To Have and Have Not

So I survived yet another surgery on my girl parts yesterday, thanks to my friend versed. It went well in that I got through it with very little pain, though I still felt foggy for most of the day today.

Here's what didn't go so well: She got only 70 percent of the adhesions. Apparently they can't stay in there all day long once they start (something about fluid absorption reaching a limit), so since my ute was in worse shape than anticipated, she ran out of time at 70 percent. For the math challenged out there, that leaves 30 percent to get out. Which means that I? Was so right in hoping to avoid a c-section in the first place (not that I had much control, in the end). I'll be headed back into the OR after a month on estrace followed by two weeks on provera and an in-office hysteroscopy.

The other thing I learned is that the worse the adhesions are, the greater the risk of placenta complications during pregnancy, like placenta previa (which I had with H) and placenta accreta, the scary condition in which the placenta burrows too deeply into the uterus, sometimes requiring hysterectomy during childbirth.

My doctor still thinks my Asherman's case is only a "3" on a scale of 1-10, and remains quite optimistic about my chances of conceiving again (though she said the scarring had affected at least one of my tubes, which further diminishes any minuscule chance of it happening au naturale).

Am I optimistic? I guess you could say I'm cautiously optimistic. I hope to give H a sibling, which is why I'm going down this path again (and it turns out to be a good thing I'm starting now). I know I would not be content to simply watch my 30s slip away without at least giving it a shot.

But in the meantime, what I am is 100% determined not to let this -- infertility, Asherman's, bad luck -- get in the way of my enjoying H's babyhood. It seems to me that it's easy enough on a normal day to let the moments pass without notice. Add the time and emotional drain that is infertility treatment and it becomes even easier. It would be the ultimate sad irony to sacrifice the sweetest moments with baby #1 in pursuit of baby #2. And it just won't happen.

It won't happen in part because no matter what the answer is this time -- another baby or not -- there is a baby boy upstairs, right now, who already made me a mother. And I owe it to myself, to my son and to every single woman out there still in the fight for motherhood to fully appreciate what I have without pining away for more, or at least without letting that longing overcome the joy.

And so, now back to my regularly scheduled life as a mother.