One Dozen Long-Stemmed Years

On our very first Valentine's Day together, I sat across the table from a tall dark-haired boy and looked into his eyes and decided that he was the one. It was probably our fifth or sixth date, and I refuse to give my 19-year-old self any credit for this decision -- she was an idiot who didn't know anything, but sure as hell thought she did. I suppose I could try to see it as some kind of fate or higher power leading my idiot self in the right direction, or maybe deep down in my rebellious, flightly little soul was a flicker of wisdom beyond my years, but mostly: I was an idiot who got incredibly damned lucky.

On another Valentine's Day together, we went up to visit his brother in Boston. We sat across the table from each other at an Indian restaurant he'd chosen and looked into each other's eyes in a panic because what the hell was this shit? Couldn't we go get some pizza instead? Then we each took a few bites and looked at each other again and realized we loved this and wordlessly pledged to each other that we would spend the rest of our lives seeking out everything new and exciting, to see what else our identical vanilla suburban upbringings had held out on us. We would live in the city and we would eat and we would travel. And we did all that for awhile, and we were incredibly damned lucky.

And then there was another Valentine's Day together, when we held hands in a small exam room while an ultrasound technician pointed at our baby on the TV screen. He was a tiny grain of rice. His heartbeat filled the room and our hearts and I cried because I was just so incredibly damned lucky.

Today is our 12th Valentine's Day together. A dozen of them, some more memorable than others. Gifts and cards and dinners out and lately we always talk about the One Where We Saw Noah For the First Time. It's hard to beat that one, I admit.

I'm not sure we're officially beating that one this year, at least not on February 14th proper. Our excitement is more about another date, eight months from now.

October 14th. My due date for our second child.

We are so, so incredibly damned lucky, I can hardly even stand it.

Drama, Thy Name is Toddler

Or Toddler, Thy Name is Drama. I don't really know. The point is: I am five minutes away from FedExing my child to China.

Noah has been, no lie and no exaggeration, throwing one solid tantrum since early yesterday, with only the occasional breathing break.

THINGS THAT HAVE MADE NOAH FALL TO THE FLOOR AND WEEP BIG FAT TEARS INCONSOLABLY IN THE PAST 24 HOURS:

1) Asking for more Cheerios, being reminded of the gigantic pile of Cheerios directly in front of him.

2) Asking for more milk, being reminded of the very full cup of milk directly in front of him.

3) Climbing out the back of a chair and getting stuck because he refuses to take the sippy cup out of his mouth.

4) The 30 seconds it takes to microwave his dinner.

5) Asking for a cookie, getting said cookie, discovering that he actually really wanted some cake.

6) Blue's Clues, because Steve is wasting precious seconds looking for a clue that is RIGHT FUCKING THERE IN FRONT OF HIM ZOMG.

7) His new Thomas the Tank Engine jammies, because they need to be ON HIS BODY instead of carried around like a blankie.

8) Deliberately hitting his head against the floor while tantrumming; suddenly realizing that deliberately hitting your head against the floor actually kind of hurts.

9) THE DOG IS LOOKING AT ME MAKE THE DOG STOP LOOKING AT ME AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

10) Touching the oven, getting caught touching the oven, STOP LOOKING AT ME TOUCHING THE OVEN AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

11) Asking to fingerpaint, HELP HELP THERE'S PAINT ON MY FINGERS AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

12) The stroller, the carseat, being carried, walking on his own feet, not being allowed to roll around on the floor in Target.

13) Putting sidewalk chalk in mouth against all advice and reason, suddenly discovering that sidewalk chalk tastes like ass.

14) Being asked any sort of question whatsoever, including, in all seriousness, Noah, do you want some candy?

15) The three seconds of Little Bear opening credits our Tivo records at the end of Blue's Clues episodes, because even though he has never sat through an episode of Little Bear ever so we don't TiVo them, we should totally know that those three seconds of opening credits are the GREATEST THING EVER and he now wants to watch Little Bear more than ANYTHING IN THE WORLD and WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CANNOT MAKE LITTLE BEAR MATERIALIZE RIGHT THIS SECOND I WILL DESTROOOOOOOY YOOOOOOOOOOOOU.

Shall I go on or do you have the general idea?

