Well...trying to get pregnant can be an exact science. I'm not at the point yet where I'm doing basal temperature and there is no way in hell I'm checking the consistency of my "secretions". More power to you if you are willing to do that because I'm definitely not. I'm just glad I know what day of the month I have my period. SO anyways, this is the time. Starting on the 28th and going to about Sept. 1 is my window (based on questionable cycle length). Well, the 28th was a bit of a stretch and we were both really drained so we thought, eh, tomorrow. Next two days...two for two. Mark...quite happy with the progress. Today is THE day though. Where is my husband? He's sleeping. Went to bed at 8:15, he hadn't even been home a half an hour. I don't really think he gets it. I wish that he would take the time to just understand how this works. It's not like we're getting any younger and I'll be damned if I'm having a kid after school lets out. As it is our baby would be due only a couple weeks before the end of the school year, about half as much time as you are given to take off.
Mark isn't being selfish right now. Maybe a little self absorbed or thoughtless. These are definitely not traditional characteristics. Mark is usually the most amazing husband. I think almost everyone I know is jealous of me. Right now though...Mark is starting a new job as a long term sub for the first semester. He is stressed and tired and freaked out. The last several weeks have been a drain, on my time and on my energy because Mark is so very very needy right now. He needs to talk, he needs help shopping, he needs me to look at lessons, help him create homework, generate rubrics, and a lot more talking and reassuring and *sigh* it's driving me crazy. I TOTALLY understand and I wouldn't be supporting him if what he was doing was a frivelous waste of time. He is becoming a teacher. He's always wanted to do become one. It is a pretty big undertaking, unfortunately, this comes at like the most inopportune time. I can't believe that I'm saying these things. Thank goodness I don't think anyone is reading this and if you are, please don't think me or my husband any worse for what I'm about to say. I'm getting tired. Tired of the never ending complaining and stressing and worrying and having to say over and over again..."you're fine", "you'll do great", "don't worry, all new teachers go through this". Honestly, I have my own stuff to do. Whether that be school, the house, or personal. Do I know how bitchy this sounds? YES!! That's why I would never tell Mark that. I know that he needs me right now and I don't think that his demands are out of line, just, really draining me. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up. I thought we were past this part of our lives where we were exploring our professional careers and now we're back and it's so hard. I worry what happens if we do get pregnant and Mike has a new job again...I'm not sure he'll be able to handle the stress....
Thanks for listening. I do love my husband and I do support him. Afterall, I want him to be the father of my children....
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Trying...again.
Well, we started trying again in August. Let's just say we didn't put our full energy behind it. We had fallen off the wagon in terms of getting ready. Last time I had taken pre-natal vitamins for 3 months, Mark was taking his vitamins, I had ordered pre-seed. This time...I mis-mentally calculated when I was ovulating. My period had regularly fallen ever 30 days for almost a year and then about 6 months again it changed to 27-28 days which moved my ovulation timeline. I just kind of let that slip my mind. So when I say it wasn't our full energy it was just one time.
I told myself that one time can do it. That's true, right? Well about a week afterwards I started having trouble with my stomach, like almost a burning sensation. I thought...hmmm...can you get morning sickness this early? Some people indicated that you can have morning sickness as soon as implantation occurs. I convinced myself I was pregnant. When Mark went to tickle me I instinctively protected my stomach. It's like something was telling me I had to be a momma bear and protect myself. Then I started to have cramps. I hoped that they were implantation cramps. They felt an awful lot like period cramps. Online I read that they feel almost exactly the same. I really wanted to take a pregnancy test but I knew that getting my period would be a much cheaper way to find out. Unfortunately everything was just wishful thinking (and a touch of gastritis). I got my period on the exact date I should have. We have one more attempt before we'll take some time off for summer vacation. If it happened I would be due at the end of May, about three weeks before the end of the school year. Not exactly what we want, but beggars can't be choosers and it will happen when it happens and all those platitude, right? Wish us luck :)
I told myself that one time can do it. That's true, right? Well about a week afterwards I started having trouble with my stomach, like almost a burning sensation. I thought...hmmm...can you get morning sickness this early? Some people indicated that you can have morning sickness as soon as implantation occurs. I convinced myself I was pregnant. When Mark went to tickle me I instinctively protected my stomach. It's like something was telling me I had to be a momma bear and protect myself. Then I started to have cramps. I hoped that they were implantation cramps. They felt an awful lot like period cramps. Online I read that they feel almost exactly the same. I really wanted to take a pregnancy test but I knew that getting my period would be a much cheaper way to find out. Unfortunately everything was just wishful thinking (and a touch of gastritis). I got my period on the exact date I should have. We have one more attempt before we'll take some time off for summer vacation. If it happened I would be due at the end of May, about three weeks before the end of the school year. Not exactly what we want, but beggars can't be choosers and it will happen when it happens and all those platitude, right? Wish us luck :)
To have kids or not to have kids...are you ever ready??
