Secondary Infertility, I Think...

So, after six months of trying, I didn't get pregnant. So I spent a small fortune on OPK's... and it begins to look like I can't get pregnant. My plans for closely-spaced children are disappearing with every day that goes by without ovulating. I'm beginning to understand all of those women who write infertility blogs, who write about being betrayed by their bodies. And the biggest disappointment about all this is that I don't really have a partner on board; my son's father, while not actively trying to prevent me from getting pregnant, isn't particularly eager to help me get there either. Meaning that any of the more aggressive treatments - IVF, IUI - are out of the question. So I just keep checking for that second line on the tests, hoping that if it ever does show up I'll be able to talk my husband into making an attempt less than 36 hours later... And in the meantime, I just continue on with failing at womanhood.

Seriously?

I'm kind of pissed off right now, so this is going to be mostly a venting session. Not something I typically do on the blog, but for reasons about to become obvious, I can't possibly talk to anyone about this.

Somebody I am obligated to keep in my life is still in high school. I don't mean this in the sense that this person is actually a student in grade 10, 11, or 12; I mean this in the sense that I am actually stuck in a he-said, she-said type of situation and am about ready to tear out my hair.

Seriously. Get over it and shut the hell up. I have better things to do with my time, like trim the cuticles on my toenails.

Reaching Out.

I need to go back to work. This is a need of two parts.

The first part is pretty obvious. Budgeting only works if there's something in both the "Income" and "Expenses" columns. Or if there's nothing in the expenses column, but that's not actually possible, ever. Therefore, there must be something in each column. Right now, my income is $289 a month. I can almost pay my half of the utility bills out of that. Almost, but not quite. Since there's also rent, gas, groceries, car insurance, and (imminently) daycare to pay, there's definitely a touch of disparity between the columns.

The second part is less obvious, but more important. (More important than groceries? Well, yeah. One assumes that the person I'm living with won't let me starve, or let us get evicted, since I've covered his ass more than a few times on both counts.) I no longer have my own identity. I'm a mum, a housewife, a friend, a lifeline, a food dispenser, bandaid giver, warm blankie... I'm many things to many people, everything to the one who matters most, but I am not me any longer. There is no me; I don't know who I am, or was, or could have been. I think that keeping house would be a rewarding life in and of itself, if I had more support from accross the room, so to speak. I would love to just be a stay-at-home mum. But that's never going to happen, and as long as I keep pretending at it, I am on the receiving end of constant, blatant hostility. And so, I need to return to work, find something of and for myself that does NOT involve anybody else, and I need to do it fast, before I forget that I'm a person altogether.

An Unhealthy Obsession.

I've been obsessed with babyloss blogs for a while now. I don't know why, but I know it's not healthy. I dwell on other people's tragedies, and part of me lives in constant terror that I may, one day, have to know what they're going through.

At the same time, I'm trying to get pregnant again. The Man is a less-than-enthusiastic contributor to this plan, but he's not out-and-out refusing me either. And I'm trying hard - OPK's every month ($200 so far... blech), and seriously considering talking to a doctor about Clomid, because I'm not at all certain that I'm ovulating, period. My son is still nursing frequently, but since I am no longer experiencing lactational amenorrhea, I assume that I can, in fact, conceive - and I am desperate to do so. I long for the feeling of a tiny body moving inside my own, elbows and feet digging (often painfully!) into places I didn't know I had - and for the joy of delivery, the fascination of a newborn. It's not that I don't feel fulfilled with my son - but I never pictured myself having an only child. I want a baby as much for him as for myself - I am firmly of the opinion that a sibling (or two, or five) is important to a child's development, and I am ALSO of the opinion that the best spacing for kids is 16-24 months apart. If I conceive next cycle (it's too late for this one, and we never even made the attempt this time because of Mexico and Tristin's illness), the babies will be 21 months apart. It's getting awfully close....

Out of all of this, the thing I'm most uncertain of: is it wrong to want another child mostly for the sake of the one you already have? Do all mothers think of subsequent children at least partly in terms of their relationship to the first?