I'm 43. I have an 8 year old and a 4 year old. Eldest is an IVF child. Youngest was a natural conception after 1 MC and 1 chem pregnancy in between. We've decided to give it one shot to try for a 3rs with a frozen embryo cycle using one of the embryos that was frozen after our successful fresh IVF cycle 9 years ago.
I have deliberated this for so long and DP has gone from not keen / ambivalent to feeling happy to try as doesn't want me to have regrets down the line. Oddly, he doesn't seem to have the same level and range of fears about the whole process as I do. He doesn't feel confident that the FET will work at all but feels happy with the prospect of a third.
So, we're doing it and I think it's the only way I will ever truly have peace and I feel excited and hopeful and yet I'm so scared. So many unknowns. The embryos may not even survive being thawed. I might not conceive. I might miscarry. Or worse. I worry whether any baby would be healthy and about my health (no issues, and my age doesn't worry my GP or fertility clinic.)
I worry about a 3rd being a step too far. Like I'm pushing my luck. The impact on my two children. The age gaps both now and over time. The sleep deprivation. And being mum to a 21 year old when I'm 65. (My late mum had me in her late 30s which she said felt old at the time but it never bothered me growing up and were it not for ill health which could have happened at any age she wouke still be here now.) Third / middle child syndrome (are they really a thing?) All the things that could potentially go wrong with a pregnancy or baby, no matter how small the odds. Oh, and the Covid situation....
But I can't shake this longing to just try for one more to feel complete even though there was a dark time way back before my eldest came along when I feared I would never have a child. And I feel I have a chance that others my age don't in having these 'much younger than me' embryos still there (and still there mainly due to my / our indecision about whether to use them and what to do if we didn't).
I guess I need a hand hold really that it will all work out, one way or the other. I'm due my period any day now and that will trigger that start of the frozen cycle process. So many of my fears will have been there before each of my previous pregnancies and yet it's like I don't remember them being so strong. I think I just used to feel truly, more than anything, that I would never conceive at all.
Any wise words please? I need some positive thinking and positive stories.