Risks

One of my husband's big worries about having children is that he/she will inherit his terrible allergies and epilepsy.  The allergies, I have a suspicion, are the result of his mother bleaching the walls of their home when he and his brother were toddlers, limiting their exposure to environmental factors that later in life triggered allergic reactions.  The epilepsy was a bigger worry, so I did a bit of research.

From epilepsy.com:

Q. If I have epilepsy, will my children also have it?

A. Less than 2 people out of every 100 (2%) develop epilepsy at some pointduring their lifetime. The risk for children whose father has epilepsy isonly slightly higher. If the mother has epilepsy and the father does not,the risk is still less than 5%. If both parents have epilepsy, the risk is abit higher. Most children will not inherit epilepsy from a parent, but thechance of inheriting epilepsy is higher for some types. 

If you have epilepsy, it is normal for you to be afraid that your childrenwill have epilepsy too. However, a fear that your children will haveepilepsy is not enough reason to decide against having any. The risk is low,most children outgrow epilepsy, and most people who have it are able tocontrol their seizures by taking one medicine.

Topic Editor: Steven C. Schachter, M.D.

Well, 2% hardly seems like much cause to worry, so that takes a load off my
mind, and hopefully off of his, too.

Progress, I guess

Met with the midwife today.  The practice is friendly and there's no
confusion as to where to go next and no standing around at the checkout
station waiting to be acknowledged.  The nurse who checked me in did a
thorough job with my history and was friendly and not awkward.  At my last
GYN practice, the nurse who checked me in and took my history was a bit
snobby and I want to say incredulous when I answered the history questions.
I kept feeling like she didn't believe me and was trying to catch me in a
lie when she would ask the same question in a different manner later on in
the process.  In any event, I didn't much like it there.  And I just
realized that my friend who's delivered two babies with them was more scared
than she needed to be during labor with her first because she wasn't sure
what was going to happen next.  The midwife I met with (who's from the same
county that I grew up in) assured me that we would talk it through and set
up a plan and backup plans long before entering the delivery room.  She said
she was involved in a labor the night before that took two hours of pushing
and she and the mother avoided cesarean intervention three times over the
course of her delivery, so that gives me a lot of confidence that she'll be
an advocate for me and support my decisions.  I really liked her and talking
with her was very easy and low key.  I explained to her that I'm a
"researcher" and like to be well-informed ahead of time, so she gave me some
printed materials that her practice has developed even though I didn't
really need it yet.  I think I'm going to be very pleased with the practice
and the midwife when the time comes for me to engage their services.

The plan, as it stands now, is to go off of birth control in August and use
alternate contraception methods until after my first "natural" cycle, then
we'll ditch the contraceptives altogether in September and see what happens.
And between now and then, the plan is to finish my various house projects
and try to drop some weight.

Sigh of Relief

Well, the big news is that about a week ago my husband has decided that we should start trying in September!!  He says next summer is the soonest he feels like we'd be ready for a baby since we have a lot of house projects still pending completion.  He's not entirely wrong and that would still put us trying before I hit 30, so I'm pretty pleased with his decision.  I have gotten a new scrip for birth control, but haven't gone back on my statin yet even though I found a pack in the medicine chest I'd forgotten I had.

Talking it out

My husband has decided that he wants to speak with a minister about the
whole having kids thing.  He asked his dad for advice, and his dad told him
to consult a third party.  So he got the phone number off of a sign out
front of the Baptist church very near our house and left a message for the a
young preacher who happens to be a new father, himself.  Hopefully he can
work through some of the internal conflict he's having.  In the meantime,
I've rescheduled with the midwife so that I can get a new scrip for birth
control, but couldn't get in for two weeks and by that time I'll be out of
pills since my last dose is this Sunday.  I guess I'll have to call my
previous prescriber and have him call in a scrip to a local pharmacy.  Sigh.
I have been putting it off.  Maybe I'm holding out a secret hope that my
husband will change his mind.

