Oh Boy

It's official.

Duck is a boy.  And I couldn't be happier about it.  We are all very excited about it.  Even Monkey, who initially said that if that baby wasn't a girl, then he didn't want it.  After all, he already had a brother, and didn't need another one.

I'm relieved in many ways.  I already (kind of) know what to do with boys.  I don't have to wade into the world of Barbies and pink and ballet classes.

I've already painted the nursery, bought fabric for a quilt, and Hubster and I are pretty certain we have settled on a name.

Now, I just need to get through the next 18 weeks.  I'm not wishing away those 18 weeks though (well, except for the persistent nausea, the sleep interrupting leg cramps, and the insidious onset of heart burn).  I'm trying to savor the moments, the planning, the expectation.

I've been wanting this baby for a long time, a very long time (the posts date back to 2009 and 2010). I talked about having a baby all the time for over two years. Hubster and I kept talking that we would do a year of dental school first, see how things worked out, and then try for baby number 3.  But that put me at the end of residency and losing my amazing resident insurance. So early last summer, I stopped my birth control and we official started trying.

The first three months of not getting pregnant didn't really bother me.  Okay, that's not true.  I wanted to get pregnant immediately. But the first three months of not getting pregnant were at least expected.  Even though, after that, I did start to go even more crazy and bought ovulation sticks and meticulous charted everything.  Only to realize two months later that I wasn't ovulating.

My periods were irregular.  I never had a positive ovulation test.  I never had a typical change in basal body temperature. And even though by that point, we had only technically been trying to conceive for 5 months, I started completely freaking out.

Take a person who is slightly neurotic as baseline, give them several years of distracting baby hunger, and then introduce even the slight possibility that there might not be another baby, and you can start to create in your mind the totally irrational, panic ridden person I became.  It took a good friend to grab me by the shoulders, give me a little shake, and tell me that I was being crazy, for me to even start to calm down.  Poor Hubster, during all this time, kept saying that he thought baby-making was supposed to be at least a little bit fun.

In December, armed with several months of menstrual dates and (lack of) ovulation charts, I called my OB/GYN to make an appointment. The first available appointment wasn't until April. I took a deep breath and made the appointment, figuring that by that time, it would have been almost of year of trying, and if I wasn't pregnant by my appointment in April, then they would have to take me seriously.

However, my friend, who also saw the same OB/GYN had an appointment in January that she gave me (the scheduling person must have thought we were both bizarre, trying to get her to change our appointments). So, four negative pregnancy tests and seven months later, I went to my first appointment.  My OB/GYN was wonderful, sympathetic, and didn't think I was completely crazy (which I still can't figure out why that was such a concern of mine).

I went through series of blood draws to check hormone levels. I went through timed ultrasounds to look at my ovaries and the lining of my uterus. 

All of which came of the same conclusion - I was not ovulating.  It could have been a million things: the stress related to residency, the extra weight I had gained since I became pregnant with Monkey.  As my doctor said, "Residency is trying to kill your ovaries." 

We decided to start on progesterone and Clomid.  I started the first round of drugs in February.

I didn't particularly have any hope. I had seen the ultrasounds, with my sleeping ovaries on them.  My doctor and I had gone through everything, about the all the different drugs and technologies that were still available.

During most of this time, when I wasn't being neurotic, I felt incredibly silly. After all, we already had two gorgeous boys.  Expensive fertility treatments seemed like they should be saved for those who had no children.  It hadn't even been a year since we started trying.  I knew couples who had tried for years and years to get pregnant. What was 9 months? Why should I been worked up.  Why should I even care?  But care I did.

On my 30th birthday, in March, I decided I would check.  Just for fun.  As a birthday present to myself.

I nearly fell over when I saw two pink lines.

I took a picture, and sent it to Hubster, who was downstairs cooking breakfast.  About 6 seconds later, I could hear him running up the stairs.  We did a little celebration happy dance together. I walked around with a stupid grin for days afterwards.

Turns out those sleeping ovaries, the ones that residency was trying to off, they just needed a swift kick in the butt.

This whole process was strange to me.  I've always been such a planner.  Both Bug and Monkey were conceived within two months, the timing of moving and major tests and such planned around those dates.  To have the process of when I would have a baby taken away from me (my initial plans of a mid spring baby changed to a Thanksgiving baby) was humbling.

But I am grateful. Even on my sickest, most fatigued days, I remember that I wanted this.  I planned for this.

This little boy is wanted.