Almostforty

***Attention relatives: I promised to clearly label fertilty posts and mommy blogger posts.  This post contains personal information regarding my fertility.  Everyone has different tolerance levels for this.  If yours is low you may want to stop reading now so that you can still look me in the eye when you ask me to pass the potatoes at the next family gathering.

Ahem.  Now that we're down to the remaining three readers of this blog, let's continue shall we?

Today is my thirty-ninth birthday.  On Monday I started to type up a celebratory post detailing all the minutiae of my health issues and doctor appointments since my last miscarriage.  That's what five days of costochondritis - which feels like you are having a heart attack and can't catch your breath (even though your oxygen levels are just fine) - and an hour or so trapped in the girls' room "encouraging" Meredith to lay her sweet little head down on her pillow and succumb to sleep will do to you...or at least to me.

Fortunately, I didn't finish that post before the girls fell asleep and I came to my senses before clicking on the "publish" button.  Still, now that  I'm firmly past the "well, yes, your fertility IS declining, but there's PLENTY of time" age of 35 and well into the "Umm, really, you want a baby?....and you're HOW old again?" age of almostforty, I feel like I should do an update on where we're at in terms of fertility.  I'm typing this while the girls are at storytime, so I am forced to keep it brief.  You're welcome.

After nearly a year of feeling less and less trusting and confident of the ob-gyn I've been with for the last seven years, I finally switched to a new doctor in Omaha.  I've only had one appointment so far and she was a little hard to read, so I'm not certain yet that it was a good move.  She wants to start over with everything so we're starting back at square one in terms of identifying my fertility issues.
Here's what we know so far:

• It is suspected that my endometriosis has returned and she wants to do another laparoscopy to remove it.  I agree that it has returned, but it is not yet interfering with my life in the way that it did before my last surgery (I felt like I had the stomach flu and that all my internal organs were being wrung out for 1-2 weeks every cycle).  I think we'll wait to see what the bills from my cardiac-episode-that-turned-out-not-to-be-a-cardiac-episode-but-required-lots-of-expensive-cardiac-related-tests-to-rule-things-out-because-Julie-can't-ever-have-simple-health-issues are like before we commit to another laparoscopy.
• She wants to see what my body does without progesterone.  I have taken oral progesterone for the last 7+ years.  It's what keeps me nice during the second half of my cycle.  Okay that's not true.  It's what keeps my pms-induced irritability from completely ruining the lives of everyone around me for the last ten days of my cycle.  Pray for Jon and the girls.  And check back here for new posts during the next two months.  There's no telling what kind of blog posts progesterone deprivation will generate.

•  I might have PCOS.  I don't buy it as my symptoms don't match any of the common PCOS symptoms and I have been previously diagnosed with premature follicle rupture, which is sort of the opposite of PCOS.  If she can back it up with some cold, hard facts then I'll be more willing to listen.

• She wants to answer the question of whether I'm in perimenopause about as much as my previous doctor and my NFP consultant did.  The other doctor rejected that idea based solely on my age.  My NFP consultant usually denied it, but recently has started admitting that it is one possibility.  The new doctor refused to answer the question.

• After my two months of nonstop rage progesterone withdrawal, I will go back up to Omaha to have my NFP charts evaluated and blood drawn for a hormone panel.  It's been about two years since I've had one of those and given my age, the old one is probably no longer accurate.  The results of this bloodwork should answer the am-I-or-aren't-I perimenopause question.

So where does that leave us now?  Mostly waiting.  Based on the frequency with which my formerly cold-blooded self is dragging an oscillating fan around the house, I'd guess that the next round of bloodwork will show that I'm on the fast-track to menopause.  In that case, game over.  I will be sad, Jon will be sad (but relieved that the medical fund part of our budget might have a chance to recover), and we'll need to break the news to Meredith that God is not going to answer her daily prayer of another sibling in the way she is hoping.  And for any of you who are thinking that I don't have a right to be sad because this is my own fault and I should have had my babies when I was younger and more fertile, I'm working on writing about that very topic.  For now, suffice it to say that I think many women are at least a little sad when their child-bearing years come to a close, regardless of the number of children they have or don't have.

And then we'll all move on.  Jon will work on building a bunker for himself in anticipation of having two female teenagers and a maybe-not-quite-yet-post-menopausal wife at the same time.  And I'll move on to setting my sights on another unattainable goal.  Aside from having more children, the one thing I've felt compelled to do in the last few years is find a way to help our diocese educate students with disabilities whose needs can't be met by existing programs.  Which is a completely ridiculous goal for someone who homeschools, has allowed her teaching certificate to lapse, has no connections to anyone who can make this happen and doesn't even know if the Catholic families of children with severe and/or multiple disabilities are even interested in this.  So maybe I'll just spend more time thinking about what's next.

If I am wrong, then I guess we'll see what the doctor's recommendations are.  We would love to have another baby, but given my age, we're also going to be realistic about the chances of various treatments actually working and will weigh the risks and costs with the needs of our current family.

As for today, now that I've deleted all the life insurance and burial life insurance offers from my inbox, I'm going to spend the rest of my birthday taking care of my girls.  That will likely include a round of Candyland with Meredith, scrubbing out and refilling the swimming pool, washing the towels that I found mouldering in the bathroom, and a trip to the neighborborhood park this evening to ensure a quick and painless bedtime for all of us.  BLTs, sweet corn, and homemade sugar-free blueberry popsicles are on the menu for tonight...and then probably 45 minutes of quality time with a Fitness Blender workout to combat the bacon and bread calories, followed by a moment of silence in remembrance of my 20s when I could eat bacon and bread (and cake and ice cream) on my birthday and not gain any weight.