If we're being brutally honest there is definitely part of us that is not ready for this. We have been together for 10 years and we truly love our life. We are pretty busy, especially with basketball, and we're not sure how another "demand" on our time will affect us.
Unfortunately, we're not getting any younger (I'll be 29 next week and Mark will be 30). We are also the youngest children in our families and our parents are not getting any younger (our dads are 63 and moms are 58). My husband's brother does have a daughter who is 3. Mark's parents adore her. As I don't think that the rest of my family will have kids soon and my parents want them so badly, time is definitely not on our side. I want my kids and I want my parents to be able to enjoy one another and scary as it is my dad would be 85 when our child turned 21. Again, time is not on our side. I definitely feel the pressure to fight against time.
All that being said, Mark and I both love kids. We are "the" aunt and uncle. The kids are always left to us at family functions. When we were at Disney we couldn't help but watch the kids and laugh and smile and truly enjoy the way the kids respond to being in Disney. Loving kids has never been the question. Can we handle it, not a concern. Are we going to want to give up our lives? Well, we've decided there's no time like the present to find out. So, although we're not sure we're ready to give up our time we have decided we are ready to have our first baby.
Unfortunately, we're not getting any younger (I'll be 29 next week and Mark will be 30). We are also the youngest children in our families and our parents are not getting any younger (our dads are 63 and moms are 58). My husband's brother does have a daughter who is 3. Mark's parents adore her. As I don't think that the rest of my family will have kids soon and my parents want them so badly, time is definitely not on our side. I want my kids and I want my parents to be able to enjoy one another and scary as it is my dad would be 85 when our child turned 21. Again, time is not on our side. I definitely feel the pressure to fight against time.
All that being said, Mark and I both love kids. We are "the" aunt and uncle. The kids are always left to us at family functions. When we were at Disney we couldn't help but watch the kids and laugh and smile and truly enjoy the way the kids respond to being in Disney. Loving kids has never been the question. Can we handle it, not a concern. Are we going to want to give up our lives? Well, we've decided there's no time like the present to find out. So, although we're not sure we're ready to give up our time we have decided we are ready to have our first baby.
The beginning of our journey.
Let me first start by saying I'm not pregnant yet. I hope to be soon. In January of 2008 my husband and I decided to start trying to get pregnant. We were at a great point in our lives. We had bought our first house about two years earlier. I was settled into my job as a teacher. My husband was at a job he didn't love (in sales) but the company was really good to work for - he made good money doing and had a little freedom in his schedule. Of course, after one month of trying it turned out we were relieved that I wasn't pregnant...
Due to some random events in my life my body decided to go haywire and I "developed" an auto-immune disease, called sarcoidosis. Although for me this has been a relatively benign disease, it took them almost six months to come up with a diagnosis. My beta-2 glycoproteins were really high (over 4 times the normal limit) and this meant that we couldn't try to get pregnant. Not to mention that I was taking 800mg of Ibprofen 4 times a day, which you can't do obviously when you are pregnant. I needed this to relieve the pain I experienced in my elbows and ankles as well as to make the swelling go down. We had to wait eight months before I was ready for them to test my blood again. The news came back good - the beta 2 glycoproteins were back within the normal limit. Yay! Before we could even start thinking about it again we had to go to Maternal Fetal Medicine (which means High Risk Pregnancy). That freaked me out a little bit. People with sarcoidosis can have really rough pregnancies and my rheumatologist felt that it would be best for us to see Maternal Fetal Medicine. This was in mid-September after I had ovulated. They cleared us! Another road block down.