My god, I don't know who this kid is and what his problem(ssssss) is(arrrre). I thought maybe a short nap was to blame so I put him to bed early last night, only to have him wake up screaming this morning because...I don't know. Something about the Thomas jammies again, like because the shirt was on his body he couldn't LOOK at it, but then when I took it off he screamed AND KICKED ME IN THE STOMACH.

(I should also point out that in the past few days, I have become the Only Acceptable Parent, which is breaking Jason's heart and bugging the crap out of me, since he seems to demand my constant presence for the sole purpose of abusing it.)

I am...worn out. I have never, ever witnessed anything like this from him and have "If That OT Could See Me Now" (as sung by Kathie Lee Gifford) stuck in my head. Is he sick? Teething? Growth-spurting? Opening wormholes into some sort of evil Doppelgangerland from Planet Toddler?

I spent Friday afternoon in the maternity ward, holding someone else's mewling little newborn. That was very Suck, especially since after this past week several people I know have now successfully conceived, gestated and birthed children in less time than we've been trying for a second.

A very boring insurance kerfluffle sidetracked our plan to see the doctor last month and I have yet to pick up the phone and reschedule. Because apparently I have the same sort of "smash your own fool head against the floor and then complain about it" impulses as Noah.

This entry probably reads downright bizarre to a lot of you. Or like, all of you. Seriously? She's whining about not being pregnant two paragraphs after going on and on about her current child's hellacious never-ending tantrum of nerve-shattering asshole-ness? And did she just maybe call the current child whom she is goddamned lucky to have in the first place an asshole right there?

Yes. And yes. Irrational Little Snowflake, thy name is Blogger. Or maybe, Unconditional Love, thy name is Mother.

Yes. Hopefully it's that one.

Oh. Yeah. That. No.

I'll spare you the anti-climatic peestick photo, though rest assured I have quite the collection of no, not even, nada and girl, please.

What I don't have, despite it being well into that time of the month, is a period. That would actually be kind of nice, just to have that last little glimmer of dumb hope definitively snuffed out, in a way that all these negative pregnancy tests seem to be unable to do.

Bleh. This blows. 

Merry Christmas, Baby, Maybe

(Alternate Title: My Oversharing: Let Me Share It With You)

Huh.

And now we wait. 14 days. Or so. Not that I'm paying obsessive attention, or anything.

Not McLovinit

I am typing this in bed, but not the NICE kind of bed-typing (sitting up against multiple fluffy pillows in a marabou-trimmed dressing gown while everyone around you murmurs admiring words re: the strength of your will for blogging while consumptive). I'm typing with one hand while my laptop is precariously perched on one slightly raised knee; my other arm is wrapped around a snoring, sweaty toddler with whom I am currently sharing a nasty cold. His head is leaking fluids of various kinds onto my chest. There isn't a stitch of marabou to be found.

OK, that paragraph took waaaay to long to type (must I really use words like "precariously?"), so I'm going to attempt a Sleeping Toddler Slide-Off Triple Axel. Please hold.

***

Success! He's now dripping snot all over Jason's pillow. Outstanding.

***
Anyway. I've been wanting to post a thank you and acknowledgment for all the kind thoughts and crossed fingers you guys left on this post, but since so many of you were all, "Oh, but your sense of humor will obviously GET YOU THROUGH THIS," I kept trying to hide the extent of my true depressive funkitude about THAT WHOLE THING. The Internet thinks I'm plucky and resilient! I am a brave little toaster of staunch character! I am not burying my face in the bathroom wall tile and allowing myself a single melodramatic sob because Mother Fucking of Fuck in a Basket, it's almost 2008 and 2007 was supposed to be my year, man. The year of taking charge of my fertility (which...hmm, that's almost like...a book title of some kind?) and getting the baby-making thing done without the aid of crazy-making pharmaceuticals.

And now, in the process of avoiding Clomid or other fertility drugs, it appears that I have succeeded in making myself crazy. Amalah! FTW!

***
Two things to quickly change the subject:

1) The motor in my electric toothbrush died, and I sort-of panicked, holding the brush to my teeth and hitting the ON button over and over, like WHAT DO I DO NOW OMG, before it occurred to me that I could, you know, brush my teeth by MOVING MY DAMN ARM.

2) We rented Superbad, and while I like to think that I am an extremely creative and prolific user of the swear words, this movie made me feel like a fucking amateur. So much so that towards the end, when one character said something like, "You were taking a big dump and I caught a glimpse of your housing forms..." I turned to Jason and said, "Oh my God, is that what kids are calling it these days? I am so old."