Left Out

At work, all day long, the ladies I sit near talk about their kids.  It's
just the small little dramas of life...daughter not getting along with
teacher, T-ball practice being rained out, trying to get the kids to try
different types of foods...but it makes me feel so left out.  I used to be
able to chime in my "parenting" stories about my niece, but now that I'm
married and have moved out of the family home, I don't have much say in her
affairs.

My dream of becoming a mommy seems so far away right now.  I wish I could
just put it into the back corner of my mind and not think about it for
awhile while my husband makes up his mind, but it's hard when the first half
an hour of every work day is a recap of what crazy thing the kids did last
night and news of my good friends' pregnancies and new babies trickles in
during the rest of the day in e-mail form, so I just can't seem to get it
off of my mind.  As a result I stay in a state of alternating anger and
sadness all day.

I need to call and reschedule with the midwife and put a call in to my
doctor for a refill of my cholesterol meds, but I have some sort of
avoidance block that keeps me from wanting to do it.  Getting new scrips
somehow feels like a failure, like I'm giving up completely on having a
child instead of just deferring it till a future date.

$$

We just made it back from our trip.  I lost my passport and we had to spend
four extra (and expensive) days in France.  It was a fiasco and I'm only
remembering the negative things about the trip right now, so I won't go into
any of that except to say that it'll take us a bit to get back on track,
financially, and that I missed my appointment with the midwife and will have
to reschedule.  I should do it quickly, too, because I'm on my last two
weeks of birth control and will need to get a new scrip written pronto if we
don't want to have to use alternative means of contraception.

I started a high yield savings account for baby-related expenses today
because I just don't want my husband's indecision to derail my preparedness.
So far, I've just factored the costs of copays for prenatal care and our
portion of the delivery fees not covered by insurance...so nothing fun like
decorating the nursery or anything like that.  We'll have to discuss whether
or not to begin contributing to it or not, but I'd like to pitch $50 or so
into it every couple of weeks just to help myself feel like I'm getting
closer to my goal.

Also, I'm almost out of prenatal vitamins and need to stop and buy some more
but am just so discouraged about the whole thing that I'm feeling like it
doesn't matter if I take them or not at this point.

We met some random guy from Puerto Rico on a plane on our way home and he
was chatting up my husband and he asked, out of the blue, if we had any
children.  My husband answered "not yet" and the guy shot back with an
exuberant "what are you waiting for?"  I just silently pointed the finger at
my husband and continued reading.  I, for one, have no idea what we're
waiting for.  Now seems like a fine time to start trying.  But
unfortunately, the decision doesn't lie solely with me.

Waiting is stupid

I never thought I'd spend the night before our romantic anniversary trip to Paris crying!

We had another baby discussion in the car in the Walmart parking lot today, and I just bawled.  I think waiting is stupid.  I'm 29 and have zero interest in getting pregnant in my 30's.  I have set August 31st as the deadline.  If he's still not sure by then, then I told him never to mention it to me again.  I'm ready now.  Now is as good a time as any. It would have been awesome to meet and fall in love in my early 20's and have five years to enjoy our marriage before starting a family, but that didn't happen for us and now I'm facing down my 30th birthday and am absolutely petrified at the possibility of there being any complications when we do start trying.  He said something about 2 years.  I told him August 31st or bust.  No on likes an ultimatum, but my body is breaking down as it is.  The thought of putting it through the rigors of pregnancy and childbirth on the doorstep of 35 is terrifying.  And my poor little heart is just broken.  I was so excited, and now I'm almost without hope.  My whole vision of the future is just a blank slate now...the nursery done up in bumblebees, the quilting projects I've been wanting to start on, talking pregnancy with my best friend who's finishing up her first trimester...

I'm going to try not to think about it for the next 9 days.

I suppose I will keep my appointment with the midwife on the 19th, though.  I need someone to write me a new scrip for birth control anyway.  And he says he wants to come along and ask questions.  I'll probably cry a lot during the visit.  I'm so embarrassed to have even scheduled a preconception appointment only to have to walk in and say, "actually, we weren't on the same page about the timeline and now we're not so sure we even want to have a baby, sorry for wasting your time".  Maybe she can write me a scrip for anti-depressants as well.