Friday December 2, 2005
I guess we have technically been ‘quiverful’ to this point in our marriage. I was on birth control pills from 13 years old until a few months before we got married to treat endometriosis, but not for birth control. We started trying to conceive on our wedding night and we haven’t used any form of birth control to prevent pregnancy during our marriage. (used NFP to try and achieve pregnancy, but not prevent).
For the first time in my life I uttered the words “after the baby is born, we will need to discuss birth control”. I can not do this again until, at the very least, I am in much better shape. Right now I am not sure if I ever want to do this again. This has not been a fun pregnancy. It is better than the miscarriages, but every time I get pregnant, the risk of miscarriage is so high for me that it almost doesn’t seem ‘worth it’ to possibly waste my time and do that to my body on a ‘maybe’. That doesn’t even touch the mental stress. It is a hard thing to have miscarriages. You get through, but I don’t think your heart ever heals entirely. I spend the first 6 months of my pregnancy not even sure if I am going to actually have a baby in the end, and then the last few months trying to shop & prepare, but still not convinced everything will be ok. I just know too many things that can go wrong. The probable pre-e dx today was not a surprise to me, but is really heavy on my mind. My body is not good at this. Two viable pregancies (including this one) out of ten pregancies is not a great track record.
A boy and a girl seems ok right now. Zach and I both wanted a bigger family, but I don’t know if I can lose another 9 months of being a less that great (ok, pretty crappy IMO) parent to add to our family. It is hard enough with one, I don’t know if I could do it again with two. Maybe adoption if we really feel like our family isn’t complete, but I know it can’t be through pregnancy any time soon. It is too much, both physically and mentally to us. The pregnancy sucks, the delivery sucks, and it won’t really get much better until about 6 weeks out when I can move again after the c-section.
I have never had to think about birth control. It is very foreign to me. I don’t even know what is out there really, nor do I know the side effects. Since I was 12-13 everything having to do with my fertility was geared towards maintaining fertility and trying to acheive pregancy. That is 22+ years. That is a big chunk of my life. My brain almost can’t comprehend trying to prevent pregnancy.
It’s a strange concept to me, too. I’m 100% sure I’m done. I’m not at my best when pregnant but this pregnancy has been my easiest by far. I’d like to leave this stage of my life on a positive note. We used NFP for several months after I became fertile again after Alex was born, but other than that, we’ve never had to actively avoid. Dh is getting a vasectomy, but we’ve yet to talk to about exactly when this will happen.
We’re wrestling with this now too. In our case we’ve had more than we’d ever dreamed of, especially starting out young and whatnot, and I’m trying to wrap my brain around “being done” growing babies, and it’s really hard. ((((hugs))))