What if?

I've been finding myself at times lately wishing to be pregnant again. It's not even a wish exactly, more of a fantasy I engage in from time to time.

This morning I woke up early, around 4:30am, and felt some uterine tugging feelings. I noticed I felt a bit queasy too, highly unusual for me. I let my mind wander, imagining that I was in the early stages of the first trimester.

I thought back to my last period, but strangely, I was blanking on when it was exactly. Definitely more than two weeks ago. But was it three? Four weeks ago? Five even? I looked back through my calendar to try to jog my memory, but no dice.

In a strange way, I was almost enjoying lying there musing. Because of Magpie's miraculous existence, it was a somewhat pleasurable musing, not the painstaking longing I used to feel when I feared I would never be a mom. This morning I just found myself slightly smiling and wondering, What if?

I put my hand on my lower abdomen, and I thought that I could check with an hpt, but I don't really want to. Because if I were to check, I'm 99% certain I would find out that I am not pregnant, and the fantasy would be over. I'm 42.5 years old, and I had 110 eggs retrieved to get to the magical Ms. Magpie. And we've tried naturally every month around the right time since Magpie was about 6 weeks old. And well...Magpie is 19 months old...so well, I'm not exactly fecund over here, not that this is news. Plus there's the fact that I'm decidedly content with our family as it is. It is really nice, the three of us.

But I also loved being pregnant with Magpie, in the moments I wasn't absolutely petrified that something terrible was about to happen. It was a singular peak experience in my life. I would be pleased for Magpie to have a sibling to share the world with, and oh so curious to see who another new individual in our family would be, should one ever decide to turn up in our lives. Many of our mom friends with kids Magpie's age are pregnant now with number two, which is undoubtedly part of what has brought these thoughts to the fore.

We have three remaining frozen embryos in Colorado as well. All poor quality but chromosomally normal. It's been on my mind that we should start that process. "We're not getting any younger," Will said recently. Along with, "I don't think it will get any easier than it is now." So to move that process along would require Colorado's one day work up and then three months of the absolutely dreaded depot lupron. Plus potentially endometriosis laparoscopy again - when I had the lap in early 2009, I was stage 3. 2009 seems like a long time ago, lots of time for the endometriosis to flourish? But I actually don't know if they tend to repeat that surgery or not. I've talked myself out of starting the frozen embryo process many times. It seems like such a slog, with such low likelihood of success. But soon, I suppose. It's worth a single plane flight, the work up, and at least a conversation with Dr. Schl. about our chances.

In the meantime, I'll just enjoy my fantasy pregnancy. The one that doesn't require IVF or shots or anxious monitoring. The one that comes the way other people's pregnancies appear to - effortless, unexpected. So easy that it's hard to believe it's real.

Mo


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