Thursday morning, Cameron wanted pancakes for breakfast. I figured I could make him some while waiting for my video appointment to start, but first I had to check how many eggs we had left. Five eggs, enough for any amount of pancakes plus maybe some chocolate chip cookies before needing a trip to the store. The doctor was ultimately a half hour late. I get the feeling she doesn’t tend to be very punctual, but I still have to appreciate being able to follow up from home this time without needing to line up a babysitter.

After the appointment I kept telling myself, ‘Don’t post on Facebook, no matter how clever you think you are being, it’ll just make people uncomfortable.’

“Well, apparently I have enough eggs to make pancakes, but not another baby.”

The diagnosis is Premature Ovarian Failure.

She said she wanted to follow up again in a couple weeks, to give the diagnosis time to sink in. But I had already known since my last appointment, a week before, when she told me that was her concern. My hormone levels, LH and FSH, were unnaturally high and not only that, high in the wrong order. Another ultrasound confirmed that I still haven’t ovulated, while I haven’t had a period in three months and counting. Awesome, if not for the whole trying to get pregnant thing.

And while she kept asking if I had any questions, she wouldn’t talk about next steps until it was confirmed, so of course I did all the googling throughout the week. Now she asks, “How do you feel about using a donor egg?” If money were no object that almost sounds ideal – the baby wouldn’t have to be stuck with my bad genetics. “How do you feel about adoption?” That’s complicated, but we’ve decided against it for a number of reasons. “How do you feel about embryo adoption?” I didn’t know that was a thing, but I’m intrigued. But (again the googling) it turns out that despite selling itself as the cheaper option, it can still cost in the ‘down payment on a house’ range.

Ultimately money is an object, a big one. It just makes no sense for us to follow that path and so Cameron is fated to be an only child.

In that week between knowing and it becoming official my brain was constantly fighting with itself, trying to come to an absolute about how I felt. Pros and cons. Meanwhile there was recently a Daniel Tiger episode about feeling two feelings at once which is applicable to many situations. Sometimes it helps to talk to yourself like a toddler:

It’s okay to have feelings about this.

It’s okay to have conflicting feelings.

It’s okay to want one thing even when the outcome is the other.

It’s okay to be sad about that fact.

And part of me is relieved. Part of me feels guilty for being relieved.

Pros and cons. The pros are numerous but the cons weigh more heavily.

But in the end it wasn’t my choice.