New Life Journey; Getting Pregnant.

Getting pregnant.

My clock was ticking... there was no ignoring it. I wanted to breed. I wanted grandspawn for my parents and his. I wanted a child. Naturally the deafening tone of ticks was not heard by my husband. It wasn't so much that I had to 'talk him into it'... I just let him know what my intentions were. Then you sit back and wait. I don't know if other mates out there will react the same way as mine did but I found the best strategy was to let him know that I was ready to be mother, then give him some time to digest it. I think it was about half a year. Then I told him was going off birth control and what happens... happens. No woman can force her man to be comfortable with the notion of fatherhood. You have to give him time. Bat-Hubs could have waited until he was forty or fifty before he decided he was ready. I had to give him a little time to adjust but not that much time! I needed to have children and I truly believe the ultimate and final say in the matter belongs to the woman. It is your body. It is a living creature that is leeching off your body, spirit and energy. It is forty-two weeks of wear and tear on you... just hard work in general. Then, unless you have other arrangements worked out (like full time nannying, day care or stay-at-home-daddy) it is probably you who will give up your job and stay at home. You have to let him adjust but it's your marathon, you get to decide when you're ready to run it. He's just there to hand you your water bottle and cheer you on.

It took a year to get pregnant while those noxious chemicals worked their way out of my system. That was plenty of time for Bat-Hubs to truly take it all in. We knew that money was tight but honestly it had always been tight. It always would be tight. If we waited until we were financially 'ready' to have children we would be waiting forever. It took awhile to convince Bat-Hubs the truth of it but he realized that there was no waiting for the money to be ready... it would just never happen. So, I would get pregnant - he would keep working, we'd cut back on alot of things, we'd find ways to make it work.

Honestly, I think it is much better this way. I don't want to be able to give my kids everything. I grit my teeth when I hear people say "I want to give them everything I never had." Is it any surprise that the world seems full of apathetic, entitled people who were raised on this principle? No. Not my children. I want them to see that we can't afford all the nice things. I want them to enjoy hand-me-downs. I want them to wait until truly special occasions for their big ticket items. I want them to watch us work towards financially stability so they see how hard you have to work, how long it takes and how to appreciate what they have.

Resting comfortably on that, I was ready to get pregnant. No more condoms (well, we hardly ever used them anyway) and no more birth control. (Hallejulah!) I was impatient for it to happen... boy, was I impatient. My period was never on time anyway so I couldn't count on that to guide me... I went through at least five or six pee-sticks thinking "this is the one, right"... and it wasn't. The day following my failed home pregnancy was always melancholic. I learned that trying and trying too hard are two different things. After awhile I stopped 'trying' all together and just stopped thinking about it. I let the unprotected sexual adventures carry me through the year and I stopped thinking about baby-making. I was jinxing it. And after some time to adjust and a year of trying (lots of fun, that) and enjoying our former independence.... I peed on a stick and life changed.


Next on our journey - Being pregnant, the first trimester.