Fertility

I've been thinking a lot lately about fertility.  I'm realizing I don't know a lot about fertility in general, and my own in particular.  I've been reading blogs about other women trying to be moms, they talk about their FSH levels, and blood tests, ultrasound and all these sticks they pee on.  I'm trying to learn, because I think I'm going to need this knowledge.  It also causes me to worry that the $5000 I'm trying to save up for this process may not be enough. 

I guess I've been counting on being able to get pregnant again easily.  I've been pregnant twice, both times were kind of one shot deals, well timed without knowing that they were.  The first was two years before I got pregnant with my son.  It ended in miscarriage, on my birthday.  My ex, who was the father, and who I was living with at the time, asked me "what I was going to do about it" when I told him I was expecting.  Which I suppose should have indicated to me that we were not in the same place, I mean when we moved in together we talked about trying to have kids, and "make babies" and I went off the pill.  He knew this.  But somehow it was a big shock.  What it did for me was two things, it made me realize how much I wanted to be a mom and have kids.  And it also made me worry the whole time I was pregnant with my son that something would go wrong.  Somehow it didn't make me kick his butt out... but that's a whole other post :-)

Regardless, it all leaves me with this, probably false, belief that I will be lucky enough to get pregnant again easily and quickly.  Even though it's probably not true.  I am older now, and well my "cycles" have been messed up lately, not at all regular and rather heavy and icky (real scientific, I know!).  I also have family history to battle.  My mom went through menopause early, she was all done before she was 50.  And my sister, who is 5-years older than me, has already had perimenopausal symptoms, for a few years.  So if my clock is like theirs, it's running out of steam quickly.

I worry that I should be trying NOW.  But I can't afford it now.  If I manage to stick to my budget, which so far has been tricky, I should have that $5000 by around this time next year.  Yes it's a long time, and you would think that with my salary I'd be able to save more, but daycare is so expensive!  As is life.  And all the "stuff" I want.  I try and find ways to cut the budget, but I hate to think that I am depriving myself, and my son, of things that we "should" have.  I also have credit issues in the past to deal with, things that I'm sure are going to bite me in the ass soon enough.  Otherwise I'd probably try and just charge the expenses. 

So I don't know when to start.  Ideally, I'd like to have another child and time it so that Jackson is starting school when my mat leave would be ending, or have him starting school when I start mat leave.  But then I'm not having a baby until 2013!!  At 38.  Do I have time?  And how much will it cost me to find out.