One and Only

“So when are you going to have another one?”

– says pretty much everyone I meet when they find out I have one child

My husband and I have one beautiful daughter, Kylie. We worked really hard to get her into this world and thankfully, she is worth it. She really is such a sweet girl. Compassionate, caring, sensitive, funny, & beautiful…but do not get me wrong, she drives me to drink. Come to think of it, motherhood is when my regular (ok, almost daily), alcohol intake began. Anyway, back to the point. Thank goodness she is mostly wonderful, because all I went through to get her into this world, I might be pretty pissed if she were a complete a-hole. I mean more than the average kid who knows everything, right?

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage…

Can I bring you back to the beginning of my motherhood journey? My husband, Travis, and me have been together since senior year of high school, 2005. So when we decided to get married when we were 23 years old, it didn’t seem so young, since we had been together for 5 years and already lived together on our own. After enjoying marriage and working out some kinks for the first 18 months, we decided to start trying for a baby. Strangely, I had always had a feeling deep down that it would’t be easy for me to get pregnant. No particular reason, just a gut feeling. Well, anyone who has tried to conceive knows that every month feels like forever after the first couple. Every period a perception of failure. After about 6 months, I lost faith and hope and went a little nuts. Starting to research online, joining thebump.com (I am not sure that even exists anymore), trying to track my ovulation. I was pretty horrible to Travis. Putting so much pressure on him. Making sure we had sex on the day I thought I would be ovulating, no matter the circumstances. Then, I would make him stuff pillows under my hips and lay there for 10 minutes minimum. Sexy, right?

I was bombarded with all the advice and opinions when people found out I was trying to conceive. Here’s a sample of what I heard constantly:

• Just relax, it will happen if you’re not trying so hard
• As soon as you stop trying, that’s when it happens
• I understand, it took me 3 months to get pregnant 
• Have you tried (insert sexual position, vitamin, magic beans) yet?
• Have you considered adoption? 
• I know someone that as soon as they made their appointment at the fertility clinic, boom, pregnant the next month

You can be Infertile at 25 Years Old?

So here we are, 25 years old, a year of trying and no pregnancy. Ain’t that something, a labor and delivery nurse who can’t get pregnant. So, we went and met with my ob/gyn and went through the testing. They couldn’t find anything definitive but they knew it was me. Great. Travis basically has super sperm. I think they said, average sperm count was over 8 million, with a minimum of 1 million. Travis’ sample came back with 118 million. 

We started taking Clomid, a medication to increase ovulation, and hoped for the best. Three months of that, and nothing. Nothing, other that horrible side effects. I remember feeling super nauseas and a bit crazy. Next, we were referred to a fertility specialty center. 

Huge shoutout to Shady Grove Fertility in Rockville, Maryland. That place is a well oiled machine. I won’t get too detailed and boring, but we were able to get pregnant with our first IUI procedure. IUI stands for intrauterine insemination. A step before, and less invasive and MUCH less expensive, than IVF. We were pregnant! But now what?

Pregnant! But Now What?

Have you all ever heard of the “nurse curse”? Nurses, especially in L&D, always say we have the nurse curse; having horrible pregnancy complications and deliveries. I’ll leave the details of my cursed pregnancy and delivery for another blog post, nurse curse has a nice ring to it, maybe that could be a nice blog post title. I developed pre-eclampsia, Kylie was breech and not growing, and I had a c-section birth with loads of complications afterwards. But you forget all that right? That’s what is said when you’re having painful labor and you shout, “I’M NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN!”. We say, don’t worry you’ll forget all this and we will see you in two years. 

I never started birth control or any form of contraception after Kylie was born. We did use “pull & pray” method for about 3 months, but then I figured, well I am infertile, plus if we get pregnant on our own that that’s great, won’t have to go thru all that stress. 

When Kylie turned one year old, I finally gave into Travis’ request to move out of Maryland. We made the move to Raleigh, NC to have a fresh start and hopefully more opportunities and a lower cost of living. Kylie was SUCH a difficult toddler until she was about 2.5 years old. Like, I considered leaving her on the side of the road with a sign that said “free to a good home” kinda difficult. So I’m quite glad we didn’t pop up pregnant during that stage of life. But once Kylie was 2 & 1/2 and was potty trained and we took her pacifier away, I thought ok, lets really start trying again. 