So what happened next? Nothing. As a teacher I want to be able to spend as much time as possible with our baby. This means not having a baby during the summer. A lot of people probaby think this sounds a little selfish - like I just don't want to work. That is, honestly, a little of the reason, BUT, not the full reason. We thought, eh, it's just a couple of months. No big deal! We decided we would start trying again in December.
So, it's December, the week of Christmas to be exact. Just as we were going to start trying again Mark lost his job (like the same week). With the downturn in the economy his company needed to cut back, as the low man on the totem pole Mark was let go first. We made a major life decision at this point. Mark hated being in sales. We thought he would go back to marketing or underwriting, however, both of these jobs would take away his ability to coach. This is non-negotiable (I'll talk about that later). So Mark decided to fill a lifelong dream, to become a teacher. Through a program offered in our state he could convert his four year business degree to a teaching degree. It would take about 10 months. We decided that he would go on unemployment instead of working full time, so that he could be focused on his education. This was a big step for us. We had always been opposed unemployment and thought many took advantage of the system. Well, here we are taking advantage of the system. So, we're sorry. This will be the first and last time. Mark will find a job as a teacher because he has everything you need to be a great one - upbeat attitude, love of kids and teacher (NOT the same thing), and a great work ethic. The question is, when will this happen? No idea!
Because of his uncertain future we didn't want to take any chances so we decided to wait. So now we had summer vacation to work around and Mark's work circumstance and basketball season. That leaves, well, a teeny tiny window of time. Before we could start that though Mark and I decided that we would like to go on one final vacation together. We LOVE Disney World and knew that once we have a child vacation we be very different from what we do now. So we waited some more...
Due to some random events in my life my body decided to go haywire and I "developed" an auto-immune disease, called sarcoidosis. Although for me this has been a relatively benign disease, it took them almost six months to come up with a diagnosis. My beta-2 glycoproteins were really high (over 4 times the normal limit) and this meant that we couldn't try to get pregnant. Not to mention that I was taking 800mg of Ibprofen 4 times a day, which you can't do obviously when you are pregnant. I needed this to relieve the pain I experienced in my elbows and ankles as well as to make the swelling go down. We had to wait eight months before I was ready for them to test my blood again. The news came back good - the beta 2 glycoproteins were back within the normal limit. Yay! Before we could even start thinking about it again we had to go to Maternal Fetal Medicine (which means High Risk Pregnancy). That freaked me out a little bit. People with sarcoidosis can have really rough pregnancies and my rheumatologist felt that it would be best for us to see Maternal Fetal Medicine. This was in mid-September after I had ovulated. They cleared us! Another road block down.
So what happened next? Nothing. As a teacher I want to be able to spend as much time as possible with our baby. This means not having a baby during the summer. A lot of people probaby think this sounds a little selfish - like I just don't want to work. That is, honestly, a little of the reason, BUT, not the full reason. We thought, eh, it's just a couple of months. No big deal! We decided we would start trying again in December.
So, it's December, the week of Christmas to be exact. Just as we were going to start trying again Mark lost his job (like the same week). With the downturn in the economy his company needed to cut back, as the low man on the totem pole Mark was let go first. We made a major life decision at this point. Mark hated being in sales. We thought he would go back to marketing or underwriting, however, both of these jobs would take away his ability to coach. This is non-negotiable (I'll talk about that later). So Mark decided to fill a lifelong dream, to become a teacher. Through a program offered in our state he could convert his four year business degree to a teaching degree. It would take about 10 months. We decided that he would go on unemployment instead of working full time, so that he could be focused on his education. This was a big step for us. We had always been opposed unemployment and thought many took advantage of the system. Well, here we are taking advantage of the system. So, we're sorry. This will be the first and last time. Mark will find a job as a teacher because he has everything you need to be a great one - upbeat attitude, love of kids and teacher (NOT the same thing), and a great work ethic. The question is, when will this happen? No idea!
Because of his uncertain future we didn't want to take any chances so we decided to wait. So now we had summer vacation to work around and Mark's work circumstance and basketball season. That leaves, well, a teeny tiny window of time. Before we could start that though Mark and I decided that we would like to go on one final vacation together. We LOVE Disney World and knew that once we have a child vacation we be very different from what we do now. So we waited some more...
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