Enter the Crone

I'm not pregnant.

This is good news. Pretty much. At two kids our house is full-ish, and our budget is definitely at its maximum.

Yet part of me is sad, because this was the last chance I had to have another baby. I'm the oldest of three kids, and although it's silly to figure my life will be like my mother's (especially because it isn't at all, period), I'd always thought I had room for just one more baby.

But I'm extremely perimenopausal. And this last 41 day cycle (which involved lots of home pregnancy tests and finally a blood test to clarify that I am definitely NOT pregnant) has convinced me that it's time to head in to the doctor and get a cure for what ails me. The past three years I've had increasingly heavy and increasingly undependable periods. I range from 23 to (now) 41 days cyclically, and I invariably have a day or three where I'm literally changing the "sanitary" supplies every hour.

Something's got to give, and it's going to have to be my fertility. No matter which way I go, hormones, laser, hysterectomy... it means no more kids. No more possibility of kids. I'm not overly saddened by this (and let me say here that I am thrilled to know the "feminine hygeine" aisle and I will be on much less intimate terms), but it's weird knowing I'm hitting the Crone stage of my life so swiftly.

So. Sounds like I don't have room for one more baby. To be fair, my husband's been done since #2; so we've actively avoided pregnancy while realizing that it could potentially happen as neither of us has taken permanent steps to end our fertility. Our avoidance has worked, apparently rather well. And really, that's fine, but while I was testing away for the past week I had a chance to look at possibilities... possibilities that are now gone.

No third child for me. No "one last chance" for a daughter for me.

It's fine.