Phase Four - baby phase (at last)

(for the start of this story, see Phases One, Two & Three below - filed in January)
It turns out that adding puppies and kittens to the household was easy.  Adding a baby was much more difficult.  After three years of marriage we were ready but the baby was in no hurry to arrive.  The puppy grew up, the kittens became cats and  headed for middle age and the baby refused to put in an appearance.
 
New plan.
We made a doctor’s appointment and prepared to enter the wonderful world of infertility treatment.  I’m sure you don’t want to know the grisly details.  Suffice it to say that life became more complicated.  We had a timetable, which meant extensive planning, especially now my husband was earning frequent flier miles on destinations all around the world.   Still no results.
 
Tests, next.  My husband had a low sperm count which was attributed to some medication he was on.  He switched medication and optimism reined, briefly.  Still no baby.  We started to think there was some terribly obvious aspect to making a baby that everybody else knew but no-one had let us in on the secret.  Maybe it only worked on a Tuesday, if there was a full moon?
Tried that.  Still no luck.
Hmmm.
 
Back to the doctor.  Exploratory operations next.  Lucky me.  A laparoscopy so that the medical profession could see if there was an internal problem.  I have nightmares about going to the dentist so I was not keen.  But I was determined.  We scheduled the op and discovered that I had severe endometriosis.  I might never have children.
 
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’
 
They weren’t.  The good news was that this moved us from ‘might have a problem’ to ‘this needs sorting’ and our specialist took it as a personal challenge.  After some discussion, I was put on medication for six months.  The bad news was we were not allowed to risk getting pregnant while I was taking the tablets.
 Hmmm.
 
If my husband thought ‘Are you freaking kidding me’ he did not mention it to me but was massively supportive.  Turned out I had picked a good guy to marry (as if I didn’t know).  Unfortunately, the tablets gave me massively debilitating migraines.  They started at the rate of one per week and accelerated to alternate days.  Three months in I could barely function.
New plan needed.

We returned to our specialist who gave us the benefit of his considered medical advice:
‘Come off the tablets.  Make sure you do not risk becoming pregnant for one month.  Then give it your best shot and see what happens.’
It may have been couched in more medical terms but that was the gist.
 
So we did that.
 
And it worked.
 
After eight years of marriage we had a daughter, who thrived and is now married herself.  Luckily, she turned out to love cats and dogs.
But not babies.
 
Hmmm.
 
 

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