# Trying for a second....but when?



## irishflower (Apr 13, 2012)

Hi everyone,

Hoping for some wise words, or at the very least that writing all this down will help me to make sense of it!  My gorgeous little man was born in August 2013 (now 19 months old) and whilst the first few months were tough as they are with any baby, I love every day spent with him and he's (mostly!) a joy to be around.  I always thought I might want to try for a second (we were lucky enough to have ten excellent quality embryos frozen) fairly quickly but as time goes on I get less sure.  I can be a fairly anxious person and worry how I'd cope with two, especially if a fairly small age gap.  We also can't really afford the treatment right now, and I worry about how treatment and (if successful) a second child would impact on my time with my son - I work part time to spend more time with him and love our days together!  BUT I have no guarantees that a FET is going to work first time so if it's going to take  a few times I might be better starting sooner rather than later?!  I'm 34 now.  I'm so confused by it all - on one hand I feel so lucky to have my lo and love my time with him, but I know that ideally we would like one more, hence the reason for freezing in the first place!

My head (I think) says that the type of personality I am, a bigger age gap might be best (4/5 years) but I'm all too aware this could be extended if not successful first or second time with FET.  Really wish I could figure out what to do for the best!

Thanks for reading x


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## Blondie71 (Oct 26, 2011)

Hiya just wanted to say don't forget you'll also have 9 months of pg so the age gap will be fairly significant by time baby is born and your little man will be much more independant and it won't feel nearly as overwhelming as you feel now as he is still a baby x


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## L_ouise (Sep 23, 2010)

Well, I kind of feel like if it's playing on your mind that it's time for another. If you was in a happy mummy of one bubble then you wouldn't even be asking this question 

You can play with the dates and ideal situations as much as you want but unless you've got a crystal ball then you're not going to find any reassurance that you're doing what is best.

You do have a lot of frosties to play with so you could just thaw them all and have the absolute best transferred and if it works it was meant to be and if not then it wasn't. That could avoid you being sucked into several expensive FETs.

Good luck with your decision making xx


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## irishflower (Apr 13, 2012)

Thanks ladies.  Good point Blondie!

Yeah Louise, I had kinda seen it from the viewpoint of even if I'm thinking about it, the fact I have doubts means wait?!  Definitely can't see myself thawing all 10 frozen embryos though as I'd be sure to regret it if it didn't work....


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## Sparkleheart (Feb 3, 2010)

Hi Irishflower! I think I felt quite similar to you after having dd1 who was born in July 2012. We too had frozen embryos (although only 3) and I really felt like I should try for a sibling pretty quickly. Mind you, in reality when it came down to it, I couldn't even think about it until dd1 was over 1. I think once she reached a year old, I put pressure on myself to pursue a Fet because I felt like time was running out. Which seems really silly now but I think infertility can make you feel a bit panicky about trying for a sibling because obviously there's a lot more to it than just deciding to have another baby and that's that. We went for a consultation at origin where our embies were stored and aimed to do a FET a couple of months later. But when it came down to it, I just wasn't ready. I just knew deep down it wasn't the right time and that even if I had an 'ideal' age gap in my head, that obviously wasn't realistically going to work for us and I needed to let that notion go and trust my gut. Of course there weren't even any guarantees that we would be lucky enough to get pg again anyway so we decided that we should just content ourselves with what we had and wait for the time when we knew we were really ready to try again. There wasn't ever a question that we would use our embies, it was just a question of when. But once we took the pressure off it made things so much easier. And around 6 months after that we finally felt ready and it was really instinctual, it just felt right. I think if you're questioning it, then you're probably not really ready. You just feel you 'should' be trying soon, not necessarily that it's actually the right time for you. I think just take the pressure off yourself for a while and just enjoy your DS and try not to worry about timescales in terms of fets possibly not working etc. You have lots of frosties and also, in my opinion, plenty of time. 34 is definitely not old! Taking some time out from thinking about it all the time enabled us to know that we only wanted to do one fet and that it should be natural not medicated and that if it didn't work, we would be happy we gave it our best shot and move on feeling blessed that we had our DD. So we moved our embies to GCRM belfast, thawed them all and put the best 2 back on my natural cycle, so no drugs. There was therefore little impact on our family life apart from perhaps the emotional upheavals of the 2ww of course! I'm now 38 wks pg so DD will be 2 and 9months when this baby is born. Now that that's our age gap, that's the one that now feels 'ideal' to me, it really is all relative. If you read your original post back to yourself, you give a lot of reasons to not try for a sibling just yet and really only the worry about a fet possibly not working first or second time as your reason for trying sooner rather than later. Maybe you are answering your own question! 
Ugh sorry this is so ridiculously long, I can just relate to your dilemma so all my thoughts have spilled out!


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## Darkangel (May 9, 2011)

Hi Irishflower! My girls age gap is 17 months and we just love it, is not as difficult as I thought it might be but also at my age I was just delighted to be pregnant again! The interaction between them is wonderful and gets better every day... Wishing you all the best with whatever you decide, you are still very young...x

Sparkleheart, congratulations and good luck x


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## ZM (Feb 20, 2015)

Hi Irishflower, 

It's such a hard decision. I chose to go back fairly soon- I'm having treatment in a week, and my baby girl is one tomorrow. I just felt it took so long the first time, and age is not on my side! If I get pregnant this time there will be almost two years between them, which will be about OK for me, I think. It's a really personal choice! 

How many would you thaw, do you think? 

Good luck whatever you decide  xx


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## irishflower (Apr 13, 2012)

Thank you all for your replies!  Lovely to hear your story Sparkleheart - congratulations and best of luck for the future 

Since posting hubby and I have chatted some more about it and decided to definitely wait another while.  Fingers crossed for a happy ending in the future!

K x


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