Don’t Get Crazy

I did learn my lesson from the first time around, don’t get crazy. It put a real dark spot on our marriage. I had the feeling, well it’s not going to happen anyway, so just have regular sex and if it happens, great. As you can guess, it did not. We didn’t wait long and made an appointment at a fertility center here in North Carolina. Honestly, despite my pessimistic nature, I was fairly confident this time around. I had been through it all before. Hopefully we have one or two IUI’s and we will have our second baby, a sibling for Kylie.

They did things a little different down here than they did at Shady Grove fertility. Less medicines, said we didn’t need the trigger shot for ovulation, to just use the ovulation predictor kits and call them when it was positive. Not the damn kits again! I explained, well it worked the first time, so I would rather just do the same process. This place did not agree. So first IUI: fail, second IUI: fail, third IUI: fail. They finally listened and bumped up some of the medicines and monitoring of the ovaries and eggs. Ok, so this will be the ticket, that’s all we needed. Fourth IUI: big f’in fail. I do not understand. It worked the first time with Kylie, that was only 4 years ago. I still wasn’t old, not even close to “advanced maternal age”. Wtf?! Travis wondering, could we drive up to Maryland and go to Shady Grove again. Now, looking back, it wasn’t a bad idea. But back then, I had not clue logistically how I could make that work. We should have done it.

What Do We Do Now?

The doctor said the next step would be IVF. If you don’t know, depending on different factors, IVF costs over $10,000 PER ROUND! It’s very common to take multiple rounds to result in a viable pregnancy. Travis and I took a lot of time to think about it. Travis just kept saying, “I’ll do whatever you think, I’ll do whatever you want to do…” every time I tried to talk about it or ask what he thought we should do. We just went round and round. One night, I was more stern and said lets really talk about this, what should we do because we need to start planning. Travis said, finally giving honest feedback, “Do you really want to know what I think?” YESSSS! That is what I have been asking. 

I don’t want to do it. 

I took a pause. Ok, at least he was telling me something real. He said, I will do it if you want, but I think there is a reason it’s not working so I don’t think we should do it. I shouldn’t have been, but I was a little surprised. Then he said something really vulnerable and sweet, and for reference, Travis is not emotional AT ALL. We have been together 17 years and I have seen him cry maybe 3 times. “I will be fine if we don’t have a second kid. To be 100% honest, I would have been ok if we never had Kylie, but I would not survive without you. You had so many problems last time, maybe this is a sign or God’s way of saying this shouldn’t happen and if it does it might not end well”. I was silent. What can someone say to think. OK is what I said. And that was that. 

A Dagger in My Heart

We did never start anything for contraception, so I did hope for a long time that it would happen on its own. If it happened on its own then it would be meant to be right? Well here we are, Kylie is almost 9 years old and I’ve never been pregnant since. It’s been a dagger in my gut over and over again. I work in L&D and take care of pregnant women every single day. I work with all women, many fairly young and recently married. Every pregnancy announcement heartbreaking. Every baby shower, agony. And what do you say, I don’t want to go to your baby shower and celebrate you getting pregnant you dumb bitch? No. You can’t say that. And of course I am happy for my friends and co-workers. But it’s just really hard to not have my grief and sorrow for myself overshadow my excitement for them. I can’t even tell you how many baby showers and 1 year old’s birthday parties I’ve had to leave and go to the bathroom or the car and get my shit together. 

More Than a Baby for Me…A Sibling for Kylie

So what is next? How does one move on? What does a mother say to their young child who asks for a sibling all the time? It’s really not fun when your child asks, mommy are you sure there isn’t a baby in there, as she pokes my potbelly. No honey, there still isn’t but thanks for asking. What do I say when mostly well-meaning strangers ask, “do you plan to have more?” Or the worst, “you didn’t want more?”. I want to say, well actually I’m infertile and we tried IUI four times and spent thousands of dollars but I just can’t seem to get my ovaries and uterus to get their shit together! I want to say that, but I usually don’t. But I smile and say, well we tried a while and it just didn’t happen, we shall see, you never know (insert innocent shoulder shrug). 

Funny story. When Kylie was in kindergarten and I went to pick her up after school, her teachers assistant poked her head out of a side door waving and saying, “Hey Miss P, I just wanted to say you look amazing for just having twins!” ….Blank stare, blink blink…

Um, excuse me what? She continued, yea, Kylie writes in her journal every single day something to the effect of, I am so happy when mommy takes me and my sisters to the park. I was speechless. Lightbulb moment… “are those sisters named Emma and Lexi? One is a baby doll and the other is a stuffed giraffe” I had to laugh. But I thanked her for the… compliment? Maybe I should have clarified, do I look good only because you had the context that I recently gave birth to two babies? So now that you know my baby weight is 5 years old, am I back to a semi-arrange looking flabby hobbit? But jokes aside, It was painful. No, not the ‘you look like you just had twins’, but knowing Kylie wants siblings so bad she journaling about them and letting people think she has twin sisters. 

