And now, for those of you who are sticking around... you're just dying with anticipation aren't you? I played an inadvertent mean trick on some of you last month by letting some of you know that my menstrual cycle has returned and we were excited to start trying again. Many of you have checked back with me recently to find out how that whole "trying" process went.
I have indeed ovulated at least once now and we are still eager to expand our family. However, we've decided not to start actively trying to conceive yet. Immediately after giving everyone the good news of having started my period (how funny is that?) I had a conversation with my older sister and then a friend about how excited we were but that it would have been nice if x y and z had happened first and it made me realize that we probably needed to think this through a little better in the days before ovulation. So on the way to see family for Christmas, Rob and I had a good long car-ride-talk about the pros and cons and ended up deciding to move more slowly.
The two biggest issues looming over us are my dental health and my uterine prolapse. I mentioned in this post that I have two cavities (at least) under my mercury fillings. Because of the toxicity of mercury and the good chance that removing the mercury to get to the cavities will introduce a good amount of it into my system, I have been putting off getting them fixed. I certainly don't want to risk doing the work during pregnancy, and I'm even very wary about getting anything done while Aidan is still nursing. So as of right now, we've decided to try and wait for any dental work until Aidan has weaned himself. That makes me a little sad b/c I don't imagine that will be for quite a while yet.
The second issue is that resuming my cycle hasn't improved my prolapse as much as I had hoped. As I've taken more time to think through all of the possible contributing factors to the prolapse that occurred during labor, more details have fit together to give me more cause for concern. Aidan's umbilical cord was very very short. I found that interesting of course, and thought it might be a possible explanation for the weird bleeding and heart rate concerns when he was tiny in utero. It appears that maybe his placenta detached at least partially and then reattached on TOP of the cord. So anyway, I thought to ask Rob just *how* short the cord was the other day. Evidently it was barely outside of me. By the last contraction (after 41 hours) I couldn't even feel my uterus tensing and I had this split second realization that if I gave up then, the labor could stall and mean a cesarean or worse that Aidan could get stuck and have his oxygen restricted, so... I pushed with every muscle in my body with no help from contractions and out he came! I'm wondering now, though, if part of the reason he wasn't coming was the length of his cord. And... if part of the reason I hemmoraghed was that when I pushed like mad at the end, his placenta was ripped from the wall.
In any case, I will feel better after I speak with my doctor and read his notes from that day. We are concerned about allowing time for healing to occur and for my muscles to regain as much strength as possible. I'll have my yearly exam soon and see what doc says, but we're not going to stress about setting that appointment since the dental work stands in the way in any case. To sum up: no new Baby Barrs just yet. :( We'll be practicing Natural Family Planning/Fertility Awareness as we did before Aidan was conceived. It has been good to see God working in my heart through this. I became content with the idea of a large family a few years ago, and now God is teaching me that I need to be content with whatever size family He gives me. Seriously though, God, we think Aidan needs a few siblings. ;) Thy will be done.
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