I'm a planner. I like things to be in order and to be as prepared as possible for what's to come. So the advice "Just have a baby.. it'll all work out 'cause, well, it has to!" or "There's never a right time to have a baby" falls on deaf ears.
Anyone who is recently married will tell you, the single most frequently asked question is "When are you guys going to have a baby?" I like to tell them that we're just practicing at the moment - but the more serious answer is that we're waiting. Waiting for what? That answer has evolved much like my thoughts on having children.
My husband is in the process of finishing his college degree. Its probably best to wait to have kids until both of you are done with college, right? So that was our first timeline - we'll have a baby after Jared graduates. But that was too long for us to wait. Given the increased risk with pregnancies after the mom is 35, I'd like to be done having kids before I reach that age. So waiting for graduation is unrealistic.
Next, I started a "Baby Bucket List." This list consisted mostly of travel, and we actually checked off all the places we wanted to go before baby.. in a year's time. First off to Vegas, then the Grand Canyon, followed by Disney World (my first trip there!), then Alabama and Mississippi to visit family, and finally Ireland and Scotland (the background picture of this blog is the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland). Another item on the list was to pay off our debt... Yeah, so the rest of the list was tossed aside.
Finally, the most practical reason for us to wait. I need to save my paid leave at work so I can have a maternity leave. My job will let me take off after giving birth, but in order to get paid during that time, I need to use my sick and personal leave. Sucks, I know. So I started a spreadsheet (Excel is my weirdest obsession) to figure out when I'd have enough leave saved up and when we could start trying to conceive (or TTC as baby message boards like to say.. that'll have to be another topic). The conclusion? We can start trying to have a baby in April of this year!
I'm a planner. So when I realized we were just a few months away from trying, I went into hyper-preparation mode. I think I'm driving Jared insane. Of course, I started an account on The Bump and read all of the items on the pregnancy checklist (you know, over the whole 9 months) just so I know what I'm getting myself into. I bought and read a book called Babyproofing Your Marriage (I highly recommend it!). I bought vegan prenatal vitamins. I nearly completed a wishlist on Babies R Us (because doing a registry this early would be insane, right?). All of this preparation.. done in January. Yep, a whole 4 months before we actually start trying to have a baby. Go ahead and commit me.
This was all to prepare my mind for this huge change. I know I can't plan for everything (hardly anything, really) when it comes to having a baby, but I feel so much better, more confident, if I know that I'm as prepared as I can be.
Now that its early February, I'm starting to prepare my body too. I've been off birth control for a few weeks now since "they" recommend you wait until its out of your system for a few months before trying to conceive. I'm trying to attend my kickboxing classes more consistently with the goal of losing a little weight. I'm trying to eat better (pizza and pasta are my weaknesses!!), and I'm taking those vegan prenatal vitamins. Did you know they can make your pee neon green?
So lots of preparations underway. My head is constantly stuck in what we call "baby mode." There's so much uncertainty in having a baby. Jared is much better at handling the unknown than I am, and he tolerates my control freak tendencies with ease. I think he just knows that planning is my way of centering myself, making everything right in my world.
Namaste.
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