We have officially been asked (more than once) by complete strangers when Blake is going to have a baby brother or sister. The first time it happened, a little Asian woman who worked at Walmart asked us. I was so surprised, considering I was just trying to pay for our peanut butter, milk, light bulbs, and chapstick. I thought it was such an odd question. Where did that come from? Well, the Asian woman who worked at Walmart was the first of many. It seems that once your child is eighteen months, baby number two should be on the way. At least in the Marine town that we live in.
The pressure is on for baby number four by complete strangers. Who would have thought strangers would have started this campaign well before our family did? Not me. Our family are a bunch of baby hogs. They love Blake, and he has quickly become the star of most family events. Want to have a family birthday party that focuses on you, don't invite Blake.
Why do people that know our story avoid asking about future babies? They know what a crazy, scary, devastating ride it was getting Blake here. Blake is a miracle. So the question is, do we try for another miracle? Or do we thank God for the miracle we have? Or both?
The truth is that I am not getting any younger. In the IVF world I am so so young, but the longer we wait the harder the cycle is going to be on me. We had a hard time with the last cycle I went through. Time is not our friend. Money is also an issue. Last time I looked at our bank account, we didn't have an extra 15,000 just hanging around to be spent at a fertility clinic. If anyone would like to add to our bank account, please let me know ;) So, money is a major issue when it comes to IVF. Putting ourselves in debt for a try at a baby is stressful. Thinking about doing that for the third time is a bit overwhelming. If it is successful, we are pregnant, in debt from getting pregnant, and needing the expensive baby items.
So, it isn't simple. There are a lot of things that need to be checked off our to-do lists. We have a busy summer that is packed with fun. We are going to have our first summer as a family, since Joseph missed last summer completely. We are traveling, attending weddings, and enjoying that we live near the ocean. After we soak all that up, we will talk baby.
I will never understand the intrusive questions about fertility. Whether it's light like, "When are you going to have another one?" or shockingly rude like "Ooh, if you would have known about the Duchenne, would you have had him?" I just won't ever get the complete ignorance of boundaries by some people!
ReplyDeleteI always try to remember that strangers don't know the whole story. If life were easy we would just have to flip a switch to get pregnant and turn it off when we didn't. But life is not like that. No matter what you choose for your family remember that God has already given you one miracle and he can certainly do it again, but if not-you still have that one miracle and that is an awesome thing.
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