This is our reality...

Today we went to our regular fertility doctor. I went to this appointment thinking we would have our consultation on where to go from here, an ultrasound and some blood work. Well, the only thing we did was the consultation and finding out the reality of what is to possibly come.

Our doctor began with the normal introduction we have been hearing for the last two months of how sorry he is and how he wished everything was different. He wanted to know if the labor was brought on by any infection or incompetent cervix and we let him know it was just preterm labor. With that, he is obligated to tell us his opinion and what he thinks we need to do. Like I mentioned before in a previous blog our high risk doctor told us this was a fluke thing and we had a less then 1% chance of this happening and my body is more than capable of having babies and more then one at that. Our fertility doctor is not so sure. Well, not this time around at least. The good news is we know we can get pregnant and the "cocktail" that will accomplish that. With the injections he told us that there is a 75% chance of having one baby and after that the rest is multiples. Obviously, we know the percentages because we had twins before.

I almost decided not to blog this appointment because I really don't even want to think of our options let alone write them down. Since we know what can get us pregnant we need to think about what will happen if we get multiples again. If we get one baby that will be the perfect scenario and we will go about our pregnancy being very closely monitored. If we get more we have the worst possible scenario apart from what we suffered two months ago.

The doctor broke it down like this. My body experienced pregnancy of twins and with that my uterus is stretched. If we get pregnant again and suffer preterm labor again it will likely happen a few weeks later then what it did last time. So, if we went into labor at 20 weeks it could happen again around 23, 24, 25, 26 weeks etc. He made sure to let us know that in that case our babies would have severe life long disabilities and a high chance of not surviving. The other option was to reduce down to one at the end of the first trimester and have one healthy baby. I know what you are all thinking. How can anyone even think of doing this? At the same time, if it meant saving one at the end what do you do? The choice is beyond my grasp and I just can't fathom going through what we did before or having to reduce to one.

He said his goal is to get us a healthy baby and I understand where he is coming from. Since I had no infection or incompetent cervix my chances of having preterm labor again is still high and with multiples it's even higher. I can't imagine going through what we went through again. I now understand how some people just choose to not have children when they are faced with choices like this. I left the office and cried the whole way home. Mike reassured me that we still have other options. Lets try without injections and just do IUI. Maybe we will get lucky. I know I am thinking the worst, but how do I not think the worst right now?

So, we decided to just try without injections and do IUI for the next couple of months and hope and pray with everything we have that we will be blessed to have ONE baby on our own. I am not going to sit and cry all day. I had my 10 minutes in the car on the way home to cry. I know that my time is coming and there has to be a happy ending in sight. I am going to stay as positive as I can and not get upset about something that has not even come about. There is no need in crying over decisions that are not even in my path right now. All I ask is I have that strength and believe we will be a family one day. If you have made it this far thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read.

Shannon <3