There's nothing like news like this to stop me in my tracks. This is so terribly sad. Just when you feel like the torture might be over and you may finally be catching a break, the joy gets yanked away.
I don't know how I would have handled it if something like this had happened to us after we lost Will. My heart goes out to this family. Why does it have to be so hard? And why does there have to be such a long string of hardships for so many of us?
I think that is one of the very difficult things about infertility and the pursuit of parenthood when you are childless -- you don't know when and how it's going to end, or if it ever will. If someone could just tell you that in 3 years you will be playing in the park with your adopted child, or that in a year you will give birth to a healthy child, then you would know the happy ending will eventually come. It would make it so much easier to endure today's hardships. But, speaking for myself, when these miseries are sprung on you as a horrible new surprise, killing today's hope, you feel as though the Universe hates you. It sucks sucks sucks.
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And this story makes me feel guilty about what we are about to do. We are on the precipice of a new IVF cycle in an effort to conceive what would become a second living child -- a brother or sister for Jack. It makes me feel terrible when there are people still waiting to have the first one and become moms and parents for the first time. I feel like through my greedy effort I may be snatching up the limited supply of success that the Universe is prepared to grant to the unlucky infertile. That there is a limited supply of babies to go around for us, and I am trying to take more than my share.
I also feel like people will think that I am somehow not unspeakably grateful for what the Universe has already seen fit to give me -- the most amazing, sweet and beautiful child I have ever laid my eyes on. Or as my mom said -- I've already hit the Jack-pot...
Indeed, my mother, who in years past sent me birthday cards with pictures of women with clocks on their bellies, has recently told me that I should count my blessings and be grateful for what I have rather than going off in pursuit of another baby.
After considering this remark I have realized that I already count my blessings every day. Every smile, every sideways look, every toe tickle, every giggle, every breath, every tiny pointed finger,every gleeful dance move from this now 15-month-old has the potential to move me to tears.
Julie, who has begun the injections for her new IVF cycle puts it well, saying: As we try for a second child, I feel more than a little greedy.
Like Julie, there is part of me that doesn't want to do anything to disrupt the balance that as been created since Jack brought the magic back. Our lives had become a grief-fest, from infertility to advanced treatments for infertility to pregnancy losses, to bad prenatal diagnosis and then beyond all those things to the many deaths of people close to us over the past decade.
Jack didn't undo those things, but he brought the joy back again.
If our new IVF cycle is not successful, that will be OK. We have Jack and he has made the world a beautiful place again.
But if I can, I'd like Jack to have someone to eat Thanksgiving dinner with after his parents are gone. I'd like to have another baby to cuddle and be moved to tears by. I'd like another chance at successful breastfeeding. I'd like to try for more of this amazing joy that Jack has brought.
Our chances of success aren't great. I'm older, and David's problems have worsened in the 2 1/2 years since the last cycle. But if we don't do it, I'll always wonder what might have happened if we had.
There will only be one cycle here. What happens, happens.
