Before You're Expecting

Before I dive into this post with a very suggestive picture, I'm not pregnant BUT the conversation is happening.  Yes, praise Jesus we are in the stage where this is actually a feasible idea.  I wanted to journal through my experience of what it's like in the "before you're expecting" stage.  Now I'm not quite ready to share when I believe we will be "ready" but I think sharing all of this is going to be fun for me and hopefully informative for other families out there who may end up reading this.

If you know me at all, I have a fever...a baby fever.

It's bad y'all. I think I have wanted to have a baby with Ryan since the moment we got married.  It has been such a joy that now, at 3.5 years of marriage, we are legitimately having these conversations about planning our family.  

I can remember the moment Ryan asking me my thoughts on having a baby at X time.  You should have seen this gal's face, I was beaming from ear to ear.  Finally! Ryan was finally on the same mental wavelength as me.  Having studied reproductive rights and my interest in becoming a doula, I have a lot of baby books.  Color me weird at having all of these "baby books" in stock, but I am completely baffled as to how people can do so much research into purchasing something like a computer but don't know their rights when having a baby.  *Jumps off soap box*

Soooo I'm readily willing and excited to share my journey of researching products, trying things out, and educating myself on all things pregnancy, baby, and labor-related.  

Without looking at Air Force policies with Tricare, my birth plan involves having a doula, a midwife, and a water birth.  That would be a most ideal situation.  However, the other aspect of our family's plan is making sure that our military healthcare plan will cover it.  So my ideal plan may end up being in a hospital or where ever I'm covered.  If you've had any experience with pregnancy and the military, feel free to comment below! I'm all ears!

I recently went to my base gyno to have an overall check-up and she was this wonderfully pregnant captain.  It was so much fun being able to finally be excited and she was a bundle of energy herself.  It's great to finally be able to start asking these questions and figure out when my IUD can be taken out, etc.

For awhile I was incredibly reluctant to ever get pregnant while in this career field but then I started realizing that I needed to take care of myself and my family's needs and desires.  In the past year, I have volunteered for base/military everything and although I do a great job and am reliable, I started feeling overworked.  I was putting together great projects despite having limited resources and a lack of support, and the end result didn't satisfy me.  It started to feel very unfulfilling and I largely think it was because work without a lot of appreciation being sent your way is taxing. Being busy was my way of boosting my career and calming down the baby fever.  

After this happened several times where projects would come and go, and I just felt exhausted, I started taking mental notes of resolutions.  They included transitioning a lot of this energy into off base projects and volunteering or working off base.  Every volunteer opportunity that I've done in the community here has been amazing and so rewarding.  I feel that people are 100% committed and you're not working with folks who are voluntold.  These thoughts and ideas kept circulating and when Ryan brought up having a baby, I realized that I'm going to not only limit my base activities, but finally choose projects and volunteer opps that I can be fully committed to because being pregnant is a lot of work unto itself.

Writing this has been so therapeutic.  Now I only request your prayers and well wishes as our little family embarks on this journey :) 

  

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Whoops, some baby fever went into my dreams

Source

I had the strangest dream last night and it's basically hardcore evidence that baby fever has seeped its way into my dreams.  In this dream, I had just given birth to a baby girl but at this point, I hadn't seen her yet.  Instead, I knew that Ryan and I had decided to name her Cadence and for some reason I had to stay behind at the hospital but they released her to Ryan.  Ok, not a big deal, it's a dream world and in dream world I never get to see my dream baby which seems odd because I would be all over that bundle of joy.  Then I went home and upon seeing "Cadence," Ryan declares, "this is April May!"

Whaaat?!

Ryan re-named our baby, birth certificate and everything, without letting me know.  I was surprisingly not that mad but this dream was so incredibly real.  Like I had never seen this baby before in my life but there she was, this blonde, peach fuzz haired baby with big blue eyes.  Ryan was a total baby hog and the funny part was that I could totally hear him saying in real life, "well we could always change it back."  I'm still a little baffled at how I produced a blonde haired baby girl but there she was.

Then I woke up and yelled at him for changing our dream baby's name or asked him to make me a baby ;)

I'm kidding, but it was pretty hilarious.  Ryan's response, "Well April May kinda sounds like a cadence, so it works."

