In Honor of Pam*

In the two event (Christmas visit and our wedding) that I spent with Matt's stepmom Pam, I mainly was struck by her optimism. Though she'd been struggling with liver bile duct cancer since 2008, and it had returned in late 2010 to eventually take her, Pam never sounded bitter or upset about her fate. She told me at Christmas that you just have to appreciate every day. Even at our wedding, she told us that she was beyond typical treatment but she'd just wanted to be able to be strong enough to attend our wedding, and another a week later. She knew she didn't have much time but she seemed so resolved to it, strong.

She was a talkative, friendly and open woman. Matt loved to play card games with Pam and his dad and told me that it was fun to visit them because they always had some fun activity. Pam was also very crafty and gave Matt several beautiful quilts she'd made. She read "The Art of a Good Marriage" during our wedding ceremony, which she volunteered to do, and Matt and I were honored that she could be part of our wedding in that way.


During our wedding weekend, Pam tried to be strong and enjoy as much time as possible with us. We could see a dramatic difference in her energy from Wednesday to Sunday when they left. From there, she slowly slipped away, holding on and fighting to the end.

Pam passed away on Sunday, July 24, 2011. Matt and I spent last week in Blackfoot, Idaho with his father, helping him clean out a little but mainly just trying to be present (since her services were already planned). She was only 59, and he is 57. It seems so young for someone to pass, and I just hope that she got to do many of the things she thought she'd do in this life. (her obituary)

Baby Making Facts I Just Learned*

• It takes the average healthy couple 6-12 months to conceive.
• A woman not on birth control in her early 20s has a 20-25% chance of conceiving each month. By late 20s it's 15-20%. By early 30s it's 10-15%.
• Sperm can live for up to 3 days (sometimes longer) but...
  
• Once an egg is released from the ovary and floats through the fallopian tube, there is only a 12-24hr window during which it can be fertilized. After that it disintegrates.

(I started reading What to Expect Before You're Expecting, just to get a jump start understanding what may be ahead for me.)

With those statistics, how in the world does anyone get pregnant?! Really, those are not great odds. I think about teenagers getting knocked up accidentally. Seriously, talk about bad timing of that sex. Honestly I do think it's a miracle. Yet some people manage to do it many times. Amazing.

The stress for me mainly has been thinking about timing. My gyno recommended that we wait three months after I quit taking birth control to get in top baby-making shape (mainly building up uterine lining since the pill I took thinned it out as one of its duties), then expect it to take at least a year but not to stress it. I started doing the math and it's just really overwhelming. When do I stop the pill? Do we wait the three months (trying to avoid getting pregnant) or just give it a go (since hey, if it actually takes, must mean everything was fine enough)? Do I want to do all the planning/charting or take a it'll-happen-if-it-happens attitude? Am I ready if I was to get pregnant right away? Don't I want to start trying, if it does take awhile, before I get to feeling really anxious and eager for it to happen? And then do I want to try to time it, if that's possible? Should I try to avoid getting pregnant nine months before a big conference for work, do I care about when I'd go on maternity leave and what would be convenient for work? Do I believe in astrology enough to try to hit a baby into the signs I like? Seriously it's stuff to consider!

I realized, after a few weeks of thinking and stressing about this, that if I found out today I was pregnant, I'd be (well freaked out a little and scared but also) okay and excited about that. Especially since I'd have to be, there's no other choice, it'd have already been decided. It's the decision of timing it out that has me overanalyzing. I guess I'd feel more comfortable just leaving it up to... chance, to God and the universe, to fate, to whatever :) If I believe in some sort of grand planning and not just randomness, which I do to some degree. If I felt like it was in someone else's control, I think I'd feel better. Isn't that strange? As much as I like to have control over things, and that's the very thing I'm stressing about is how much control I have over this, I'd actually feel relieved to believe that the timing was divine timing. So I took that as my answer.

How Do You Know...*

How do you know when you're ready to expand your happy family of two? Or family of five if you count the dogs and cat?

