stops along the way

I don't know if I'm down because I've been sick for a week, or if it's the hormones fluxuating around ovulation, or the fact that I don't think I'm ovulating at all this month, or what. But I'm really, really down today.

I'm finding it harder and harder to imagine myself pregnant. I'm finding it easier and easier to believe that I will never feel my child move inside of me, I'll never see my face and my husband's face combined together in a little face that depends completely on me.

I'm not giving up, I just can't see it happening for us.

More and more, I feel like IUI will just be a pit stop along the way to something more drastic, more invasive. I've been looking into GIFT, which feels more comfortable to me than IVF. I think it's still the whole "what do we do with the leftover embryos?" thing that bothers me about IVF. But something deep down inside me is whispering that IUI isn't going to do it for us.

When I was in kindergarten there was a set of twins in my class, Heidi and Amber. I always thought it was so cool that there were sisters who shared the same birthday. They seemed like the very best of friends. When I got older, there was a set of twins in my Sunday School class, Lisa and Danielle. Danielle had a birthmark on her arm, which is how I told them apart - "Danielle has the Dot." I remember thinking that I wanted to have twins. Again, as I got older, there was a family with twins at my church. A little girl and a little boy. I felt something tug at my heart as I thought about having two babies at once.

And somehow, I knew that pregnancy would not come easy to me. I had a gut sense before we even started that this would be a long long road for us. And the truth is, the further we go, the more medical help we seek, the greater our chance of multiples becomes. When we did our IUI last cycle, and I heard that I only had one viable follicle, I was actually disappointed.

The thought of twins terrifies my husband. He's sure we couldn't handle it, financially or emotionally. How would I keep working with two babies to take care of? How could we afford child care for two at once, how would we juggle taking care of them? He's a planner. I believe that things happen, and we cope. Need medical treatment? The money will find its way to us. Want a home? Buy one, and we'll figure out how to afford it as we go. Want kids? We can waste a lifetime waiting to be able to "afford" a baby - just go for it, and the rest will follow. If it's meant to be, the means will find a way. So far, it's worked out like that for us. I believe that it would be okay if we had twins, the help would come, the money would be there, we'd manage. Would it be easy? Of course not. But what would we have to compare it to? Having one child would be a handful - having two won't seem any more difficult if we don't know the difference.

I don't know how much of life is self-fulfilling prophecy, and how much we just know ahead of time. But I always had a sense that pregnancy would be elusive for us, and I've always had a heart telling me that twins would be quite a blessing. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out, when the story is told and done.