Baby Fever

Life has a way of surprising me. 6 months ago, I was all about weddings - mine, in particular. These days I can't be bothered with anything wedding-related. I've moved on - to babies.

Of course, Roy and I discussed the children issue before we got married. We both agreed that we wanted them but would wait for awhile after getting married so we could enjoy each other, finish school, pay down debt, buy a house, go on cool vacations, and move away from Southern California. I had a 5 year plan in the back of my head. I figured we could get all the other stuff done within 5 years and be totally ready to be parents by time we're 33. It's not a bad plan, actually.

I recently went off my birth control pills after reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility. This book teaches a natural method of birth control called the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), where you chart your temperature and other fertility signs in order to become familiar with the patterns and intricacies of your menstrual cycle. It's actually a phenomenal book. I decided to go off the pill after reading it because 1) I wanted to become more familiar with my body and its cycles, 2) I wanted all the pill's effects to have worn off by the time we were ready for children (which can sometimes take years to happen), and 3) I prefer natural things to chemicals any day.

I didn't count on getting hit with the wave of baby fever so early into my marriage. But really, what else did I expect from a method called "Fertility Awareness"? Because I am now charting, every day I am reminded of my child-bearing ability. What a change from taking the pill in order to prevent pregnancy for so many years.

I am not saying that we are going to start trying anytime soon. In fact, I don't even want to try. I just want it to happen (which is really naive, I know). But let's face it, we can't really just let it happen at this point. Roy and I are both so close to finishing our Master's degrees. We don't have a ton of money. We are still working those stepping-stone jobs. We haven't had much freedom to go do lots of awesome things because we have school deadlines and money issues that take priority. We have done some really awesome things, don't get me wrong, but there are so many more things I want to do. Having a kid right now would make it harder. Not impossible, but harder.

I am trying really hard to be realistic about this, but it's becoming increasingly harder to deal with the desire to have a child. I truly feel like I don't have a choice in the matter. It's like my body has completely taken over and is really desperate to conceive. If you combine that with the fact that I am really not a patient person, this is hard for me. What is truly scary is how fast things have changed and how quickly the desire has overwhelmed me.

Anyway, I think we will re-evaluate things during the summer. Roy will have graduated by then, and I will hopefully be working on my thesis with most, if not all, of my coursework completed. In the meantime, I'm going to continue what I've been doing: going to school, working, hanging out, and enjoying life. I will be doing research on baby-related things though, because I want to make sure we're both healthy and as ready as possible when the time is right. I am going to try really hard not to obsess over this, which is totally contradictory to my personality. That will be a huge challenge.

Don't worry, baby-haters, this blog is not going to turn into a pregnancy/TTC (trying to conceive)/mommy blog. You can always count on me to be completely random!