Working things out

It's official. I want a family. I am just as mercurial about things as Anastasia, but I know what I want and I want to go after it. I know that the decision to have a baby is the right decision because it is natural and wonderful. It is what I am made to do. If I have a true purpose, what is more basic than building a family. I am excited about the idea of beginning to think about conceiving a baby. I know now that I want it, my husband wants it, our family wants it. It feels right. However, mercurial tendencies dominate. So...when?

I feel 90% sure I shouldn't stop the pills this month. I picked up my next pack today. I have the 7 placebo pills left in my current pack and then i will start the new pack next Sunday the 7th. If I take that full pack, I will run out  and my first day to not take a pill would be May 5th.  I am excited to stop taking the pills. I have been taking them for 10 years. It all started over a bad period, but with the side effects being no-pregnancy, I just continued taking them...indefinitely. The last 2 1/2 years that we have been married, we have been very NO KIDS. I have taken the pills very strictly and seriously. Now, I am glad to begin getting it out of my system. I am anxious to see how it will affect my system. I am pretty certain that I have endometriosis that my pills keep in check. I haven't had the surgery to check, but my Dr. thinks that is unnecessary unless we are unable to conceive. With endometriosis, it's likely to be difficult. My mom had a very hard time becoming pregnant. I am afraid of this being the case for us. My pills have kept the endometriosis down, but without them, it may act up making it hard to conceive. The best cure for endometriosis is a pregnancy. The only thing to make it stop is to stop ovulating-- which I haven't really been doing for the last 10 years on pills. I am afraid stuff is screwed up, more screwed up by pills, and then will not work correctly. It seems like we need to get this show on the road, just in case there happen to be some road blocks along the way.

If I take one more pack of pills, it will start my first "normal" cycle day on May 5th. According to my ovulation calculator, I would be good to go May 10th - 15th. After 10 years of pills, I highly doubt that I would become pregnant a week later. If I did, it would be because that's the baby God wants us to raise. Most everything that I have read says that it will take a couple months for things to return to normal. WebMD says that some women can conceive quickly, and that would be fine...definitely earlier than preferred, but unlikely enough that would be a good date to quit pills. I might be regularizing out by June and another cycle. The next ovulation days would be---if things go immediately normal (DOUBTFUL)----June 9-14. This is good because I would be unlikely to become pregnant during those dates because we will be in England. Well, we actually might be doing a lot in prep for England because we will be with family -- no good alone time from the 11th-22nd. We would just need to be careful, maybe. Remembering that probably not a regular cycle yet. Also, not ideal because I do not want to be pregnant on that trip.  I am dying to go to Amsterdam and party down--- a celebration before focusing on baby, and just ultimate EuroTrip!! I can't do that if I am preggo already. That is a selfish thing and if God sees me pregnant before then, its God's timing and not mine. I will take it as part of the plan...

BUT REALLY -- Here's getting to what would be ideal.
Pills stopped- return to normalcy begin:
May 5th  FD: 10-15 = Feb Baby
June FD: 9-14  = March Baby
July FD: 9-14 = April Baby
August FD: 8-13 = May Baby
Begin recording temperature each morning--plotting for next cycle: Happy Anniversary!
SEPTEMBER FD 7-12 = JUNE 3rd Baby!!!
    Why yes, I would be pregnant all year, but I wouldn't have to miss hardly any school with maternity leave. I can save all my days up or take off the last couple wasteful weeks of school- HOOORAY!!
This is maybe doable. That is best-case-scenario 4 complete cycles. I have to continue to pray that the endometriosis will not be a problem and that by May- September my system will have straightened out.

I just read on a blog that there are quite a few people who got pregnant within a 1-3 month time frame... I guess we will see beginning in June!

Moving forward

I used to read a book series when I was in elementary school about a girl named Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry.  I really identified with Anastasia. She didn't quite fit it, but wasn't a misfit. She was smart, quirky, not really pretty, liked, but not really popular. She had ups and downs and a crazy family.  She had a style that was uniquely her own, but she wanted to be accepted. It was a fire that though kept dim, never quite went out. That dim fire was her strength, and when she needed it, she could make it burn.  Through her different trials, however trivial they were (she was only fourth grader), she analyzed each situation, sought advice from others, but in the end determined her way of handling the problem. She may have not always chosen the easiest, most efficient, or even smartest decision, but she didn't let herself be swayed from who she was.

I still identify with her because I do not want to be told what to do, but I don't quite always fit the description. I want to find my own way, but I have to fight very hard not to be swayed. I have a much deeper desire to be accepted. I am much more afraid of the consequences of an incorrect decision. The problem with this is that my fire threatens to burn me and not my problems.  I get so swept up in all that I do, think, want and the myriad details that make up each of those. I lose sight of what it was I was going to do, think or want. I see too narrowly though I dream so big. I have everything I need except for the things I need the most. I can't narrow my focus enough to do one task to my full ability.  I want to make everything perfect instead of the way that I truly feel it needs to be. I want to please everyone with myself at the bottom...but sometimes on that quest I end up hurting those involved more than I would have if I hadn't tried so hard.

I have really come a long way. I still can't make a decision easily because nothing terrifies me more than choosing the wrong path. My life really is on track. I have lots of residual negative feelings from my life before marriage. I can't quite manage being 100% part of two families. I abandoned my role as daughter and sister in exchange for wife. I must say that despite an enormous amount of guilt, I know that the direction my life is supposed to be going right now is in the direction of wife...and mother. It is time for me to do what I want and think. I want a real family. We are going to do this. It may be slow, but we will make it happen.