Crappy Anniversary to me, Crappy Anniversary to me...

Crappy Anniversary dear useless ovaries, uterus and fallopian tubes...Crappy Anniversaaaaaaary tooooo meeeeeee.....

Yes, those of you who have been reading my drivel blog for the past year might recall that it was a year ago this month Husband and I decided to throw caution (and birth control) to the wind and try to have another baby. For anyone keeping tabs, it's been a year, twelve cycles, and alas, no baby.

Now, to be fair, there have been several months in the past twelve when we weren't really trying. After deciding to move to Los Angeles, we put the quest for baby2 on hold, lest I end up knocked up and having to move 3000 miles away, which for those of you who know the story of my pregnancy know just ain't gonna happen. Once I see two pink lines, I'm more or less immobile for the next 7-8 months. Packing? Nope. Flying? Nope. Unpacking. Nope. So we decided to err on the side of caution and stop trying to get pregnant from March until July. So yes, that's 5 months of the last twelve, so really we've only been trying for 7 months. And please, who can complain after only really trying for seven months?

Well, let's just say....me. Not because I think I'll never get pregnant or because I think we've been trying for a really long time. My doctor is quick to point out that I don't even remotely qualify as 'infertile' at this point, which is a relief; and I've had friends who have struggled for upwards of 4-5 years to conceive, so I know full well that I'm being a pouty spoiled brat by complaining after these few months. But doesn't take away the sting of every. single. "I'M PREGNANT!" announcement I've heard in the past year.

Almost every mom in my mom's group back home has popped out baby2 or is on their way to doing so within the year. People who started trying to get pregnant when Husband and I started this time around are already coo'ing over newborns and lamenting the 2am feeding. I am genuinely happy for all of them (and ever so grateful for my fuller night's sleep), but each month that goes by takes me farther away from my dream of watching two little ones grow up, close in age and playing together. And each month that goes by takes me closer to being older, older, older.

When your original life plan (and let's just take a moment to laugh our asses off that at 20 we had a 'life plan' we actually thought would pan out exactly as we wanted) has you married and the mother of 2 by your 30th birthday, it's a bitter pill to swallow to be working on conceiving that 2nd child all the way into your 37th year and telling yourself, "If I get pregnant now, I'll still be 37 when the baby is born. That's not that old, right?" It's not so much a concern about healthy eggs and all that "advanced maternal age" mumbo-jumbo as much as it is about how my body feels at the end of the day after chasing after a toddler, and wondering how old I can get before the mere idea of chasing after a toddler and caring for a newborn just makes me want to cry with exhaustion.

The other thing that makes this challenging for me is that conceiving Ethan was freakishly easy. While I watched two of my nearest and dearest friends struggle with fertility issues for years, I basically looked at Husband one day a month after our wedding and said, "you wanna?" and "BAM!"---knocked up. I felt so guilty for my uber-fertility that I actually kept my pregnancy secret from them for a couple of months (and these were girls who, if circumstances had been different, I'd have called WHILE peeing on the stick). It seemed unfair (but so to my benefit) that I was so gifted in the area of baby-making while two of my closest friends had been trying literally for years. So in spite of myself and all of the knowledge I have about how elusive and tricky fertility can be, there was a bigger-than-I'd-like-to-admit part of me that really thought I'd be holding a baby by now.

Sigh. So here I sit, in Panera, drinking my tea and wondering when, or if, it will ever happen and what I can possibly do to make it happen. Husband and I have agreed that there'll be no fertility specialists or fertility drugs--the one thing you definitely don't do to an already incompetent cervix and weak uterus is stuff a whole mess of babies in there. One will do just fine, thank you, but that means we have to come by him or her all on our own, au naturale-like.

We also agreed that we'd only try for a set amount of time and once that time came and went, we were going to work on being content with an only child. And probably the reason I'm having a hard time this particular month is that this was the month we'd agreed initially to stop. When we started trying last December, we said that if we weren't pregnant within a year's time, we'd call it quits and move on with our lives and our beautiful son, content to be a family of 3. It would never have occurred to me in a million years that this month would come and find us un-pregnant, un-parents of 2.

Given the number of months that we put trying to conceive on hold, we've decided to push our end-date back, but having hit the original deadline like a brick wall, it's hard not to imagine the next deadline coming and going, finding us in the same position. And then re-visiting the decision to stop or keep trying over and over again. At what point is the heart really ready to say, "Okay, that second child you've always wanted and who you know is out there somewhere in the universe waiting to come to you? Well, it's just not going to happen. You'll never get to meet that baby. It's time to let the hope of that baby go." I just can't imagine the mama bear in me ever being willing to let that hope go.