I know the board has been dead lately so I don't really expect to get much response but I have been feeling conflicted and I am hoping that getting stuff out in writing will help to clarify things for me. Some of this might be slightly TMI...
Chase and I decided before Ella was born that we wanted 2 kids and that we were going to have them fairly close together... Pregnancy was pretty easy for me so I thought that would be no problem for me. However, birth was not easy. I was in labor for 18 hrs and 2.5 of that was spent pushing. And there was a lot of stressful drama, I was on "potential c/s" watch all day. There was blood in my amniotic fluid when they broke my water and then while I was pushing there was merconium so we had to have special care nurses in the room incase Ella inhaled any of it, That scared the crap out of me since my brother spent several days in NICU at Toledo for the same thing.
I got no sleep for pretty much an entire week and ended up on the verge of a nervous breakdown when she was about 6 days old. On top of that my experience with the hospital here was not good and I really do not feel like I can have another baby at Findlay Hospital. (That's right BVHS, you suck and I hope someone out there reads this.)
I did not like being on hormonal birth control so at my 6 week pp apt I got a diaphragm, but was not a huge fan of that either so I really have not used it in months. I have been EPing and had not had AF return yet so I didn't really worry about it. We had been going with a "whatever happens, happens" attitude. Until this week when AF decided to make her return.
So, now I am feeling conflicted. I do want another baby... eventually. I am just not sure if I am 100% ready right now. I know we have already been playing with fire, but if af is back there is a much higher chance of getting pg again. DH seems to be all for it, but Ellas roller coaster sleeping habits still really stress me out some days and our house is really little... but then at the same time it would be nice to have them really close together in age. If I were to get pg soon they would only be 1 school year apart since Ellas bday is just after the cut off... but it took a year to get pg with her so it's not like it's by any means a guarentee that it will happen right away even if we want it to.
My real issue is that once we have #2 Chase is planning to get snipped... but in the meantime I don't know what bc option will be best for us. I think I will probably go back to the diaphram for a while until we decide what we want to do.
Anywho, thanks for reading. If you made it this far you deserve a cookie.
Re: Random baby related post...
Every birth/child is different. My two oldest are 12 & 13 right now. When my 1st was born I had a very traumatic birth that ended in her being injured (a lifetime injury). Resulted in years of therapy & doctors and is ongoing. Because of my horrible birth I too had my own injuries and had to have surgery less then 1 year later. She too was the most horrible baby for 10 months straight. No sleep whatsoever, never was happy, cried allllllllll day/night long etc. NO way in heck was I ever having another baby!!!
) Well guess what God had different plans for me! I was horrified and cried for days when I found out I was pregnant! I got over it, found a new doctor and loved having the kids so close together.
My point is don't base Ella's birth etc. on your next baby! You are still young, take a year or so "off" it that is what you want. I'm pretty sure that if you ended up pregnant in the next year you guys probably would be really happy!
The babies do grow up and get easier as they get older (until they turn teens and it starts all over!!).
If you feel conflicted, just wait, enjoy Ella for now and re-visit the issue in a few months.
I agree with PP, all pregnancies and births are different, so the chances of the same thing happening again are probably very slim.
Good Luck!
I got nothing on the babies but as for BC I've got options:
Timot and I are charting to avoid and then we use condoms as a backup on days where I might be ovulating/not safe. I use the method (and please please read Taking Charge of Your Fertility and don't base it on my method but do what works and is safe for you.) 10 days after the first day of aunt flow are safe. Then three days after ovulation are safe. I (for the last six months) typically ovulated between day 16-18, then I would aunt flo around 23-26.
I take my temp (orally) every AM before I get out of bed and I have an ap on my phone for Fertility Friend and it records my chart for me. I check the chart and watch my temps. Once I've O'd, I wait three days and then we have happy time with out condoms...or as DH likes to call it "naked sex". haha
The girls on getting pregnant are really good at this stuff. They do the three tests (temp, cervix height and mucus) but I'm too lazy to do anything but temp and even though I'm not writing it down I know when I'm O'ing.
As to condoms, Timot prefers Crown, which around Toledo you can only get by mail. We've used Condom Man.com and Amazon to get them. He swears it's the next best thing to naked sex. haha
HTH
I have mild PCOS so charting doesn't really work. I tried to chart to get pg and gave up after 8 months then it took 4 more before I got pg with Ella. I had tcoyf and read some of it and sold it on ebay when I realized my cycle was wonky.