How we went from TTC in August to TTC or NTNP now.

I had a plan.

It was a darned good one, too.

Before we got married, we both kind of agreed that we would have kids around the ages of 24-26.  I wanted to have children before 30, and my husband felt the same way.  When we got married at 22/23, we decided we would wait until we were married one year until we started talking about TTC.  This next sentence may seem out of place, but it goes into the whole "timing children" thing.  The Zumba® Fitness Instructor Convention happens every summer at The Orlando Convention Center here in Florida.  In anticipation of this spectacular and most favored event that I attend annually, I said that we should wait to conceive until after the convention.  This way I will still be skinny and athletic-like and not tired and cranky and cravingy.  This seemed like a grand idea at the time of it's formation, so we were kind of going with that.

Well, with the thought of "BABIES?" creeping into my consciousness, I started to get curious.  I wanted to know what I was going to eventually get myself into.

Side Note:  I am a pain-a-phobe.  Rather, I'm terrified of surgical procedures, needles, episiotomies, ripping, needles, blood tests, needles, needles, and needles.

So, I went to the library and started what quickly evolved into my obsession with babies.

I checked out 2 baby books, looking over my shoulder because I felt guilty for checking them out since I wasn't pregnant.  I picked a book called From Conception to Birth: A Life is Born, and also a book called What to Expect Before You're Expecting.  I slid them up onto the library check out counter and had to sign up for a card, I guess my last library card was from the city I used to live in.  No funny looks, and no comments, so I happily sat in my car and started to flip through the From Conception to Birth book.  Wow, is all I have to say.  It's full of pictures and size comparisons of the fetus starting from it being a sperm and egg.  It's amazing.  Then I flipped through the What to Expect Before You're Expecting book.  Lots of good information, it was a good book to whet my appetite, but it by no means quenched it.  If anything, those two books awakened a need for knowledge and a curiosity for something that I began to realize was going to come sooner than later.  That was just the beginning of my research.

Since then, I've spent more hours than I can count on www.whattoexpect.com reading through the articles and reading the forum discussion and adding questions and comments of my own.  I've checked out just about every pregnancy book my library has to offer, and somehow through all of this, I knew I not just wanted to have babies, I now need to have babies.  I have to share my life and spend my free time doing something more productive than playing gameboy and sitting in Empire.  I want to have something that's not just part of me, but part of my husband too.  It's so weird to think that this little human is going to grow inside of me before coming out to meet the world.

I talked to my good friend Bonnie, who got married 2 years ago and whom I had a sneaky suspicion might be experiencing the biological clock tick right along with me.  Sure enough.  We're both baby hungry crazies.  I might be a little crazier though.  Kev and I have been together almost 7 years, and I think the two of us are ready to progress our relationship and lives to the next level.

The next thing to happen was my husbands' friend Zac and his wife Jenny (our age as well) came over to the states to visit.  They live in Germany, and have 2 super cute kids.  Amy is 6, understands English but only speaks German, and Finn is 2, he understands/speaks both.  OMG.  I fell in kid love.  They are so cute.  Rambunctious and energetic, yes, but also sweet and loving and learning about the world and were just so excited by everything around them.  Spending time with Zac and Jenny and the kids really drove it home that we can do it.  If they're 24/25 and can make everything work, why can't we?  All of this combined with my oogles of research really made me see that there are very few cons on my list of comparisons.  For example:

Pros

• It is healthier to have children in your early/mid twenties.  The older you get, the older your eggs get and the less able your body is to handle the extreme stress you will experience during the pregnancy and the labor/delivery.  
• If you have fertility problems, better to find out now than when I'm 32 and on the decline of the prime baby making age bracket. 
• We can have two kids by the time we're 30 and have them raised and out of the house before we're 50, leaving us plenty of time to retire and do all the traveling we can't afford to do now because we're too young and haven't made enough money yet.
• You bounce back quicker in your 20's than in your 30's.
• We are married, own our own home, and are both employed with full time jobs.
• I get health insurance with maternity coverage that starts on May 1st.  This insurance amazingly states that "pregnancy is never considered a pre-existing condition"  And yes, I called and confirmed this.
• There is nothing (except maybe Zumba®) that I would hate giving up.  We don't party or go out except on the rare occasion (we usually don't have time off at the same time or have to work early the next morning) nor are we doing crazy traveling, sky diving, or anything else that we'd miss doing if we had kids. 
• If anything, having kids will give us a reason to do more things like geocaching, going to the park, walking through the pet store just because, trips to the library, going to the beach, playing frisbee, etc etc.  We do hardly any of this now.
• We want children.
• I'm not afraid of a poopy diaper.
• I think I'll be able to work evening shifts in order to minimize having to hire a nanny/drop the kids off at childcare.

Cons

• Babies are expensive
• I might have to put them in childcare depending on the work situation
• I will gain a lot of weight, possibly get stretch marks, and probably be constipated for a while.
• My hoo-hoo will be unrecognizable for a while after the birth, or I'll have a scar from c-section (which I'm hoping not to have)
• I'll have to get poked with a few needles, which I'll probably have to be tied down for.
• I'll probably cry when I look in the mirror and don't recognize the foreign body that will be mine after the whole pregnancy thing is over.
• I'll probably swell with water retention and have to take off my wedding ring, so people will think I'm a hussy.
• If I have really bad luck, I could die.  But probably not.  (in which case SAVE THE BABY)

As you can see, my "pro" list is much longer and full of better points than my "con" list.  This gives me happiness and impatience, all at the same time.  I'm surprised Kevin hasn't duct taped my mouth shut yet.  Every other sentence I manage to mention "Babies?"  

In my research, I read that many people start taking prenatal vitamins 3 months before TTC, and they also stop taking BC 2-3 months before TTC.  When I first read all this, I kind of mentally noted that I would stop taking BC in May, and then we'd start trying in August.  Then 2 weeks later, I took the last pill in my pill pack and decided I was done with BC.  That we could just let things happen.  I'm so excited to be pregnant, that I just stopped taking BC.  This is when I knew I was starting to lose my marbles.  But I can't really see any reason not to.  So I guess we're NTNP* now, except that we kind of are trying....

I have my pre-pregnancy appointment at a really highly talked about OB/GYN on June 6th.  I guess if I end up with a BFP** before then, I'll just turn it into a prenatal appt.  I do need to call and see if I have to have a blood test at that appt...probably.  (shudder)  I'll ask them if they can give me any anxiety medicine to take before I go in.  They do not want to try to stick me with a needle in my right mind.  It will take them an hour to pin me down.

Anyways, back to the topic.  Our decision to stop preventing was a kind of rapid realization that there wasn't really any reason to wait, other than me not wanting to be bloated, barfing, and gassy at convention.  But I figure even if I get pregnant before the convention, I won't be THAT preg...unless I get pregnant now or in May.  If I get preg in June I should be ok...convention is 7/8-7/10.  And if I am so what.  Pregnancy is not a disease.  I should be fine.

Famous last words.

*NTNP:  Not trying, not preventing

**BFP:  Big Fat Positive

Next blog topic:  How the idea of water birth made me less afraid of having babies.