Hindsight

I read this post (http://aidanbabyofmine.blogspot.com/2010/12/oh.html) recently and it made me think. Emily quoted statistics on conception rates and how they get worse as you get older and at the same time the risk of miscarriage goes up. I am 33 now, so not too old just yet but still a little closer to the more concerning 35 - 40 year old age range than I would like.

Emily asked if knowing what you know now, would you have done anything different in your reproductive past? Does your dead baby make you question any of your previous choices?

They are good questions. Would I have done anything differently with hindsight? Well I have been with S for over 12 years and we only had M about 3 years ago. We were very lucky, we conceived him very quickly. It really wouldn't have been a disaster if I had become pregnant sooner but at the time we just thought we were not ready. And maybe we were not ready, who knows.

What about Orson? Again we were lucky in that he did not take long to conceive (a little longer than M so maybe the statistics about age and conception are correct!). We wanted to wait to add to our family because we wanted to concentrate on M. We thought having another child too soon might mean we had to give him less attention. Probably had I seen the future I wouldn't have wanted to wait so long as now of course there will be an even larger age gap between M and any other child we might be lucky enough to have but again we did what we thought was best at the time. I think in the end that is all any of us can do.

Hindsight is a nice idea but I wonder.... Had I known I was going to lose Orson at 31 weeks and had I known how much it would hurt would I have avoided it completely because I didn't want to go through that pain? I think in the end it is best not to know the future that way there is a little hope. And in the case of women who have lost babies we definitely need the hope that things will get a little better eventually.