Superbad Spoiler Alert! He was talking about housing forms. Like housing forms for college-housing housing forms. He was not talking about his friend's genitalia.

***
And now we're back:

We're going to the doctor next month. I have no idea what protocol we'll end up with, but we're going. We're doing this thang up right and official. Jason is actually noticing other people's infants in restaurants and is like, awwww. Which for him means the baby fever is pretty raging. (Then I jump up from our table to stalk these infants' mothers around the restrooms,  all, "Can I smell your baby's head? Please?" so I think we're about even.)

Hopefully this will be the last time I mention my malfunctioning female housing forms for awhile. Thank you for all your kind thoughts and finger crossing, which OH MY GOD, I could have just typed that originally and saved us all a lot of trouble.

So Hey, How's THAT WHOLE THING Going?

Or, The ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor and Me
Or, I Am Pretty Sure I Stole This From Julie, Oh Look, Yes, I Totally Did

CYCLE DAY ONE, OPTIMISM PREVAILS

Amy: M button! M is for menstruation, kids.

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: Oh my God, you mean you actually read the instruction manual this month?

Amy: Yes! I did! I actually know what I'm doing this time, so let's go ahead and say that the only thing standing in my way of pregnancy was that I did not fully understand modern peestick technology.

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: Bring it, bitch.

CYCLE DAY FIVE, DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO UNWRAP THOSE DAMN STICKS FIRST THING IN THE MORNING WHEN YOU REALLY HAVE TO PEE?

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: Pee on a stick.

Amy: You have a LOT to learn about me and my long-ass cycles, don't you?

CYCLE DAY NINE

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: Pee on a stick.

Amy:  This box of sticks was supposed to last three cycles, you know.

CYCLE DAY 13, WHEEEE

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: Pee on a stick.

Amy: Ok, so if my calculations are correct, we may possibly be getting somewhere close to...

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: HIGH FERTILITY! BOO-YAH!

Amy: *busts out with a happy little jig*

CYCLE DAY 14, THIS IS ALL SO EXCITING

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: HIGH FERTILITY! FUCK YEAH!

Amy: *does a little soft shoe*

CYCLE DAY 15

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: HIGH FERTILITY! AGAIN!

Amy: *band starts playing the wrong song; does a little hoedown*

CYCLE DAY 16

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: HIGH FERTILITY! I STILL MEAN IT!

Amy: Okay, so I don't want to sound ungrateful or anything...but...peak fertility? Maybe? Soon?

CYCLE DAY 20, GETTING THE SENSE THAT I AM BEING PUNKED

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: High fertility. Still. Hmmm.

Amy: Did my husband put you up to this?

CYCLE DAY 26

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: High fertility.

Amy: I do not think that means what you think it means.

CYCLE DAY 27

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: Uh. Yeah, so here's the thing. You're back at low fertility. So. Yeah. I dunno.

CYCLE DAY 28

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: m?

Amy: You're kidding me, right?

CYCLE DAY 30

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: m?

Amy: No, but...I wonder...

Dollar Tree Pregnancy Test That I Got For A Dollar: No.

Amy: What do you know? You cost a fucking dollar.

CYCLE DAY 35

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: m?

Amy: La la laaaaaaaaaa....

Dollar Tree Pregnancy Test That I Got For A Dollar: No. Still no.

Amy: What do you kn...

Dollar Tree Pregnancy Test That I Got For A Dollar: How's that $150 monitor working out for you, then?

CYCLE DAY 40

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: (crying out from the bottom of Amy's makeup drawer) m? hello? anyone?

ClearBlue Easy Digital Pregnancy Test That Cost Way More Than A Dollar: No! Beep! Not Pregnant! In fact, you are so Not Pregnant it does not even compute! I judge you for even trying!

CYCLE DAY 43, TODAY

ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor: Look, dude. This is not my fault. Don't be like this. You gotta bleed sometime, right? m?

ClearBlue Easy Digital Pregnancy Test That Cost Way More Than A Dollar: Your hope AMUSES ME. Your tears GIVE ME STRENGTH HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAA.

If you thought new windows were boring, just wait until you hear about my new dishwasher

Over the weekend we got a letter from GE kindly informing us that our dishwasher could potentially and possibly and also very bloody damn well likely set our house on fire. And then they offered us $300 towards a new one, presumably without the HOUSE GO KABLOOMIE feature.