As the wedding drew near, this became a popular topic of conversation in our house, particularly because Matt has baby-fever, and has for quite awhile. In terms of his mental and emotional preparation to be a father, he's apparently been ready for a long time. Whereas I've finally realized that I'm in a relationship in which when I do get pregnant, it will be a cause for joy and celebration, rather than a potential disaster, which is a strange feeling, and a relief.

But there's so much to consider. My new-mom friends spent my bachelorette weekend (intentionally or unintentionally) giving me guidelines/warnings/etc about starting a family. Be sure you have a stable foundation in your relationship, like really stable. Everything changes, EVERYthing, and there's no way to prepare for that. Be sure you've done everything you've wanted to do without a kid first- go on all the trips you want to take, travel, have fun. I get it. And I also know that I don't get it... because how can you really understand what it means when someone says that everything changes and in ways you can't ever anticipate and there's no way to prepare for that?

But for Matt and me, I think we have an awesome relationship. The difference with us, vs other relationships I've been in, is that we have a very open and easy communication. I can tell him things that upset me, sometimes without sounding too upset, and he is so calm and so cool and reassuring and tries to be understanding. He's just wonderful. Neither of us like conflict or fighting... a friend asked me (meaning to be a little defensive of me, I think, and sess out if I was in a good relationship or not) how we fight... I think she wanted to hear that I stand up for myself, blah blah. And I didn't know what to say because we don't "fight." We barely have arguments. Sometimes we'll say something that upsets the other, but it's pretty clear to us when that is and we work quickly to resolve it. We are peace-makers yet I don't feel that I'm compromising myself.

And I really can't think of anything I'd like to do before having kids? Run a marathon? I only want to do that because Matt's trained for it a few times and kept injuring himself, and if it's a goal of his then I could help him accomplish it. Go camping? Sure, easy enough. Go on trips? Sure, if we had any money. We can't even afford to go on a trip. Plus there are only a handfull of places that right now we currently want to go- Europe, particularly Ireland (though I could wait on that), Boston MA, and Vegas. Both Matt and I have traveled so much in our jobs, there really aren't a ton of places we're set on seeing. Plus obviously travel with kids is harder and more expensive, but that would be fun eventually too.

There is also finances to consider. This causes me anxiety but I realize that if we were to wait until we're where I'd like to be financially before starting a family, that would be at least a few years from now. And yeh everyone says I have plenty of time... hey I'm turning 30 this fall. I do want to be a mom while I'm still sorta young, and within a reasonable age range of my kids' playdates' moms.

It's hard to say "let's put it off" when you're with someone who is so sweet, and so loving, and will be such an amazing dad, and really wants it, would be overjoyed if it was true today. But am I ready to be a mom?

It seems like I should feel baby-crazy... but then I wasn't exactly wedding-crazy before meeting Matt either... okay maybe a little, I might've looked at everyone's wedding pics on Facebook and wondered when I would get to meet my Mr. Right. But I've never been the kind of girl who gets crazy about babies. They're kinda drooly and unpredictable and I just don't feel a strong pull toward them the way some women I know do. The closest I've ever come toward that feeling was holding my dear friend Jenn's son Chase when he was a baby. At our friend Mandy's wedding, I held him and I could've frozen time in that moment and been happy forever. I just had this feeling of complete contentment and love for him. Maybe it's because I was at the hospital when he was born, heard his first cry with my ear pressed to the room's door, or maybe it's because I love Jenn like a sister, and she was my first friend to have a baby. I know I'll feel that, and stronger, with my own kids. I just don't often feel it with other people's kids.

Then I think, well I want time to enjoy just Matt, just Matt's attention and just being newlyweds. But that would be just more time. I mean, it's the same wonderful togetherness as it has been the past year. And that will just continue. Waiting is just more time together. Which will be great.

And the worst reason yet, sometimes I just feel a little bored. And lonely. Not that this is a good reason to have a child. But as my friend Jesse joked, "sometimes we're just sitting around, kinda bored, can't figure out what to do that evening, and think hey maybe we should have a kid." Or as my mom pointed out "well, then there is no shortage of things that need to be done."

But it does seem, as we ride around with the pups in the car, that having a kid, or two, in there would just make it that much merrier. So much more to share. So much more love.