Melancholy

Today I scheduled our IVF consult. I'm still bewildered and in disbelief that sperm + egg = baby has come to this. How on earth did we go from accidentally conceiving our beautiful son, to not being able to hold onto a single pregnancy? I think about this, obsess about this, probably more than is healthy. I lay out the facts and figures, and then try to think of all the possible answers, which of course, are none. I have a tipped uterus, and had to have a c-section with my son because he was breech- does that somehow factor into all of this? Though all tests conclude otherwise? Or maybe it's because I take too many bubbles baths, like coffee, don't exercise enough, or used too many chemicals somewhere in my lifetime? But I've tried not taking bubble baths, cutting out caffeine, exercising moderately, and living a greener life. Doesn't make a lick of difference.

So, here we are. Our son is 6 years old, perfect and beautiful in every way, and his requests for a sibling have pretty much subsided over the last year. My heart used to break when he would say "Mommy, why do all the other kids get to go home with other kids? Why do I always have to be by myself?" Oh, the tears shed over those words. My heart still breaks when he is playing with a family full of siblings, and he is immersed in the chaos that is sibling hood, and he is having the time of his life. I think about how different life would be for him if my body would just work the way it did with him. But it doesn't do any good to dwell, right?

Sometime soon we'll sit down with the Dr. Fertility, and he will lay out a plan for taking over my body hormonally, removing my eggs, fertilizing them with my husband's sperm in a laboratory, and then if all goes according to plan, sticking some embryos back inside me. It seems so incredibly foreign, so other-worldly to be even contemplating this. I know it's cliche, but life really isn't fair.

I wish we could afford to adopt.