Moms of 4 of a kind - how bad was GD with #4?

[LacePrincess]

I'd love to hear from both boy moms and girls moms.

I want to know how bad your GD was with DC#4. Was it as bad as #3? Better? Worse?

My GD was the worst with DS3. It just felt like I was (am?) fated to always have sons. I really am wrestling with whether we should keep trying naturally or move heaven and earth to make HT happen again.

We have a lot on our plate. DH is off on his military posting in August, and it's not just any old job either....it's one of those career dealbreaker jobs where the rest of his future might very well rest on it. He's under a lot of pressure, and so am I, to keep the homefires burning and to take care of the household and kids so he can concentrate on his job.

I have an insanely crazy schedule to juggle with the boys next year, by myself. DS2's pro ballet schedule already means 1.5 hours of driving him to his class multiple times a week. Plus rehearsals, plus auditions, plus shows.

It is insanely complicated to try to do HT. If I'm unlucky and my local clinic is unwilling to help, then it means every monitoring appt would be driving hours to another city, plus travelling to the clinic to do the actual ER/ET. Even if my local clinic would agree to let us PGS/GS, their ivf reputation is not very good and I'm not confident in their lab freezing skills at ALL. So it might be tens of thousands of dollars for absolutely nothing.

I have a pretty good sway going, I'm on Femara, and DH is on OLE. I'm really feeling like sanest thing to do is just to have a one-attempt at +OPK try on the Femara. But of course, an opposite is always possible too. I'd like to hear from anyone who had an opposite for #4 - how did it feel? Was it totally devastating? Or were you able to make peace with your GD?

Our final, FINAL max of children would be 5. So the door is open to have one more if we have an opposite. Of course there's no guarantees after that either, but we are on a donor embryo waiting list as well.


ETA: Also, my very preggo neighbour? Well she just had her baby like yesterday and it's a BOY. I am crying with relief because the jealousy would've killed me otherwise. (She's the one with the PP). It is a little sad how emotionally involved I have been with someone ELSE'S pregnancy, I hate that but I am SO DAMNED HAPPY right now. I'm sure a lot of you can understand!!

[atomic sagebrush]

Way less than with DS 3 for me.

[ThreeLittleStars]

Worse than dd3 for me, but I was also 95% sure she'd be a boy for a variety of (stupid) reasons . I think your plan of trying naturally is a good one and if you end up with a boy take it from there, especially as you're open to having a fifth. Good luck!

[ImmiNAddi]

For my first 3 boys I didn't mind what gender they were and was fine and happy when they told me #3 was a boy. I never had 'girl fever' like I do now. We were done at 3, but in the back of my mind somewhere I was always wondering what it would of been like to have another baby.
Anyways, a few years later and 'surprise' - here came baby #4 out of the 'blue' (terrible pun I know... lol). I immediately started to think - this one could be a girl and got my hopes up. Had a gender scan at 16weeks and straight away the tech told me 'It's a boy' - I just said 'Really'???? and then I thought... well darn it - he is cute! I was later on of course a bit annoyed/upset etc but at the time when I could see him on the tv screen (tech came to my house and set up the ultrasound to show on the 60inch tv, so that was awesome!) I was fine and was coo-ing and ahh-ing at him.

The one thing that made it worse for me, was when my sister in law, who was due 3 weeks after us told us she was having a boy after having 3 girls.... I was happy for her, of course... but I was so upset at the same time.... It really got me down, not that I let anyone see that.... Then to top things off the other sister in law was pregnant (due 10wks after me) and down the track found out she was having a girl (her first baby).....
So I guess in my case, had I not had those 'other triggers' I'm not sure how disappointed I would of been with finding out I had a fourth boy on the way.
Sounds like the easiest thing for you to do would be to just enjoy 'BDing' and get on with the job, but you also have to be willing to have another little boy... It's hard hey.... I hope which ever way you go it all happens for you quickly and happily xxx

[True Blue]

So sorry Immi I disliked by accident (second time this week) I'm not very good scrolling on my phone!!

