Last pre-baby medical step

When I went for my pre-conception appointment a few weeks ago, my doctor told me to check to see if I had gotten a TDAP vaccine recently. It's a tetanus shot with a vaccination for whooping cough. Apparently, in the last few years, the guidance for tetanus vaccines has changed. It used to only be that kids got vaccinated for whooping cough with tetanus. Now, it's recommended that everyone get vaccinated for it.

Well, I hadn't gotten the TDAP vaccination since 1986, so I needed to get one today.

It sucked.

Needles don't particularly bother me, but tetanus shots are always kind of sucky. It stung a bit, but I'm glad to have it over with.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I turned 29 today. This birthday was a part of the reason we decided to start a family now. We need to start considering our ages. As I mentioned before, I know that 29 isn't too old to have a baby, but I feel like I don't want to be 35 when I'm having my last kid. Just a personal preference.

This birthday has been pretty terrible, given the loss of our cat a few days ago. I miss him terribly - we both do. It's getting a little easier, though. I haven't been randomly crying today like I had been for the previous couple of days. I'm going back to work tomorrow, and I hope that proves to be a bit of a distraction.

In other news, I finished a baby blanket that I've been working on. I learned to crochet several years ago, and I mostly make baby blankets. So far, I've been giving them away, but I think I'm going to keep this one in case we have a girl someday. It took FOREVER (months). There were 99 little flower squares to be made, and then they all had to be sewn together. I think it's beautiful, but it has definitely been a pain. Here are a couple of pictures:




I love it, even if it did take forever.

Life getting in the way

I haven't posted for a few days due to things being really busy and a recent tragedy that hit our family: Our oldest cat was recently struck by a car and killed. He was only about 2 years old, so he was way too young to pass away. We're absolutely devastated, as you can imagine. This happened yesterday, so it's going to take us awhile to adjust to only have 2 cats, instead of the three that we've had for about a year now. It's very heartbreaking.

Pregnancy predictions

One of the things I wanted to do on this blog was make a bunch of predictions of what I think pregnancy will be like. Just for fun. I think everyone woman has some expectations of what she thinks pregnancy will be like, and I thought it would be fun to document them here and then look back later to see if I'm right. It's just for FUN, so, if I'm totally wrong, oh well. Also, if you feel yourself wanting to say something like, "just you wait," with the implication that things aren't going to be as rosy as I expect, please refer to this post.

Just You Wait

My husband and I have a friend who had a baby a couple of years ago, and she told us about one of the things people say to pregnant women and young mothers all the time:

"Just you wait."

This statement is used to refute anything positive a pregnant woman can say about how she's feeling. Your heartburn isn't that bad? "Just you wait - it'll get worse." You're sleeping okay? "Just you wait - you won't get any sleep once the baby is here." You aren't too uncomfortable? "Just you wait."

I think it's ridiculous that people (especially women) can't be more supportive of each other. I think there's a bit of a "hazing" mentality for pregnancy. It seems in some way to be like a fraternity. I suffered through a rough pregnancy, so you should, too. I think some people think pregnancy is a right of passage.

I'm sure I'll be hearing that soon.

Finally...and an introduction

After debating whether and when to have kids for what seems like FOREVER, we've finally taken the plunge and decided to go for it. I started this blog as a way to chronicle the journey of our attempt to become parents (without all of the gory details - I promise). I also hope to chronicle my first trimester here (whenever that may be), so I can allow my friends and family to look back and see what we were going through during that time. We don't intend to tell anyone about a future pregnancy until we're 12 weeks into it or so, but I'd like to give everyone a bit of a window into those first several weeks of pregnancy. If they're interested, of course.

For this post, I wanted to answer one important question: Why now? Why, after debating for years on the decision to have a baby, did we finally decide to do it?

The answer is that it's not going to become easier as time goes on. All else being equal, it's better for a woman to have a baby young. I'm turning 29 in a few weeks, and, while I think that's plenty young enough to have a baby, I can't wait much longer and feel comfortable that I'll be able to have the kids as spaced out as I'd like. We'd definitely want two kids, and we've talked about having a third. If we wait much longer, the timing of the third kid would be dictated by my age rather than when we're actually ready for it. My husband's 31, and, if we have a 3rd kid in 5 years, he'd be 35 or 36. While I think that age would be okay, I doubt he wants to have kids much older than that (although I also doubt he's thought about it as much as I have).

Also, my career is just going to get more demanding. As I move up in the company, I'm likely going to be working longer hours and taking more demanding trips. Waiting will just make things more complicated with my career. It's easier to have kids when you're lower in the organization, I think, rather than waiting until you're a director. Plus, if we ever want to live internationally, I want to do it before we have kids or after we're done having them all. The worst situation would be to move to a new country with one kid. I'd know that we'd want a second, but my options would be limited by the fact that I really don't want to have a baby internationally. Since it's apparent that I'm not going internationally in the immediate future, we might as well just try for a kid now.

Finally, there really isn't any reason for us to wait anymore. I have a good job, and I'm making enough money to support the two of us plus a little one (My husband just recently recovered from a back injury, so he hasn't been working for several years. He's going to be a SAHD anyway, most likely - unless he wants to go back to work, which is fine with me). My husband also has MAJOR baby fever. I don't really feel the traditional "baby fever," but I'm sure it'll start once we get into this more.