How do you explain to a 5 year old that you tried to give her a sibling and just can’t? I tried, and I think it landed. I explained that mommy and daddy tried really hard and even went to the doctors to try and get special help, but mommy’s body just isn’t working quite right. You need seeds that get fertilized like flowers, and my seeds just aren’t great. Probably not the best example, but it made sense to me. 

Acceptance? I’ll Try

Acceptance. That is what you try to garner next. I have told myself many times I had accepted this fate and family of three, but then something happens that triggers me and I realize, yep, I am still lying to myself. Just in that past year, I am truly starting to accept this family as just as good as any other. Why do only children get a bad rap, and families with one child seem so foreign and less than? This is 2022, there are so many ways to not create and only-child weirdo that doesn’t know how to socialize and share. How many adults share corny instaposts that say sappy quotes such as, friends are family you choose and blood doesn’t make you family? Kylie can find her people. She has cousins and friends and is busy all the time. She does have her own room, and probably wouldn’t want to share that, but who would? I wish I didn’t even have to share my bed or closet with my husband. 

Here is a list I’ve compiled with the benefits of having one child…

1. MONEY! That’s number one. Once we were done with daycare, we didn’t have to pay for another kid the amount of a mortgage for childcare. Kylie’s sport of choice is Allstar Cheer and I am very thankful I only have to fund one athletes cause this shit is expensive!
2. Kylie gets all of both the parents love and attention. We have such a tight bond. 
3. Travel. This one might also fall under the money category. I never went of vacations as a child or even teenager. This girl has been on a plane more than a lot of adults in her short 8 years. It’s pretty easy, two parents, one child; getting through the airport is pretty seamless. Getting her out of the house for events and activities is easier than trying to wrangle multiple kids. 
4. One college tuition to hopefully be able to fund. 
5. Not worrying about comparing your kids, or did you give one kid more opportunities and love than the other and you’re going to send the other one to therapy one day.
6. High level and independence and high self esteem. Kylie gets a lot of my focus. Especially now that I realize she is it, she’s the golden star, I intend to give her all I’ve got. But also, I’m not a super mom, she needs to play by herself and learn to sit and watch TV for a while or I might lose my shit. You call it too much screen time, I call it fostering independence. 
7. Benefits for ME. I’m not 100% sure on where I stand with religion, but I’ve got to think, the way my mental health has been the past few years, that had to be divine intervention, knowing I may not be able to handle more stress. 
8. It’s environmentally responsible? That seems like it could be important in the long run. 
9. I only had to virtually home school one elementary schooler during the peak of the pandemic. That shit sucked. I learned I am not good at math, even when its meant for second graders. 
10. Friends and family are more likely to babysit so mom and dad can go out and enjoy adult life. We got married young and broke and had Kylie pretty young as well. That means, when we are 40, Kylie will already be 15 and can stay with friends while we finally travel and spend our money on ourselves.

Fear & Pain

I would be lying to you and myself if I didn’t admit there are disadvantages and fears. I have one huge fear that invades my thoughts during times of anxiety. If something were to ever happen to Kylie, something unmentionable, would I still be a mom? How could I go on without my ONLY child that I have created such a symbiotic bond with? I don’t know that answer, so those questions are not rhetorical. Help please. My therapist has said, you can’t experience great joy without being able to feel great pain. That does not help, but I guess I’ll admit it makes sense. 

I have experienced great pain. Dealing with infertility is a daily struggle that consumes your thoughts everyday. Most people do not consider it a loss, and do not understand that you need to go though the grieving process. Grieve the loss of the family you expected to have and worked so hard for. A huge regret I have is missing out on a lot of time and experiences with Kylie when I was stressed and depressed trying to have a second baby. Crying and thinking about the baby I couldn’t have, took my attention away from the baby right in front of me. I’ll never get that time back. 

Our Triangle

Did you know triangles are the strongest shape? Each of the three sides support the other two. That’s our small family; a triangle of love and support. And you know what, it’s pretty good. 

PSA: Just don’t ask women about their children, their plans for children, or their uterus in general. You never know who may have just had a miscarriage, who just lost a child, who has been trying to get pregnant for far 

ashley, RN

Mental Mommy Nurse