I can't shop without my husband

Yes readers, that's right I was pregnant with twins.  Totally unexpected and wonderously awesome.  Originally we called the baby "Baby MAC" for Mysteriously Awesome Conception but just around month four our doctor found a hidden baby!  A friend of ours told me this was God's way of giving us the big family we always wanted, and assumed we would never have due to our infertility problem.  So fast forward through the sickness (everyday, all day, especially when I did too much), napping (everyday, 3 or 4 hours plus towards the end I'd fall asleep just about anywhere), pain (horrible, crazy pain from the pelvic girdle) and giant tummy that didn't fit in restaurant booths;  Sunshine and Lollipop came at 34w5d by C-section.  Recovery from the c-section has been a lot longer, four months later and I still get sore when I do too much.

Lollipop stayed in the hospital for four days and Sunshine for seven.  They did have Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) that went undetected but thankfully both were okay.  Lollipop was bright red from all the extra blood cells and it took a good two months for his color to normalize;  Sunshine was a little pale for a couple of weeks.

So life with twins is, uh . . . fun?  No, no, messy, like this blog!  Tiring, totally going with tiring.  Despite all I've seen about identical twins, mine do not keep the same schedule.  They do sleep through the night, but during the day one tends to be awake in the morning and the other in the afternoon with a nap sandwiched in there somewhere.  They don't do too many cute "twin" things, but they do tend to be mirror images of each other.

I can not go shopping.  No, not because people to stop and ask if they are twins or exclaim that there are two babies "over there"; there is just no room in the shopping cart.  Our Costco has new shopping carts and I hate them.  The part where your kid sits does not fold up and only one infant seat will fit flat in the basket (one twin always ends up tilted).  I went to Target by myself with all three kids because we ran out of formula and the hubby and I were too tired and lazy to go the night before.  That was a comical sight!  I had one baby in his seat sideways in the top part and the other baby below, then the four year old stood in the little space that was left between the babies.  While people stared I just tossed stuff in the little space under the baby that was in the top and like cousin Kurt would say, "git 'er done".

I want to start a new blog.  Not that I'm great at this one by any stretch of the imagination.  It would be focused on travelling with kids.  Something at which we do a lot of, in fact the twins are going on their first trip next week.  A family reunion (which we learned about 6 weeks ago) that we are going to drive to.  We'll visit with family, check out some local scenery, and do a lot of driving.  I have faith my car will make it there and back in one piece, my mind however I might lose somewhere on I-5.

Constantly reminded

So many of our friends are struggling with infertility and recently a friend posted on facebook about how the clock is ticking.  Of our friends we only know one couple that did not have trouble conceiving within a year. Everyone else is struggling.

One of the problems is, no one talks about infertility. We only told our parents and my best friend, we know the pain of trying to conceive and having nothing happen. That struggle does not need monthly reminders from friends, we get that in the form of blood.

I didn't really think about life with baby once we got pregnant; I think it's some sort of protective measure for my heart. My heart grieves for our friends that have lost children, such pain and sorrow after the feeling of jubilation. I made plans for how to deal with my dysthymia, how to combat potential post-natal depression; but nothing concrete. Of course prior to even trying we talked about what we wanted to give our children, how many we wanted to have and how we wanted to adopt or do foster care.

Once you enter the minefield of fertility treatment though you have to slow down and consider your options, there are only so many rounds of drugs you can take so timed intercourse and IUI are somewhat limited. You can find someone to carry your baby for you or use someone's eggs or sperm. You can spend money for IVF or adoption. This all weighs heavily. At some point in our journey to parenthood, while lying in our bed at night, I up and announced to my husband that if we couldn't have biological children I didn't want children at all. That was a hard realization to come to.

We were very lucky to get pregnant the first time we did IUI. Three blood tests later I was realizing that this was actually happening. I remember our first ultrasound at six weeks, I wished the nurse would've printed a picture of tiny Guster. I was afraid that that might be the only picture we would get, especially given what happened next. I complained about some pain and after a blood draw we found that my hormone levels were very low, the nurse ordered medication and a more detailed ultrasound. The next day we sat in the waiting room of the imaging department waiting for my name to be called, the tech came and told Jason he couldn't come in with me. She had a lot of trouble finding the baby and getting good images, but she finally gave me some peace when she said that she found the heart and that it was beating. Later the nurse called to say everything looked fine with Guster.

When sharing the news of our pregnancy we called some people because I wanted them to be able to process the news privately. I remember being at church when the pastor announced yet another woman was pregnant and I couldn't contain my tears. The feelings of unfairness and inadequacy. I wanted to spare people the pain of having to hide their emotions.

So, moral of the story and your take away:

• Fertility starts to decline at age 30 and once you hit 35 you only need to wait six months instead of twelve to seek out infertility treatment.



• Talk with a specialist.



• Consider your options and realize your plans are going to have to change, you may no longer be able to have the four or more children you planned on.



• Don't be afraid to ask your doctor what Plan B is, at the insemination I asked a whole bunch of questions about what we would be trying next.



• Don't be afraid to share your story, lots of people are struggling and sometimes it's nice to read the success stories (especially if they share a diagnosis), let's you know someone is experiencing this too - you are not alone.

Surrounded by two computers and a messy desk

So, I'm posting on my blog basically because I wanted to leave a comment on Melinda's and I realized I hadn't written on here all year. Maybe when our baby is born I will use it to post pictures and stuff. Melinda asked if I was going to do that and I was thinking, yeah, I'll do it a few times and then I'll just forget about it.

Still like the title of my blog though. Still in therapy (like that's ever going to change).

No longer dealing with trying to get pregnant as you can (not) see, we ended up doing IUI and it worked on the first try. I think I was in shock that it worked the first time out. Jason doesn't really feel comfortable discussing the IUI, but I don't really care if people know. I just don't want to hear anyone's story about how they know someone who was trying and then a) started/finished the adoption process and just got pregnant b) tried for a long time and then stopped and got pregnant c) some other story that I really don't give a **** about. It's not your story, it's what you saw happen, these mysterious people have no bearing on my life and regardless of all that, infertility is like a minefield. It could be the woman, it could be the man, it could be both, it could be unexplainable; each of those situations require different treatments and procedures and just because pregnancy happened to someone you sort of know about doesn't mean that it will happen for us. It is not somehow uplifting or inspiring for you to tell me this "miracle story", it's pointless because by this point in the game people we've heard all the stories! We could really care less that it ended up happening somehow to someone you sort of know. Now if it was you personally that made it through this voyage then sure, go ahead and share. I know it feels good to be able to say "Hey, we did it and it worked", to say "It happened to us and it can happen to you" to sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know I would've appreciated someone telling us "Look, we were dealing with infertility as well and this is the good thing that happened".

So lately I've been thinking

I've been thinking lately about my blog and using it as a platform for something bigger. I don't know why, maybe it's because I want to be (cue bright lights and snappy music) FAMOUS! Okay, not really. Besides, no one reads my blog and I kinda like it that way (no offense to those of you actually reading these infrequent missiles).

I thought about writing about my "journey" with depression, but I don't think anyone wants to read about that. I thought about posting different challenges for the day, but I don't know if I'll actually want to complete any of them. You say, but just pick something you want to do! But what I want to do and what I end up doing are often two completely different things. I thought about writing about wanting a baby, but at the moment it's still out of our hands, well it's always out of our hands and into God's, but until we find out what's going on there's no point in hypothesizing, we're just going to wait and go to our appointment and then go from there.