Lyme and pregnancy

Kellen is now two.  I'm starting to feel the baby itch. 

I always wanted several kids.  I'm starting to accept that two might be enough.  But right now we only have one, which is one less than two.  I know that only children grow up just fine.  But I want Kellen to have a sibling.  I want another baby.  I want to have a big enough family that if something happens to me, they have each other.  I know it's a little morbid, but the fire and being sick have made me confront mortality far sooner than I would have preferred.

I always thought four years was a good amount of space between kids.  Of course my mom then tells me that she feels she missed out on a lot of her brother's life because she was in college while he was in high school.  I had my second miscarriage last January, which was probably good in that I needed to be undergoing Lyme treatment.  But I had started to see the benefit of having two kids two years apart.  We're now back to the four year spacing as a likely outcome. 

But, the question really isn't about how far to space our kids anymore.  The real question I face everyday is whether having another baby is really a good idea.  It is well known in the Lyme community that there is something about pregnancy that makes us more susceptible to Lyme.  For some it makes them better, for others, worse.  It also can be passed to the baby.  We know that I've either had Lyme since I was bitten in VA when I was ten OR was bitten in Oregon unknowingly the summer I was pregnant.  So it's possible Kellen has Lyme as well, and he will be tested when we go to Washington in December.  If his test is negative, we will still closely monitor him as congenital cases of Lyme appear to be seronegative (negative blood tests) more frequently.  If I were to get pregnant, I would be on a low dose of antibiotics the whole pregnancy, which reduces the rate of transmission to almost zero.  (I am trying to cite as much of this as I can, but honestly there has been such little research done, I'm having a hard time finding trusted sources.)

My biggest fear isn't about passing Lyme onto a baby.  I know we can control for that.  My biggest fear is for my own health.  I got sick six weeks (SIX WEEKS) postpartum.  Quite frankly, pregnancy scares the shit out of me.  Obviously it wouldn't be a year-long journey to get a diagnosis, but this has been hell.  I haven't been able to enjoy the last two years of my son's life the way I would want to because I have been so sick and so dizzy.  I don't want to spend the first two years of my next child's life sick, fighting this same battle.  My doctor told me this week that it is unlikely I will ever be cured and that a relapse is not only likely, it is almost certain.  If pregnancy makes that more likely, then is that wise?  Or if I'm going to relapse anyway, does it matter?

These are the questions that have been swirling in my head for the last few weeks.  It's one of the reasons I created the new blog.  I wanted a place to be able to talk about how we are looking to complete our family, whether it's through another pregnancy, adoption, or surrogacy.