Still here.

Well, here we are, almost at the six-month deadline, and no pregnancy yet. I've been charting using the Ovia app on my phone and finally got around to getting an ovulation predictor kit this past cycle, which confirmed what I already assumed... I am ovulating fairly early in my cycle, to the point where implantation may just not be happening. There may not be enough time between my period and the ovulation to produce a hospitable environment for a fertilized egg.

As I understand, there's medication for this, but ... I just don't know if I want to push it. I put our little guy to bed tonight, and he was so good and sweet, letting me brush his teeth, change him into jammies and tuck him and his stuffed toys into a little toddler-sized air-mattress at the foot of my bed (his daddy is sick with the stomach flu and I want to make sure he doesn't startle awake in the night with the same thing). He's just such an easy child, and I feel like I'm doing him a disservice by not giving him a sibling, but... I don't know.

I wish I'd just get pregnant and then I wouldn't have to make any more decisions about it.

Here we go again.

 The day after my husband Kyle and I decided to try for another baby, our three-year-old slathered himself in his own feces. Literally, it was like 24 hours after we said “Okay, we’re doing this” that I was trying to get some writing done and put Hank in front “Milo and Otis” for a half-hour so I could knock out a commissioned blog entry about dental implants. After awhile, I realized it was way too quiet in there, so I got up from my seat at the kitchen table and was hit in the face by the overwhelming smell of crap. Hank was perched casually on the edge of the couch, with his hands folded together as if in prayer. There was poop all of both of his hands, his stomach, his back, and a couple streaks across his face. “I need to wipe my hands off,” he declared.

It took us this long to conclude that having another baby was a sound, if not completely exciting decision. Hank was a relatively easy baby – he hardly cried, made the transition to a bottle easily after my boobs decided they were not going to dispense milk properly, and he was sleeping through the night nine weeks in. But my hormones and serotonin got all wackadoo and I was served up some pretty hardcore post-partum depression for the better part of a year before we got all the anti-depressants and anxiety and birth control figured out.

Ah, the birth control. Hank made his appearance on a plastic stick while I was on the Pill because I, not thinking of the side-effects, took some leftover antibiotic when I got hit with a urinary tract infection over Memorial Day in 2011. (Side note: I am not particularly good at remembering to take medicine when I should, which might help explain the unplanned pregnancy and why I had old Bactrim lying around.) Naturally, after I had Hank and realized that breastfeeding was not in the cards for us, I went back on the Pill because ain’t nobody got time for all that business. Of course, a month after giving birth, I was in absolutely no mood to have sex, and the added hormones plus the screwed-up brain chemistry only solidified that feeling, so I suppose it did its job by proxy. Kyle wisely gave me an extra-wide berth during that time.

So! For the sake of everybody’s sanity, I did some research and decided that Paragard, the copper IUD, was the most effective and lowest-maintenance birth control available. No hormones involved, nothing to remember, just throw that pogo stick in there and we’re good to go. Aside from the placement  – which was no big deal, but I was so nervous about the whole thing that I made kind of an idiot of myself at the doctor’s office – I love it. It has almost no side effects; a little longer period, but that’s it. I can check the little strings as necessary to make sure things are still where they need to be.  And it does its job. Hank is 3 years and 3 months old at the time of this writing, and he’s still an only child.

He’s still an only child.

As I was over at our old house last weekend, cleaning out what remained in Hank’s former closet, I told Kyle tearfully that depriving Hank of a sibling because of our own fears was the most selfish thing we could do. When we’re gone, who does he have left? Sure, he’ll probably have a family of his own, but whatever he started with will disappear. Kyle is 36; I’m 34. Our window for safely conceiving a healthy baby is getting narrower by the day. I don’t want to wake up in ten years, I told him, and wish we still had time to grow our family.

So as I scrubbed the floor in the room where we cut our teeth on parenting, we decided to try for another baby. We established some ground rules early on – six months of trying, then it’s snippy-snip time for Kyle. That may seem like too much pressure, but if even if we were to conceive tomorrow, I’d be halfway through 35 at delivery. That’s just cutting it too close for my comfort level.

I started the process today by going to the OB/GYN and having my IUD removed. That was refreshingly simple. I had the idea in my head that they’d pull it out in a similar manner to the way one starts a lawnmower or chainsaw, with the doctor bracing one foot on the exam table and yanking for all he’s worth. Luckily, I was incorrect. I’ve had more difficulty dislodging floss from my teeth.

My doctor, a very slow-speaking, Mr. Rogers sort of man, told me that while chronologically I am 34, my health and lifestyle put me at more like 29 or so. Having a baby, he said, was an excellent idea. If Dr. Mr. Rogers says so, I pretty much have to go for it, right? He also said he wouldn’t be surprised if he saw me back in there in a month or two. With the copper IUD, there’s no residual hormone to clear from my system, so my fertility is right back to normal.

Let the games begin.