Unlike when Fisher Price informed us that we were the proud owners of several toxic tub toys (assholes, by the way. and Mattel too. can't we parents buy cheap plastic crap in the likeness of brain-rotting TV characters with confidence?), we were actually happy to hear about this recall, since we thought the dishwasher was a piece of shit to begin with and planned to replace it anyway.

So we bought a shiny new dishwasher this weekend, and I am currently twiddling my thumbs and waiting for it to be delivered and installed today.

(Aren't you impressed at how good my typing still is?)

Yes, this is truly my only news to report. Yes, this is truly what my life has become.

If you read this post (go on, I'll wait, I'm thisclose to getting a traffic bonus for the month over there and I also need some damn drapes), you'll know that I was hoping to have a different sort of news for you.

I was so sure I was pregnant. It felt right. It felt...gassy. The timing of the OPK pointed towards a 34-day cycle, which was precisely what I'd had the month before, and two back-to-back same-numbered cycles were all it took for us to conceive Noah, and day 34 came and went and I got carsick on the way to dinner and my boobs hurt and I silently thanked God in all His heavenly wisdom for giving me this amazing gift right when I needed it the most and laughed at all the JUST RELAX people I could scientifically and personally tell to go to frigging hell.

I went through at least nine or 10 pregnancy tests. I kept waiting for them to tell me what I already knew. I kept waiting for the faintest trace of a second line. I ran out of tests around day 39, baffled and confused by the definitively negative results and the definitive lack of a period.

(Day 43, it showed up. FORTY THREE, WHICH MAKES NO SENSE ON ANY LEVEL.)

So I am not pregnant, and I don't think I actually ovulated after all, and I also think I am completely crazy and delusional and can apparently will fake pregnancy symptoms into existence through the power of my crazy delusional mind. So. Bonus!

Anyway.  That was this month. It sucked. Good riddance, month!

Hello, next month.

Me = nuts, and still not understanding that I'd be better off just tossing dollars into the toilet and peeing on them directly, and also does anybody have one of those fancy expensive fertility monitor types that you aren't using?

(I will now go back to trying to get Noah to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on video, because he substitutes MAMA for all the words, and after you hear it you can't possibly blame me for wanting 10 more just like him.)

Prognosis Negative

People. I'm not pregnant. Please don't take this the wrong way, but oh, my god, please. Please stop leaving comments -- even jokingly -- on entries telling me I'm pregnant because I'm cranky or emotional or you know, have the stomach flu. I know when to pee on a stick and I know when there is no point to peeing on a stick because I just had my period six damn days ago and when you guys leave comments saying OMG YOU'RE PREGNANT I feel the need to disclose the fact that I just had my period six damn days ago. And thus I further alienate my three male readers and how the hell am I expected to land that lucrative Girls Gone Wild ad campaign with no male readers a lot of goddamned period talk?

I know none of you mean any harm with those comments, but they make me sad. (It's not you, it's me, if I may continue piling on the Seinfeld references.)

I guess I'm not so very at peace with our little plan after all, since hey! We came up with that plan a WHOLE MONTH ago and DAMMIT, I am not pregnant yet! Fuck you, plan!

Today, in the span of about three hours, I found out that two of my friends are pregnant again. They both have babies a month or two younger than Noah. I am ridiculously happy for both of them. (I actually knew my one friend was pregnant before she did -- her boobs have been looking spectacular -- but today my hunch was officially confirmed.)

I am also achingly jealous. And kind of surprised at that. I remember this feeling from before Noah...how I would close my office door after every pregnancy announcement at work so I could grant myself a quiet sob and a few minutes to compose myself. How one day I found out someone I really disliked was pregnant and I cried for a solid hour and told my boss I was sick and I went home and threw a glass on the floor on purpose just so I could watch it shatter into a million pieces.

And I remember how I was already a few precious days pregnant at the time, but didn't know it yet.

And because I remember that I keep pulling up my calendar and recounting the days, hoping to find a mistake in my math, hoping to find a reason to hope that maybe this week's moody funk and today's unsettled reaction is hormonal and ha ha, isn't it just so ironic all over again?  Crazy pregnant lady! Go eat some candy!

Nope. No chance. And no reasonable expectation to believe this cycle will go any better than my last one, which was a whopping 56 days long. (The period I mentioned in this entry turned out to be some random spotting on day 45. And of course I secretly thought OMG IMPLANTATION BLEEDING. See? It's like I've got a whole other comments section going on in my head.)

