Disclaimer: Today's post is going to talk about baby making, periods, birth control and the lack thereof. Male readers and any others who might be uncomfortable with such topics should probably stop reading at the end of this paragraph and come back tomorrow when I'll probably still be talking about how much I love my new floors. Squee!! Ahem. Now, onto more important things...
The following is old news for those of you who follow my twitters, but for those who don't, I have BIG, HUGE, AMAZING news. As of Monday, I am birth control free for the first time in nine years!!!! As in, there is nothing preventing me from getting pregnant right now! That being said, I can't really claim that Jon and I are trying to get pregnant. Rather, we are not not trying to have a baby. If it happens, we'll be thrilled. If it doesn't for awhile, that's okay too.
You see, there are still a few things in our lives that we would like to accomplish before getting pregnant. Those things include Jon graduating from his MBA program (Spring 2009), me getting a job with benefits (I'm currently a contractor, which means no maternity benefits), selling our condo (Spring 2009), and buying a house and moving to Maryland (Spring 2009). Those things are all quite major and being pregnant in the midst of all of that would probably not be ideal.
We were planning on getting my IUD* out in February and start trying then, but I had my annual exam already scheduled for Monday so we decided just to go ahead and get it out now. I figure that it's going to take some time to get my body back to normal after all those years of birth control pills and the IUD. My period has already made a comeback though, which shocked me because I was told it could take up to a couple of months to return! Kind of crazy. My GYN directed me to start taking pre-natal vitamins for at least two months before we plan on conceiving, so I guess that means I'll start taking them now just in case we have any surprises!
Honestly, this is all kind of surreal for me. Is that normal? I have varying emotions from completely elated one moment then scared to death the next! I tend to think in terms of finality, so I keep saying to myself, "Oh my gosh, this could be my last Halloween without children!" So crazy, but oh my gosh, so exciting!! Jon and I have talked about baby names since we started dating, so now we can seriously start to hash them out. While on our anniversarymoon last month, we randomly decided on a boy's name after meeting a cool Californian gentleman of the same name. Girl's names are so hard because there are so many we both like, but my maiden name Sloan has always been an consideration for us.
And believe it or not, we actually already have two items of clothing for our unborn child. The first was actually given to us on the night we got engaged. My dad was in on the surprise that Jon was going to propose on our cruise, so he brought along a gift for us. He and Jon's mom have a good natured football rivalry going on, so of course his gift to us was a Baltimore Raven's onesie to get a head start on Jon's mom! The other onesie is something Jon and I came across in the store while buying gifts for a friend's baby shower. It has a super cute crab on it, and since I'm a Maryland girl, Jon said that we had to buy it and keep it for ourselves. I think it's safe to say that he's on board :)
So anyway, that's my big news! We're really quite excited and looking forward to embarking on this journey towards parenthood. And look, I have a whole new category now too! Any advice for a couple of novices?
*Best birth control ever. Seriously.
