The What-Ifs

“And we can sell our house and drive down and live in Brazil.  I’ll be Ricardo.  Your name can be… Miranda…” 

I interrupt my husband in the middle of his plan to flee our current life and ask him why his ‘imaginary’ futures never seem to have children in it. 

His response was to ask me why mine never involve just the two of us.  Why I don’t want it to be just him and me?

I was quite effectively silenced (though I’m not sure that was his intent).

It brought to surface one of my greatest fears – making the wrong decision on whether or not to have a child.  Especially because it is mostly my decision – it is something my husband is willing to do because I want it – and not because it’s his lifelong dream to be a father.  I love just the two of us, but I want a baby of our own.  He loves just the two of us but he says he’ll be happy with expanding our little family, if I’m happy.    

But I worry that he’ll resent me for this huge change to our lives.

And, I worry that I’ll be resentful if we don’t make this change.
 

Knowledge is power, and all that…

Image by Wonderlane via Flickr

I like to plan and research.

Case in point:  A year before we even intend to start attempting to conceive our first* child, I’ve already made my way through not one, but two pregnancy books, am a daily visitor in the Being Pregnant section at Babble.com, and read every pregnancy article I stumble across.  I cross examine my poor pregnant and mommy friends about their experiences with pregnancy, labor, newborns.

So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that I can tell you about pregnancy symptoms, mucous plugs, pros and cons to epidurals, what to expect during labor, what the appropriate amount of weight gain is based on your pre-pregnancy weight and even how much of that weight is baby, placenta, etc.

I can tell you when you’re more likely to start feeling the baby move – at how many weeks you can find out the gender (if baby is cooperative) – and how big your baby is at  27 weeks pregnant.

I can tell you a lot of things for someone who never got past week 5 of her own pregnancy 

But, there are two things I am not going to do with my ridiculous amounts of research:
1) Offer unsolicited advice to anyone who is currently pregnant (or trying to conceive)
2) Make decisions about my own future pregnancy

I’m not going to decide now if I’m for or against epidurals.  I’m not going to decide now how much weight I will gain (even though this can be out of my control up to a certain extent).  I’m not going to decide right now how or when I will share my pregnancy news.  

I want to enter my pregnancy armed with knowledge, but with an open mind.

And hopefully, next year at this time, I’ll be in the throes of morning sickness brought on by the first trimester – and we can see how little knowledge I truly have. :)

Did anyone else do massive researching before conceiving?  Did it shape your opinions of pregnancy and childbirth? 

*The baby I lost will always be in my thoughts – but considering how early I miscarried and all that, here I won’t refer to that pregnancy as my first (seeing as I barely even realized I was truly pregnant).  That does not mean it hurts any less, it just means that I don’t have any real knowledge or experiences from that pregnancy to share.

the puppy promise

Image via Wikipedia

This morning, AMP asked me if I want to get a puppy.  The question came out of nowhere, and seeing as he’d been resisting the idea whenever I’d mentioned it, arose some suspicion.  He reminded me that he had promised that once I seriously started asking for a baby, he’d get me a puppy. 

I feel bad for him.  He’d do anything to make me happy, but he doesn’t want a baby right now.  He told me he’s so sad because he does want us to have a child together (something he said he didn’t want a few years ago), but he doesn’t want to have one now.  He has good arguments – he wants more time just us, he wants to be emotionally ready, he wants to be a little more financially secure…

When I said that I’m not sure if I really want a puppy, that I don’t think a puppy will cure me, he asked why we can’t just agree to have a baby in 4 years, when I’m 29 and he’s 35. 

My arguments are:
I want to be younger, my body better equipped to handle a pregnancy.  My mother had really hard pregnancies, and she was only 21 and 24.  If I’m genetically disposed to be like her, it’ll be harder for me the older I get.

Also, I want my child to have the same experience I had, of having cousins close in age to grow up with, especially if we’re only going to have one child.  Principessa’s husband wants them to have a second child, and Principessa and I would love for us to have one child be the same age.  The problem with that is, they don’t want their children to be more than 3-and-a-half years apart, and well, Mini-Principessa is already 2-and-a-half years old. 

So that’s impossible.  Sure, my brother J and his wife might have kids, but knowing how baby obsessed S is, I bet it’ll be sooner rather than later.

So, if I waited till I was 29, Mini-Principessa would be 6, which would make her 8 by the time my child is a toddler… and that puts them in completely different generations.

But, as AMP says, we can’t have a baby just because our friends are having a baby.  I wish I could shelve these feelings, lock them away.

Either way one of us is going to be unhappy… and as much as it kills me, I’d rather it be me… After all, it would kill me more to have AMP be anything but overjoyed when, and if, I ever get to tell him I’m pregnant.

I promise to take a break from all the depressing baby posts… I just needed to vent.  On to happy thoughts…

The Road Not Taken…

I’m content with how my life is.  I have a wonderful, amazing, loving husband.  I live in a beautiful house.  I have a good job.  I have family and friends close by.

But Mama Kat asked, ‘What would you change about your life if you could?’

I’m tempted to say ‘Nothing.’  After all, every step I took, every road, led to the wonderful life I have now.  But…if I could pick one thing – only one – and it wouldn’t change the outcome of my life, wouldn’t chaneg meeting AMP and falling in love and getting married…

I would want to have moved out before I got married.  I would have traveled.  I would have learned to be more domestic while I was single – so that it wouldn’t have been such a culture shock when I got married.

That sounds like more than one thing.  Good thing I’m free to contradict myself as much as I want.

I don’t regret my choices.  I love my life.  But, I can see the good that comes from being on your own for a bit – learning to budget better, with money and with time.  To be more organized.  To have traveled alone and with friends, seen new places when I didn’t have a mortgage to pay.  To have other experiences to draw on.

But… Now I get to experience those things with AMP.  We can travel together to places near and far.  I get to spend each day waking up next to a husband who loves me more than anything, who has made sacrifices so that I can have the things I desire…

So, if I had to choose to have moved out or traveled but would have to give up meeting AMP?  Well, then I’m glad I never did those things, because I will always choose my life with AMP over any other road or adventure I may have taken.