"It will happen when it's meant to happen," my newly-pregnant friend said sympathetically over lunch today. "It will."

And I do believe that. It's happened before. The ever-so-meant-to-be proof is upstairs napping peacefully. I think I'll take him to the park when he wakes up.

I'm just really bummed that meant to be doesn't seem to be right damn now. And also because the stick I peed on just for the hell of it while trying to think of a title for this post was negative and that was really pathetic of me and goddammit, those fuckers are expensive.

More Crap About Number Two

(It's a pun!)

Jason and I had a long talk this weekend about this. (That's a lot of this for one small sentence.) We've done a lot of talking about this, but since there's no easy answer we tend to just change the subject after a couple minutes and move on to simpler topics. (Like, shall we open more wine? Why, yes, please!) (Just call us the Wine Vikings.)

This time I cut through all the crazy what-ifs and hypotheticals and layers (specialty of the house! onion parfait!) and just asked Jason what his gut was telling him. We put a lot of trust in Jason's gut around here, as it has never once led us wrong. Unlike my gut, which is impulsive and reactionary and usually craving burritos.

Jason took a moment to listen to his gut. He cocked his head and everything.

"I think we should wait."

"Ohgoodmetoo." I breathed a sigh of relief. And my ambivalence was suddenly obvious, and I confessed to feeling supremely overwhelmed by the thought of dealing with morning sickness and pregnancy and a newborn and breastfeeding and two kids in diapers in the immediate future, and choosing it ON PURPOSE.

It turns out my own gut has been screaming NOT NOW! NOT NOW! all along.  And here I just thought it was asking for more burritos.

So. No Clomid for us. No RE appointments or injectables or ovulation predictor kits.

But. We will also not actively prevent pregnancy, and if it happens, we will be happy. Ohplease. We will be very happy.

And. I am going to pursue some less invasive treatment options, I think. Taking better care of myself. Regular exercise, yoga, de-stressing as much as possible. Maybe some acupuncture, like so many of you recommended on Friday's post. (Anybody have a good DC-area recommendation, by any chance?) But my health will be the primary objective -- long, irregular cycles or even no cycles at all are not good for me, fertility concerns aside, you know?

I've spoken to several doctors about it, and their solution is generally to whip out a prescription pad (want a baby? Clomid. don't want a baby? birth control pills). I don't do well on either option, so I'm going to see if I can find the elusive Option Number Three on my own.

I don't want to go to war with my body, so for now I'm just going to pick my battles. And achieving pregnancy at any cost just isn't one of them. Maybe one day, it will be. (We are only saying, "wait," after all. Neither one of us is particularly okay with saying "never.")  We'll cross that bridge when we come it, if I may mix metaphors to an insane degree here, what with the battles and the bridges and the guts and all.

I also have to ask for forgiveness, since I know I occasionally mix messages along with my metaphors. Because even though I feel very at peace with our current plan of semi-non-action...up until this morning I secretly thought I might already be pregnant, and was gleefully composing the "Guess what! I'm an asshole! Behold the positive peestick!" post in my head.

Of course, the peesticks were negative, and I got my period this morning. So. Guess what! I'm an asshole.

So that's where we're at. I want it, but apparently not enough. Right now. This minute. Ask me in a month, maybe. And remind me not to make any more grand, self-righteous pronouncements on the matter, at least not before lunchtime.

Number Two

This morning Noah and I played our game of Gimme Kisses. I tell him to gimme kisses, please. He shakes his head no, and then I swoop in for a kiss anyway, while making a big, exaggerated mmmmmmmmmmmmmMWA sound. Then he giggles.

This morning I stopped playing after a few kisses. He started humming. "Mmmmmm." He reached up and put his hands on my cheeks and leaned in.

"MWA!" he shrieked, covering my face with kisses. Then we both giggled.

Yeah. I gotta get me another one of these.

***
Two things I said I'd never do again:

1) Have another child.
2) Take Clomid.

They went together pretty nicely, I thought.

But like a lot things I swore I'd never do (suburbs! yard! skinny jeans! hotdogs for lunch!), I changed my mind about Number One. I want another baby. WE want another baby.

