"Is this a surprise? What kind of birth control were you using?," she then asks.
Not hard questions and yet I just sat there, staring at her, suddenly more aware of my nausea than ever. Or is that the terror?
Feeling as if I now look like a I feel --- ghostly white and ready to vomit --- in perhaps the most matter-of-fact tone in which I've ever uttered any words, I replied. "Birth control? I was relying on the fact that I CAN'T GET PREGNANT! My infertility was my birth control." My doctor just looked at me and wisely responded, "Well, apparently you're now fertile."
Who needs birth control when you've been told that you can't naturally conceive?! Apparently I do. Britney Spears' "Oops I Did it Again" popped into my head and more than it was I ironic I just felt old. (I swear I was cool when Britney first came on the scene. But now I'm knocked up...again...and making a Brit Brit reference and yes, I just referred to her as Brit Brit).
I was given a 0% chance of getting pregnant on my own with my first child. Couldn't happen. With IUI my chances increased to 15%. Two years later I returned to the doctor who again confirmed that I would not be able to conceive without assistance, but for various reasons my odds were now just 5% with IUI. I'm the lucky winner and I know that to be true...I won with odds of 15% and 5% and now here I am pregnant against all odds. Sincerely, I'm grateful and not taking it for granted, but it's honestly as shocking as coming home and finding that my two children turned into dogs while I was at work.
The hard and definitive decision to not have any more children was no longer the decision my husband and I made. Not only was the sense of control we thought we had over our lives rattled, but with this baby, we will be outnumbered and that's just not good. Not good at all. We are a man-on-man defense and man-on-man offense kind of family. Play to your strengths and we do. Our strength is being man-on-man. Not anymore.
Last year, or maybe the year prior, there was a quiz promoted all over Facebook where based on a few questions, you were told how many children you should have. My quiz result was two.
Because every question - the medical, mystical and practical - can be answered through a Google search, I began searching "having three children." Source alone, a blog titled "Scary Mommy," I clicked on her piece about having three kids. It was the best bit of empathy I have had since finding out I was pregnant - "... Everyone asks if it’s your first and when you say it’s your third, they laugh hysterically and walk away."
Regardless of the roller coaster ride to come, the way I see it is that I'm already buckled in with two, so really, isn't one more just like adding a few upside down turns?
Because every question - the medical, mystical and practical - can be answered through a Google search, I began searching "having three children." Source alone, a blog titled "Scary Mommy," I clicked on her piece about having three kids. It was the best bit of empathy I have had since finding out I was pregnant - "... Everyone asks if it’s your first and when you say it’s your third, they laugh hysterically and walk away."
Regardless of the roller coaster ride to come, the way I see it is that I'm already buckled in with two, so really, isn't one more just like adding a few upside down turns?
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