Throwing in the towel

This is not a pity post. I wrote that one a year ago . This is more of a sharing post. Let's share. I'll go first. We have 1 child, a son who turns 4 on March 1st. In the past 2 and a half years, I've had 4 miscarriages, 2 of them second trimester losses. After my first miscarriage, I was sort of a mess. I miscarried while my husband was in an entirely different state--Arkansas, to be exact, where he was getting us a house and moving our stuff into it in preparation for his year working as a law clerk. I had my D&C, took a day off to sleep, and the next day flew basically across the country to a town where I knew nobody except my son and my husband, and moved into a house that was only partially unpacked. I hate to move. I hate to unpack. And I hate, hate, HATE cockroaches, which are beyond abundant in the South. It was a hard week. As hard as it was, though, I did not consider myself changed much. Well, I guess any trial changes you, for better or for worse, but I still thought of myself as a bascially healthy person who had just had a minor setback. And after all, scratch the surface of any Relief Society, and you'll find a plethora of women who have had miscarriages. I felt like I had my turn, and once I pulled myself together and felt good again, I felt ready to put the incidence behind me, and get back to the business of building our family. Things continued to go contrary to my plan, however. I miscarried again while in Arkansas, and twice more once we moved to DC. After the second one, I had an inkling that this whole family thing wasn't going to be easy, and I felt myself sliding into a new category. I went from the "healthy, young, and fertile" category to the "she's having trouble" cateogry. I've been in the "she's having trouble" category for quite some time now, and ironically, I'm almost comfortable there. You get into the rythym of the doctor's appointments, the rounds of testing, and life somehow goes on. I did have to redefine some of my thoughts about family, and certainly our number goal dropped significantly, but I still never fully stepped into the "she can't ever have more children" category. That seemed far away, distant, different from where I was. I continued to believe that the next test would reveal the problem, my OB would hand me the magic cure, and we'd have that second baby, at the latest, by the time Jacob turned four. Jacob will be four on March 1. And that "she can't ever have more children" category just zoomed a lot closer. Again, in the interest of TMI, I won't go into all of my various medical issues, but I was told today that if I were to ever get pregnant again, there would be risks. High risks. The doctor who told me this is not an OB, but he did tell me that I needed to speak to my OB, sit down with her and discuss whether or not she thought a pregnancy was really a safe option. He did not say, "You can't ever have more children," but he did say, "It comes down to a risk/benefit analysis, and you need to understand that there will be some higher risks for you." Pregnancy--a risk/benefit analysis. Sounds almost like he was selling life insurance. So, I want to be done. I want so much to be done. I want to look at my perfect son, rejoice in his happiness, and say, "This is what we've got? Wow, thanks!" and move on. And go an entire month without seeing or talking to a doctor. Something won't let me, though. Call it my heart, call it my upbringing, call it a prompting, call it hoo-doo voo-doo, but I don't feel like we're done. And everybody who has gone through similar issues tells me "You'll know when you're done". I'm not closed to the idea of adoption. Not at all. So many members of my immediate and extended family are adopted, it's practically turning into a family tradition. For those of you who have adopted kids, how do you know when it's time to throw in the infertility towel and pursue other options? Short of your uterus falling out onto the pavement, how do you really know when your body can not possibly give you any more? I want to do what's right, and I'm learning to to give up, little by little and not without more than a little fight, my will to God's. I dunno--maybe the spirits that have been promised to our family just have some serious work to finish before they could come to earth, and I just have to have faith. I mean, hey, that's cool, but it sure would be nice to know if I should buy a bigger house.