling people that we’re not really trying.  We are just taking it as it comes.  If it happens, well then it happens.  But the ovulation testers in my medicine cabinet, the ovulation calculator on my lap top and the my fertility friend chart on my desk top all say otherwise.  Millhouse & I conveniently having sex on the 11^th, 14^th, and 16^th day after my period, and whenever the tester turns purple, tells us otherwise. 

 We are trying. 

 Millhouse admitted it yesterday.  He said it out loud and made it official.  We are trying.  We want another baby.  He’s been keeping track of my cycle too.  He has his own chart. 

 We want another baby and we are trying.

**This is to the random people that break my heart every time they make this assumption.**

 Seriously!  People stop! 

 Some random girl in some random bathroom asked me if I was pregnant today.  I am not.

 I like empire waists.  I have a pudgy belly.  

 I am not pregnant. 

 Stop asking me if I am.  When I am, I will shout it from the roof tops but right now I am not.  Right now we’re trying but I am not.  Right now I want to cry every time I get birth announcements because I am not.

 Assuming I am because I eat a lot, or because I dress a certain way is upsetting.  I know that you have the best intentions when you ask.  I know that you want me to be because even if you can’t stand me the thought of a new life makes the coldest of hearts smile.  But I am not.

 Stop asking.

 Thank you.