I'm not. For the first time since starting TTC, I am taking a voluntary break. Since I began (both the first and second time) I've always felt like there was a drill sergeant barking "GO GO GO" -- just imagine one wearing a hat that says "FSH" on it.
Well, that drill sergeant is in the freezer next to my embryos and several pints of Ben & Jerry's. My eggs aren't getting any older. My ovaries will never be called upon again. No matter what happens, I'm not going to do another fresh IVF cycle. I am lucky to have a generous batch of embryos. When I run those out, I'm done.
Any other haste would be driven by a desire to control the age-gap between Small Boy and Smaller Sibling. I wanted three years, didn't get that. Won't get four years either. Does a few more months really matter? I think not. I think if the sole consideration is temporal spacing, a few months' rest is not significant.
And I really want a few months off. I want to live on my own schedule, not buffeted by hormones and nerves. I want to do house projects and snuggle my child and future-wife (fiancee?). I want to plan our wedding.
Interestingly, I have experienced the exact same phenomenon all three times I have miscarried: while my HCG levels were declining, I felt a burning urgency to get pregnant again ASAP, and despair over how long the time gap would be until I could try again. And all three times, after my HCG had faded completely, so did the suffocating need to get pregnant immediately. *shrug*
I will, kinnehorah inshallah god-willin' and the crick don't rise, start again at either the end of April or the end of May. Until then, I'm just going to enjoy living.
Either of these dates would put any possible delivery in the Chinese year of the Wood Horse. I think that sounds like a really nice year to have a baby. Wood Horses are warm, stable, strong. I like it.
This makes a lot of sense to me. I have felt both the "must-try-again-now-why-do-I-have-to-wait-6-more-days" and the need for time that doesn't involve the intense emotional and physical stress of TTC. I'm in the itchy-to-get-started place right now, but I feel like I should be enjoying this bit of calm before we start again.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm with you on the age gap thing. We're looking at 5 years now if I get pregnant in March, which is definitely not what I had in mind. I'm trying to remember that there are good and had things about whatever age spacing we end up with, but some days that's not so helpful.
I hope you have a lovely and peaceful spring!
TTC is so damn relentless. I don't think you could explain to someone who has never been through a long ttc just how devastating a forced break can feel. But you are so right that, in the grand scheme of things, a few months to breath is going to have a much greater impact now and not such an impact if your kid if an extra little bit younger than she would have been. I am glad it feels good to take a break and I'm so glad your period returned.
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