Keeping On

A year has passed, and I haven't written.  A lot takes place in one year...  This is true with every one of us blessed to have life on this earth.  Even when life seems unchanging, so much has in fact transpired.  Our thoughts, our perspectives, our interactions with others- these things are not static, even when circumstances are...  But of course, circumstances are pretty dynamic for most of us, too.

So at least a year has passed, and I haven't felt like writing, or maybe I just haven't had time.  For the second time in my life, I've left nursing school.  I don't regret it much.

My husband and I have been trying in earnest to start a family, and things have not been going as we would like.  Such is life. 

I've been seeing a fertility doctor, and everything has come back normal for me.  Two days before my 37th birthday, I was scheduled for a diagnostic laparoscopy.  The evening before the procedure, the doctor called to tell me my HCG was elevated...  Surprise, you're pregnant, lap canceled.  Yahoo!

It didn't "stick"- raising my suspicion that this has happened before...  So my doctor did a workup for recurrent early pregnancy loss- a whole slew of interesting blood tests, and they came back normal.

Had the lap finally a month ago.  It was normal.  My doctor tells me, "You have a beautiful pelvis, there's no reason why you shouldn't get pregnant."

Meanwhile, my husband has had a few sperm analyses.  One came back normal, two did not.  He has sperm, but they're "tired"- they're just hanging out, not moving.  The doctor recommends IVF with ICSI...  No big deal, just a cool 10K+ per try, with a less than 50-50 shot for success each try.  Reasonable odds, but quite a price tag.

My husband has made the colossal decision to give up alcohol, a daily presence in his life for decades.  It's huge, life changing, and long overdue.  He's been sober for more than 3 weeks now.

I have free time to write because he is in a program 3 evenings a week (for 5 more weeks).  I have time alone.

Tomorrow my husband turns 52.  We're both getting older.  I'm finding more gray hair every day.  I wonder sometimes if parenthood is really for me.  Last weekend, I had a busy Saturday and canceled Sunday plans with my sister and niece.  I told her later, "I've decided that I'm only going to do one activity per weekend."  She responded, "Are you sure you want a child??  Because let me tell you, you can't have a child and only participate in only one activity per weekend!"

So I don't know.

Now that my husband is sober, I'm hoping his sperm will recover.  I think they will, the question is how much time will it take?  Sperm require 72 days to mature, so it will take at least that long...

Perhaps we'll conceive a child at Christmas time, and have a baby by the time I'm 38.  Perhaps.