When I found out I was pregnant with Thomas, my feelings were surprisingly conflicted. I wanted another baby, but a natural conception meant there was one more frozen embryo I wouldn’t get to use myself. The cost savings were great, but I was still worried about my health. I wanted more children, for my girls to have more siblings, but not at the expense of growing up without a mother. It was good news, of course, but bittersweet in a sense.

A practicing Catholic, I don’t believe in auras, crystals, or intuition beyond the norm. More than once, I’ve lost respect for someone’s intelligence when they’ve tried to sell me on horoscopes or personality tests beyond silly fun. I don’t mean quietly, either. Words like “hogwash” and “malarkey” are my immediate response to any mention of the Enneagram or Myers-Briggs. I’ll even back it up with citations. That said, I’ve always felt that I was meant to have four children, similar to the way I always felt I was meant to have twins. I assign no greater meaning to the idea, nor do I claim to have some kind of foresight or premonition. It’s just a feeling. As I go through this embryo transfer process, however, I feel more and more that this is how it was meant to be, because y’all, I don’t think I could have done this again had it been required to bring my Thomas into the world.

When I wrote about my first appointment to the fertility clinic since 2020, when the girls were conceived, I mentioned how much I seem to have blocked out since then. That being the case, I honestly don’t recall what it was like undergoing back-to-back pandemic IVF. I don’t really remember the mood swings and the side effects of the drugs. Considering the impact of the medications required for this FET, I don’t think I want to remember, either. Last time, I only had Jake to burden, when I lost my temper or found myself incredibly depressed by the entire process. Now, I have three wonderful little humans relying on me as their primary source of affection on an average weekday… and it sucks.

I won’t say that I’m a paragon of “gentle parenting” on a normal day. I firmly believe the constant cajoling and bargaining parents do with their children to get them to behave is why they’re all little nightmares. Still, like most parents, I’m trying to break patterns from my own childhood. I offer choices when possible. I ask nicely at least twice. I try to not to yell, unless someone’s in danger. I refuse to use screentime as a crutch. Put me on birth control pills alone, though…

Folks, I am completely rethinking the ubiquity of hormonal birth control over here. After a couple of years on Mirena with few side effects from the localized hormones, I never went back on any kind of hormonal birth control. Five weeks on the pill before switching to estrogen, though, and I feel like I’m going to be the subject of an HBO docuseries. It doesn’t help that my own mother likely had undiagnosed bipolar disorder, a declaration I don’t make lightly, considering my entire generation’s obsession with self-diagnoses. Whatever the cause, when I was growing up, it wasn’t rare for a night of fun and laughter to take a hard left turn toward broken furniture and bruises. While I’ve certainly not been violent, I loathe feeling as though I can’t control my emotions around my children. They depend on me to be loving, kind, and playful, not angry, short-tempered, and depressed. I know everyone thinks it’s lunacy to have my babies so close together, but my stars, at this point, I’m just glad they won’t remember this.

I hope this transfer works for so many reasons. I want our embryo to thrive and grow into a healthy baby boy or girl. I want our family to finally be complete. I don’t want our financial investment to be for nothing. I want the strain I’m putting on my body to have a purpose. I want a fourth so badly and we have embryos to use, so I can’t say if this fails I won’t try again. Still, I just want this to be over, because I don’t think I can do this more than once.