The five of you who read the ClubMom blog know that Jason and I have been trying for awhile now. I don't know how long, exactly. Maybe since Noah's first birthday? Maybe even before that? I seem to remember using the BlogHer swag bag condom at some point, but honestly, we've never really used birth control since Noah was born.

"It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world," Jason said once about a second pregnancy, while I pondered the calendar in a minor morning-after freakout and looked at him, like THAT'S BITCH-CRAZY TALK, HELL YES IT WOULD BE, OUR CHILD STILL HAS POOPS THAT SHOOT PAST HIS NECK.

But then I gradually came around to his way of thinking. No, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. In a lot of ways it would be pretty great.

***
Which brings us to rethinking Thing Number Two. Stupid Number Two.

The 10 of you who have been reading all along might remember that I took Clomid for a few months with no success, waaay back in 2004.  Those were pretty much the most miserable months of my life and I went completely batshit crazy afterwards, with depression and panic and I was just all around a Big Hot Mess. (I can't even bring myself to link to the entries from that time, even though they don't even begin to really express just how bad things got.)

I'm not sure if I've ever really spelled out my fertility issues here, so for those just joining us: I am annovulatory. I do not ovulate on my own, ever. I get periods -- usually every 45 to 50 days, but sometimes much more infrequent. In 2001 (2002? god, am senile. where the fuck are my keys?) I got two periods for the entire year.

We don't really know why -- I don't have PCOS or thyroid problems. I had an eating disorder all through high school, but I'd already had irregular periods for a few years before my anorexia developed. So I float around in the pool of Unexplained Infertility, watching my cycles get longer and more whacked out by the month. It's not insurmountable and it's not the end of the world -- but it's enough to color and complicate your reproductive plans.

After upping the dose of Clomid a couple times, I managed to ovulate, but didn't conceive. Then I got sick and we decided to take some time off from the baby-making and try again in the new year.

Then, of course, I fucking got pregnant. Like a normal human being, without Clomid or an IUI or even a damn thermometer. (The people who told me it was because I "just relaxed" are all buried under the floorboards of our old condo, thankyouverymuch.)

That pretty much brings us to now. I hoped that having Noah would "fix" everything. Like he was this 9-pound, 15-ounce Post-It Note that said HEY LOOK! WAY TO GO ON THE FULFILLING OF YOUR PRIMARY PURPOSE, OVARIES!

But no, everything is the same as it has always been. Which means we have two options:

1) Wait and see if we get lucky again.
2) Try Clomid again.

Stupid Number Two.

***
I don't know what option we're going to go with, honestly. On the one hand, I'm sick of thinking about this and marking tiny yet ultimately useless X's on the calendar. I'm sick of wondering if we'll get lucky next month or next year or ever.

On the other hand, I don't necessarily feel ready right this second to have another baby. Sometimes I still feel like I just HAD a baby. That I still HAVE a baby. That it's too soon and too much and maybe we should just let it happen when it's meant to happen, like Jason always said pre-Noah, and it pisses me off that he was right because I don't necessarily believe that things always happen when they're "meant" to happen, I mean, look at every reality TV show in the history of reality TV shows where my favorite contestant got voted off too soon.

On the other hand, Jason and I are both much, MUCH younger than our siblings. In a lot of ways we were only children. Which wasn't bad at all, oh no, but...I don't know. I think I'd enjoy watching Noah grow up with a sibling close to his age and wonder if we shouldn't get a little aggressive before too much time passes. I worry he'll be spoiled or lonely on his own, blah blah typical family planning mindfuck.

On the other hand, Clomid made me crazy.

I wonder if it would be as bad this time, since maybe I would be (shut up) more relaxed, since I have Noah and the knowledge that I CAN get pregnant and CAN carry to term, and honestly, I don't necessarily feel like not having a second child would be any big devastating thing. I mean, we want one, but if you told me tomorrow that our family was complete as-is I'd still feel pretty damn lucky and content.

On the other hand, I might only think that because deep down, I'm secretly pretty smug and confident that we'll be able to have a second baby eventually.

On the other hand, I am fresh out of other hands. I'm talking in circles and boring even myself. And I find myself pretty fascinating. Look! My belly button is squishy.

***

I look at his face and know that he is enough. He is more than enough. And yet because he is enough, more than enough, to fill my heart and life with such mind-boggling amounts of joy, I cannot help but wonder what it must be like to have that joy times two.

I cannot help but to take his face in my hands and cover it with kisses, while silently praying gimme baby. Please.