Recently my husband and I have been trying to get pregnant again. We both agree it’s the right time, our daughter is at an age where we think it would be do-able to have another baby and we miss the sonogram appointments, and all of the wonder that comes with pregnancy. We miss holding that tiny babe on our chest, we miss the little baby sounds, we even miss the cries. We miss getting to do first everythings. Their first smile, first laugh, first time they crawled, said Mama or Dada, the first time they tried food and their first birthday. I even miss breastfeeding. As much as I hated it at the time, I miss it now. I miss our bond and I miss the empowerment it gave me knowing that I (with help from some formula too) was sustaining my baby. We are ready. And when we started talking about getting pregnant with our first, it didn’t take much. We both agreed that we wanted to have a baby, so we tried and then two weeks later there were two lines on the pee stick. But, this time has not been so easy. The opposite actually. Part of me feels as though I have no reason at all to complain or to be upset. Part of me feels ungrateful because we already have one beautiful child and maybe we’re greedy because we want another? And then when I do convince myself that it’s okay to feel this way, I think about all of those mothers who have suffered things so much worse than what I’ve been through. So I just wanted to take a minute and explain our situation so that people close to us can try to understand.

We started “trying” again back in April. Not on purpose, I might add, but nonetheless, I still spent two weeks convincing myself that I was pregnant and then convincing myself I wasn’t until that good old reminder came to assure me that I was not. We took a break from trying in May, to focus on our daughter’s 2nd birthday. In June we decided to really start trying again; I.e. <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glow.android">tracking ovulation</a>, taking prenatals, etc. And again, I found out that I was not pregnant. Then came July and due to different vacation days we were apart for a few days when I ovulated but we still tried and I still waited the dreaded two week wait. Then came August and we decided to hold off on trying because we conceived our daughter in August and we didn’t want to have two birthdays within a week of each other. So we took a break. And then my grandmother died. The only grandparent that I had left on this earth. She left us and I was at a low. I still am somedays. But I had also just lost my other grandmother less than a year before that. So I really felt the pressure to “replace” (for lack of a better word) their lives and honor them with another life. I spent a month dreaming, imagining our baby being born in June. Imagining myself pregnant at our daughters 3rd birthday party. Imagining June 2019 as the month when we welcome a new life. A friend of ours announced their surprise twin pregnancy and I was insanely jealous. How do people not try to get pregnant and it actually works? Oh well, it didn’t matter. I was ready. I bought ovulation tests, pre-ordered pregnancy tests online, kept up with my <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glow.android">ovulation app</a>, I didn’t drink any alcohol for a month, I tested every day to see when the ovulation test strip was positive so we would know when to get together. But just to be sure we made time every night for a week straight while I was ovulating. After that week was up, I was calculating every twinge, every feeling I had in my body for two weeks. Determining for myself if I was pregnant or not. It consumed me. Thoughts I had every day were “I’m hungry, I must be pregnant. I want to get a sandwich but I can’t eat cold deli meat if I’m pregnant. I have a headache but I can’t take ibuprofen or Advil if I’m pregnant so I’ll go buy some Tylenol. I’m going to a winery with my family but I can’t drink because I might be pregnant so I’ll just drive. I’ve been sleeping a lot more so I must be pregnant. I felt nauseous for 20minutes that one day I must be pregnant. I’m craving nachos I must be pregnant.” When I wasn’t thinking those things, I was thinking of cute ways I could tell my husband I was pregnant, since I didn’t get to with our daughter. (He was standing outside the door listening to me pee on a stick then) “Should I search cute ways to tell your husband you’re pregnant? Is that jinxing it? I’ll do it anyway. Oh if I am pregnant and I want our daughter to wear that shirt that says big sister shouldn’t I order it now? What about an OB? My dr is only GYN, better call her and ask if she can refer me.” I asked my daughter multiple times if she wanted Mommy to have a baby and she always said “yeah!” The days were ticking off. Four more days until I could test. Three. Two. Okay I’ll test today, I should get a faint faint line if I am pregnant since tomorrow is when AF is due....” only to get a negative result and start my period that night. I was devastated. I was so sure. Why didn’t it work? With our daughter we only tried once! I don’t understand. We were on top of it. Literally...every night. What if we never have anymore kids?

But as the disappointment faded, I realized something as I was on my period. I was relieved in a way. Relieved because I had been obsessing for a month about this. I was too obsessed. It wasn’t healthy. I was so stressed all the time, worrying/hoping that I could be pregnant. Maybe that’s exactly the reason that I wasn’t pregnant. They always say when you stop “trying” it will happen. So I’m trying to take it slow and not obsess over it right now. I do have anxiety and that probably had something to do with it. I’m trying to keep myself calm and enjoy my husband and my daughter and our “simple” life right now, but in the back of my mind I can hear my biological clock ticking, I can see every day as my daughters gets older that it means a bigger age gap. I can see the 3 kids I always wanted dwindling into 2 kids, or maybe just 1. I’m very lucky in lots of ways of course. I already have one perfectly healthy child who we conceived without any help, and thankfully I’ve never lost a baby. And it has only been 4 months. But the negative tests are like a sucker punch every month. It’s hard. I know God does everything for a reason so I’m trying to remember that. I just needed a safe place to write this and vent a little. Thank you all for reading and baby dust to you 💕