[True Blue]

I found my 4th DD in a row my easiest. I was 'expecting' girl while hoping maybe so when the US tech said Girl I just laughed and it was a laugh from the heart
Of course there were little disappointment triggers but overall it was a great experience

[fiveboys]

I was so sure my fourth would be a girl..my first three sons are with my first hubby then I re married and my hubby as a daughter n son by his previous wife but I got it into my head that he would for sure be a girl..a big no no... then on my fifth everyone was convinced even my older sons.we all went for the 3d scan and my 8 year old broke his heart when she said its another boy..I was gutted but the 3d scan did help me bond and as soon as I got a name for him I felt better but when he was a few weeks my gs disappointment was terrible thats why we decided to go ht..but not sure thats worked either at the moment :/ if i have another boy we will try ht one more time and then I need to find a way to move on xxx

[LacePrincess]

Thank you all SO much for sharing your stories. It really helps!

We have decided to try naturally and just see what happens. As it is we're needing infertility treatments anyways (yay?!? LOL) so I will be on Femara for the next few cycles legitimately.

We've also already been through the HT thing once, burned a pile of money, and seen for ourselves how you can put in all the effort in the world, the money, the time, the wishing and hoping......and have nothing left at the end. Not even an embryo of either gender to transfer.

It's helping us too that we have that donor embryo as a backup plan, and I'm told that the embie we want should only be about a year waiting list. That's not long.

As my hubby said......we'll try and see what happens. If it's a boy, well we wait for the donor embie or consider HT when we're ready again. If it's a girl, we see how we feel about calling our family complete. If the worst happens and let's say I have an awful pregnancy where I can never carry a baby again, then it's fate and at least there's closure there if I simply can't get preggo again. Then we close that chapter of our lives and move on.

It's kind of funny how I 'feel' like #4 will be a boy, lol. I guess I'm pretty resigned? I just hope that when we get preggo again the tech DOES NOT tell me 'oh it's a girl!' and then go 'nope, sorry, boy' a few min later again. Seriously, that happened to me TWICE!!

[atomic sagebrush]

Reading all these I wonder if the worst GD comes from when we really are believing the baby is a certain gender. When I TTC my 3rd son I had NO gender preference at all, could envision it being a boy or a girl. I tried to do Shettles but not very hard. It was just all the symptoms and the Chinese Gender Predictor that made me start thinking girl, girl, girl and it was like he usurped her position LOL.

I also know of several people who had HG and everyone said "oh it's a girl" and also people who had incorrect ultrasounds and they also had really severe GD. So it makes me wonder if you're accepting of the possibility going it maybe it's easier???

[LacePrincess]

Reading all these I wonder if the worst GD comes from when we really are believing the baby is a certain gender. When I TTC my 3rd son I had NO gender preference at all, could envision it being a boy or a girl. I tried to do Shettles but not very hard. It was just all the symptoms and the Chinese Gender Predictor that made me start thinking girl, girl, girl and it was like he usurped her position LOL.

I also know of several people who had HG and everyone said "oh it's a girl" and also people who had incorrect ultrasounds and they also had really severe GD. So it makes me wonder if you're accepting of the possibility going it maybe it's easier???

Well there's a bit of confirmation bias too, right? Like if I'm really wanting a girl, then I start looking for 'signs' in things like the Chinese Gender predictor (FTR it's been wrong twice and right once, LOL) and dreams, etc etc. For me I've wanted a girl from my very first pregnancy, so I've never not had GD.

Admittedly the u/s tech screwing with me twice was a helluva mindf%$^#!

I think it's just societal expectations too. Half of my fear of having boy #4 is the nasty comments/looks/attitude we're going to get.

I dunno, if we get preggo naturally, we're gonna assume boy, LOL, just because I really feel kind of 'resigned' to my fate. It does help that we're waiting for our donor embryo match too, and I can't really age out of that anytime soon.