I have gone through such a set of emotions in the past several weeks. First I was just happy and I spent some time to bask in that happiness and optimism by myself before sharing the news with my husband (who I knew would be incredibly stressed by the news, but ultimately happy because we like babies a lot). I managed to hold on to that optimism for quite a nice while, I think. Unfortunately, that has all been turned around now that I see that I am going down the HG road again.
Seriously, half the time I just want to cry - and I guarantee that it's not all hormones. I remember, perhaps a bit too vividly, how truly horrible things were last time. I know that much of that was due to not getting proper medical care until it was too late to prevent or reverse the course I was already going down. But some of it was just good ol' hyperemesis at work.
Part of me keeps thinking, how could I have let myself get into this mess again? Why did I think that I could do this again and be fine? How can I do this again to my husband and now to my toddler daughter? Even with the best treatment, we will all be relying too heavily on my husband and I won't be able to give my daughter the attention that she deserves. I already don't feel up to taking her to the park (which is right outside our front door) and I know that I haven't hit the worst yet. Hopefully I will be fully medicated and the worst won't actually be much worse than right now, but there are no guarantees in this business.
After giving birth to LH a bit over two years ago, I told my husband that I was willing to give it two more tries for a total of three children, but that if HG was a constant in our lives then no way were we ever going to get to the 6 that we had originally dreamed of. Now I'm looking back and thinking that I was a fool for promising I would do this two more times. I mean, why on earth would someone knowingly subject themselves to this oh-so-wonderful torture? If you have HG once then you are more likely than not going to have it again; once you've had it twice I feel like there's just no hope.
I so much understand all the people who go the adoption or surrogacy route, but unfortunately neither of those are an option for us. Surrogacy is not only incredibly expensive, I also would feel really bad about it. For me, I wouldn't be able to have that emotional disconnect that I was carrying a child in my womb who wasn't mine. So I can't expect another woman to be able to do so, at least not without me feeling kind of bad about it.
As for adoption, from what I understand the list in Israel to adopt a newborn is nearly 10 years long. So aside from the expense and the long wait, I would also feel bad about that. There are many, many couples on that waiting list who are physically incapable of bearing their own children. I'm not incapable; I just find it an incredibly distressing experience. I would feel bad taking up their spots just because I "didn't feel like" making my own baby the usual way.
To me, two kids isn't a complete family. But what am I supposed to do? This is a really, really depressing and difficult thing to go through and it will just be more difficult each time as I have more existing children to look after. There are women who do these multiple times, even six or more times, but I frankly have no desire to go through this a second time let alone a fifth.
I suppose that a few years down the line I'll be back on here, blogging about the exact same thing and how I can't believe that I let myself get into this for a third time. What can I say, babies just make me so happy. :)
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