Nearly every month for the past three years has consisted of two weeks which fly by, and two weeks that drag by with excruciating slowness. Each day I check my calendar, but no, we’re not yet at that magic day. A few days later I check again – surely it must be close now – but no, still 8 days away. It is painful, torturous and has felt unending. Each month I tell myself I will not get caught up in the waiting game, and each month I find myself waiting, waiting, waiting.
Our plans did not ever stop at one child, you see. We always envisioned two children, close in age. We have made so many choices based on the assumption that we would have two children. A pram with the capability to to switch to a double. A double bike trailer instead of a single one. A box set aside containing half of my childhood toys, the other half having been given to Monsieur. Ditto with childhood books and teddies. We built an extension, a whole extension, so we could have a room for the planned sibling. There is also a laundry there as well, and it has been lovely having a proper guest room, but still, it was the plans for Sibling that prompted us to renovate and extend when we did.
So many plans made to fit the possibility of a pregnancy. A bridesmaid dress based on a maternity dress, because I could be at any stage of pregnancy by the time the wedding day arrived. I wasn’t, (well, actually it turned out I was, but only for the briefest of moments really). The dress had to be taken in considerably and there’s many a more flattering dress I could have chosen! A trip overseas for the second wedding was regretfully refused, as was a cruise for my step-brother’s 40th. The thought of possibly having morning sickness on a cruise was just too horrible to contemplate! So many decisions made, plans made or put off purely on the basis of “I might be pregnant then”.
So, so many months waiting. Sometimes there’s been a month or two where one or the other of us has been too sick at the crucial time, and honestly those months it’s been a relief to not be hanging over my calendar, counting the days until my period tells us what our future holds. For that month anyway. In all this time of waiting, some days it has felt like every one I know has had their second child, some their third. That is not the case at all, but the vast majority of Monsieur’s friends do have younger siblings now.
Three years, two miscarriages and now we’re booking in for IVF. I’m coming to the end of my waiting. I only have so much waiting left in me. Only so many months I have the heart to keep getting back on this roller coaster. Besides, it almost feels selfish, this desire for a second child. We are so blessed to have such a gorgeous, healthy son. Our lives are full and happy. I have friends who dearly want children, who do not have any and are facing down the same scary prospect of IVF, daily injections, possible disappointments in a hormone-fueled, heightened emotional state, not to mention the financial drain. If I could guarantee a child for one of those friends, by ceasing our quest to extend our family, I would stop in a heartbeat.
Oh and did you know that in order to undergo IVF treatment, both partners need to have a police check done. Just to make sure that they’re okay to be parents. Or something like that. But don’t go bringing in your more thorough Working With Children Check; it has to be the lesser researched Police Check. This is the legislation which makes even the people working at Melbourne IVF look like they can’t decide whether to roll their eyes at the absurdity, or apologise greatly for requiring you to pass checks not required of anyone who can have children naturally.