What did I tell ya?



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A Mad Case of Baby Fever

Sculpture, not a real baby, but props to Donna on being an incredibly talented artist.

Having been married for almost two years,  I thought that I may get the occasional bought of baby fever but would dismiss it as a "I'm not ready for this quite yet" type of circumstance.  Or at least, that's what I have been doing. 

We had good friends of ours say that they have been talking about "trying" next April.  Then they said, "you guys should try to get pregnant, too!"  Ryan and I looked at each other and while Ryan looked insanely nervous, my mind wandered off to the idea of finally bringing baby Erskine into the world.

Ryan and I are still young, I still consider ourselves to be newlyweds, and I have school loans as far as the eye can see.  I will also have a rigorous military schedule.  Now is not the time to have a baby.

Please tell that to my baby fever-ridden mind.  

It has been terrible as of recently.  I'm not sure if it's the "influx" of pregnancy announcements or the "we're expecting" photo shoots that have filled my Facebook newsfeed and pages of blogger land, but the idea of having a baby has been filling many of my thoughts and simply won't go away.  

I can't visit Jessica's blog at Little Baby Garvin without thinking what about having my own little Harpsicle around the house.  Not to mention, I have so many ideas to celebrate my future pregnancies.  You may have seen Jessica's adorable chalkboard monthly pictures floating the boards of Pinterest and I plan on doing exactly that.  Jessica is gorgeous, so creative, and I love her sass and honesty.  Plus Harper is the cutest thing alive!  I adore the dancing baby videos that Jessica posts and how much of Harper's personality you can already see.  You also provides really awesome reviews on products and I find myself bookmarking them.  I'm not even a mom and I already know what type of products I want to use.  Lordy

The absolutely charming Ruthie has announced over at The Chronicles of Ruthie Hart, that she and her husband are expecting and much like a groupie at a rock band concert, I anxiously await each blog post announcement.  Yes Ruthie, I'm living vicariously through your pregnancy.  I never would have thought that I would ever say that, nor ever be that creepy (sorry girl!). But seriously, Ruthie is like the cutest pregnant woman alive and I can't wait to see how else she chooses to showcase her pregnancy.  I particularly love how she and her husband, Jon, have been including prayer in their time of "trying" to get pregnant and throughout the celebration of their Hart baby.  Admittedly, I do not want to be as sick as Ruthie has been (the idea of morning sickness is nauseating in itself), but that lady has the best attitude about the whole thing.  Hopefully, I'm that awesome whenever the time comes for us.

 

I am also completely enamored with the idea of decorating a nursery and having cute decorations and details.  Land of Nod, Pottery Barn Kids, anything on Etsy- you name it and I start dreaming of ways to incorporate it into our household.  Just take a look at my "Baby Erskine" Pinterest board.  I also love children's books and can't wait to establish a great library for my little one.  Have I wandered the aisles of a bookstore and found some of my favorites?  Yes and then reluctantly put them back, telling myself, "in a few years." 

Lindsey over at Pillow Thought always has the cutest ideas for her little girl and I love all the posts involving fun ways on how she interacts with her child.  The outfits alone and fun educational products would get any person thinking about becoming a parent.  Lindsey makes it look easy.

I also recently took a course at The Influence Network on how to creatively fund an adoption.  Now Ryan and I have considered it and I am always willing to consider adoption before "trying" to have biological children just because whether I physically birth them or just hold them in my heart, I love kids.  I didn't think I would want children at 23, and who knows, I might not have them until I'm 28 or older.  I just know that I've actually started to seriously consider the possibility.  Now my birth control of choice is Mirena and so I would have to have it taken out and maybe that was an incredibly smart decision for this part of my life.  I know Ryan and I "planned" on waiting for another two years but who knows, it's really dependent on where life takes us.

These ladies and so many other bloggers, Instagrammers, and friends make me so excited to be a mom one day and I know Ryan is going to be such a great dad.  So who knows, maybe next April we'll start trying.  

For all the mommas and papas out there, what was it like when you decided to start "trying" whether it was to become pregnant or the adoption process?