Porter is 3 mos old

Porter was 3 mos old on Friday. Here is a photo of him:



I only have one day left of freedom before going back to work! I'm spending it taking Connor to preschool, then running downtown to have a breast ultrasound because I have a lump that I need to have checked out. I'm hoping it's just lumpy because of breastfeeding, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. After that I have to pick Connor back up from preschool, have lunch and then bring him to the dentist. Not too exciting, just part of our normal routine. Hopefully me being back at work will become routine for us too. I can help being sad about leaving Porter. I haven't really been separated from him for more than a couple of hours yet, so I'm sure it will be hard on me. I'm sure he will do just fine at Marylee's with Connor. When I went back to work after having Connor, I had to return on a night shift, and it happened to be my birthday that night. That was a big bummer. Now no more night shifts at least.

I've been feeling fairly reminiscent of my whole IVF experience lately because I am coming up on the one year anniversary of doing IVF when we got pregnant with Porter. Also, I've been doing a lot of thinking about infertility and just how lucky and blessed I feel to have Porter. Any misgivings or reservations I had about doing IVF (and there were many both financial, emotional, moral and probably others I can't come up with right now) they all go out the window when I look into my beautiful baby's gorgeous blue eyes and he bursts into a smile just because he sees me! Oh how that melts my heart and makes the whole horrible 2 1/2 years of infertility struggle, countless shots, ultrasounds, lab draws, heartbreaks, crazy emotions, procedures, a surgery and more appointments than I could keep track of, all seem worthwhile to me. It was hard to know if I would ever see then end of it, and I did come close to giving up on doing fertility treatments because I felt like I was hitting rock bottom emotionally. I ended up needing to see a therapist to help me figure out where I was going with everything and to help dig me out of depression after a failed IVF cycle. I needed to take some time off from trying to conceive, and that really helped me. I also switched doctors to get a second opinion since my previous doctor told us he thought another IVF cycle had a 50% chance of failing again, but couldn't really tell us why ours failed. Eventually I felt prepared to try again. We decided to do the shared risk program where you pay for 3 cycles and you would get 70% of your money back if you weren't able to get pg in the 3 cycles. Of course as luck would have it, we got pg the very first cycle with the new doctor. Not that I can complain about that! I feel more fortunate than I can even express, especially when I know there are many couples out there who may never be able to have a biological child, much less two. I'm fairly certain I will never undergo IVF or any other infertility treatments again. If I were able to get pg on my own I would be thrilled to have another child, but if not, I am certainly pleased to have two healthy boys. For one thing, I am not as young as I once was and might not qualify for certain treatments, and for another thing I just don't think I could handle any more emotional rollercoaster that infertility brings.

Anyway, just my musings on infertility since my positive pregnancy anniversary is coming up at the end of the month. Just think, a year ago I was injecting myself with hormones!

Here's wishing that my return to work goes well and is painless for everyone. I also hope my breast ultrasound is unremarkable. Will update when I have results.