Tis the Season

Tis the season to be busy - Family visits, holiday parties, gift exchanges, food, travel, decorating, hosting, cooking, cleaning, packing, unpacking, snow sports, exercising off the food consumed, driving, laughing, taking down the decorations. 

Tis the season for joy and thankfulness - A supportive and understanding husband, my family, a warm and comfortable house, netflix, a dog that follows me around all day and keeps me company, a warm and comfortable bed, amazing food, smiling and laughing, a cabin in McCall, snow, snow sports, a gas fireplace (you only have to push a button), christmas cheer, christmas drinks, traveling, friends that are simply amazing. 

I have been BUSY these past few weeks! One of the benefits of being so busy, especially with fun things, is that I have had very little time to think about the fact that we are still on the long road to having kids. It is my hope that every month can be like this one. I have been enjoying family and friends so much that I have spent very little time moping about the things in my life worth moping over.

Sometimes, I can't believe how long this process can take - I mean - if you ovulate 1x per month (and that is a big if), you only have 12 chances to get pregnant in a year. The reality for me is that I don't really know when I ovulate and my shortest cycles are 31 days - so I am likely to ovulate less the 12 times in one year. (Even on Clomid, my cycles were 31-35 days, how nice). I spend a whole lot of time counting and calculating. It is a wonder that people get pregnant at all- 12 times per year when there are 52 weeks, 365 days - it makes me wonder how the heck there are so many people in the world!

Trying to have kids poses some real issues. Drinking is one such issue. Now, I am not saying that I want to drink all the time. In fact, I would gladly give it up for a chance to be a mom - however - I spend the last 2 weeks of each cycle wringing my hands together, fretting about whether I should have that glass of wine with dinner, that happy hour drink with friends, that relaxing cocktail at family functions. Am I pregnant this cycle? Am I not? It really puts a damper on social functions when you are always wondering, am I? Am I not? It is the same with headache medication, snowboarding and other sports. Those last 2 weeks when you are waiting to take a test - you just sit there and wonder all the time.

Sometimes I wish that we would have just gone off birth control right when we got married and just leave it to chance. Not try, not try not to - and then have that day where surprise! you are pregnant! That would have been so much better - because I would not have had to do all of this research, calculating, taking my temperature before I move in the morning, peeing on sticks to predict ovulation, spending $15 here and $20 there on pregnancy tests, fretting and wondering, worrying. Maybe I never would have known how difficult this process could be because we would have just had that - OMG, we're having a baby! moment. And why didn't we just do that? Because, like all good americans, we followed what you are taught - to be responsible citizens. There was the need to get the house, go on the trips, get the couches and beds, have the high paying jobs, do us things for a while, etc etc etc. Do I regret these things? Definitely not. Would I give them back - no way - but I would have been better off to have given myself and N more perspective - that things are never just perfect - that there will never be a good time.

I can't spend time thinking about what could have been. Heck, for all I know, we would have still been trying even if we would have stopped birth control when we got married at age 24 and 25. And in those years, we have gotten to do many things - we have celebrated 3 years of marriage, traveled to Hawaii 3 times, traveled to Mexico 1 time, traveled to Las Vegas and McCall many times, learned to snowboard, snowshoe, camped, finished half marathons, remodeled, and worked our a**es off! We have had a good time. I don't want our current situation to take away from that good time.

With all that said - this month, I am celebrating my 1 year off birth control anniversary. It is not really something I want to celebrate - but I want to acknowledge that it has been a year. With any luck - we wont make it to any more anniversaries like this one.