Forward, sl-HO?

I am home from work today due to sleep deprivation and an unrelenting migraine. I am still suffering through the bronchitis and have even taken several nebulizer treatments. The coughing gets so bad that I'm sure that my frontal lobe will shoot out my eyes. Never mind my abs and chest. They are now as taut as a 17 yr old volleyball player's. Plus X woke at 10:45pm from a nightmare and so I ended up with a sleeping mate whose movements could only be compared to a 40lb beached minnow.

I told Mr. DD last night that I wanted to talk about our plans. He replied he had something to tell me as well. "This does not bode well," I think to myself (as maestro starts playing the minor key off-stage...).

As most of you know, Mr. DD has a niece, J, who is about to give birth anyday to her first baby. This is the same niece whose Baby Shower's date coincided with the end of our IVF chemical pregnancy so I excused myself from attending. Side note: I never did receive a thank-you card for the gifts. I mentioned it to Mr. DD's sister, J's mother, to which she appropriately oozed dismay at the quality of our mail system. Yeah. Right.

It appears that Mr. DD's oldest niece, M, in her early 30's, has formally announced her pregnancy. I have more empathy for M and her husband's plight, as we had talked about getting pregnant after our beachhouse trip to S. Carolina August 2004. I was the one who got pregnant...with Baby May, so we all know how that went. They in turn did not. Based on my last conversation with her a couple months ago, it was also Male Factor. The one big "HOWEVER" in this bit of news is that they are due late summer. It appears I was good enough to provide a shoulder to cry on, but not good enough to relay the wonderful news to sooner, and not even directly to. Instead, I was informed by Mr. DD who had to hear it from his sister, M's aunt. Fan-fucking-tastic.

I did put on my happy face when Mr. DD relayed this news as I knew any other response from me would kill any chance for us to logically discuss our own options in the coming weeks. I only expresed my disappointment that his extended family now thinks I will go postal with every Baby-Related Event since the news had to be filtered through three other people. However, I must have made a good impression as he was almost near tears when I told him that I was so thrilled and happy for M.

Later, I approached The Subject regarding our baby pursuits. Using the advice from earlier's post, I addressed the time concern. I tried to stay calm. I tried not to cry. I tried not to argue why this "trying on our own" bullshit was for the birds. Even though I wasn't 100% successful with all of those intentions, he has agreed to move forward with IVF#2. I learned something very surprising and important from our conversation last night, and you may think I am a complete idiot when I tell you what they were as I had asked him something I have never asked before: does he want another baby.

How crazy is that?! I guess I have been the one pushing for this Baby from day 1. I didn't even know if he was truly part of that dream or if he had the desire. Sure he went to the appointments...when he HAD to. He gave me the shots, because he HAD to. But did he WANT to? It appears the answer is "yes". Not only does Mr. DD want to have another baby, but he was really hoping before our Fertility took a flying leap off the Empire State Building, that we would have TWO more babies.

You will have to imagine how happy, but then how deeply saddened I was by that confession. To know that having a second, healthy child will be difficult. But to have two more healthy children will be impossible (barring the chance of multiples, which is definitely what he does NOT want).

So we move forward. Slowly, because the spotting has stopped. Just...stopped. Sadly, because I now know that we cannot Hope to fulfill all of our dreams, but we are cautiously optimistic that we can at least have one more baby and appreciate that not every dream can come true.