If you haven’t already read Chapter 1 of the adventure, I recommend that you check it out–if nothing else to get to know me a little bit and figure out where we’re at on the journey to start our family. Now that your caught up, let’s continue on.
The Waiting Game
Being a rather paranoid individual, whose period was never ‘on time’ from the get-go, there have been a handful of times over the years where I’ve experience the typical ‘pregnancy scare’. Of course, the stress of it all would always make it even more late, and boy did those 3-5 minutes seem like a long time after being late for a couple of days. But now that my husband and I are willing to make a baby, holy moly, you have to wait like TWO WEEKS before you can even use the darn test. WHAT!? Do you know how much time that feels like when you are excited for the results. Like foreeeeever!! And then any time you feel any slight indication of something that could be a symptom of early pregnancy, you get super excited. I cannot tell you any other time in my life where I have been delighted to feel like crap (aka bloated, tired, nauseous, back pain, etc.). Which makes it particularly awful when you realize it was just life getting you down, or what you ate the day before wreaking havoc on your system. And seriously, after waiting for that long, nothing quite slaps you in the face like a negative result when you’re hoping for the other…
Living Life To The Fullest
During the time we are trying and waiting for that test time-frame to arrive–I cannot tell you how many times that I’ve felt like I wasn’t allowed to do anything that ‘might hurt the baby’, even when there wasn’t one. To a point where it started to interfere with my every day life. Don’t plan your dinner-date at the sushi place you love… Don’t have that glass of wine with your amazing home-cooked meal… Don’t get the x-ray your doctor is recommending… Don’t have that extra coffee that you so desperately need today… Don’t live.
It finally dawned on me that I was working myself up so much over it, that the stress probably was more detrimental than that extra cup of coffee would ever be. So I decided that I needed to choose: give up all the things or just live my life to the fullest until I find out for sure. And as much as that pained me a little bit, the relief from the constant worry was such a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I didn’t even know it was causing such a burden. So yes, I am that woman who indulges in a glass of wine with dinner, enjoys an afternoon coffee in addition to the one that replaced breakfast, and eats sushi like it’s my last meal. For now. You betcha that when that line turns pink, I will treat my body with that extra needed care, but until then–I live my life with joy, and if that means indulging in all the things, so be it!
More Waiting
Now we keep waiting. But we enjoy ourselves in the meantime. We enjoy the fun part of making a baby, and while we still take the timeline tracking into consideration, it’s not a forced chore-like routine. We just make an extra effort to get each other wanting to participate a little more often when it counts. And I suppose that is half the fun of deciding to start a family 😉