Family Planning

With the recent births of my nephews, I find myself reflecting on what my TTC plan had been. Of course it is no longer the case and at this point it is being put off indefinitely (well keep reading) due mainly to the lack of maternity insurance, but I guess I'll tell yall anyway.

I had originally hoped to start TTC around my 27th birthday so February 2012. This would mean that I'd get off of BCPs 6 months before so that would be this August. I would likely use NFP during the 6 months and not worry if I did get pregs. Our church required us to take an NFP course, so we are somewhat knowledgeable about this and I still have the book. I'd also use this time to start charting and see if my cycles were regular enough for me to plan, etc. We'd then start actively TTC in February. So we'd be married for at least 3 years before our first child was born.

This plan was all based upon me wanting to be in a job for two years after law school before having a baby (not before getting pregnant). Obviously, with my lack of steady or "real" employment, this is no longer the plan.

At this point, I don't know if I have a plan. The only plan I have now is that if I'm getting close to 30 and things haven't fallen into place, I'm going to say f it and start TTC anyway. I have this "f it" plan because I want to have children and my husband wants to have children and I don't think our life would be fulfilled if we never tried and gave ourselves that chance. Also because it is easy to keep putting something off and saying you aren't ready and then never getting around to doing it. Also, I'm hoping that these extra 3 to 4 years will be enough time for the economy, job market, and legal job market to recover and afford us more and better employment opportunities. We'll be married for 6 years when I'm 30 so we'd be sticking with what the current trend seems to be in our family!

I'm also not sure if I will stick with the 2 year plan or not if I ever do actually get a real job. It will really depend on the job and job security and of course health insurance. At this point, I don't have maternity insurance and the private insurance company I have now doesn't even offer maternity. So, I really can't even logically consider sticking with my time frame and ignoring the job situation. I could get insurance with maternity through DH's employer, but the premium would be like 3 times what I pay now. I think this amount is absurd and even if we could I wouldn't want to pay this.

I'd still like to stick to my "have all my kids by 35" time frame so that is why any qualifications I had about "what I need before baby" will go out the window when I'm pushing 30. DH would like me to not care about any of this now and especially when he is pushing 30, but he is two years older than me so he will be 30 a lot sooner (2013 vs 2015) than I think I can depart from logic and reason. He has already departed.

Not having a baby until 2015, however, does seem really far in the future :(

Also, if I put off having kids that long, I'll likely have to have my kids closer together in age. I wanted my kids 2-4 years apart, which really in my mind was 2 years 9 months to 4 years apart. I can't imagine TTC with a 1 year old or a baby younger than that, but it might have to happen if I have to wait until 30 to have #1.

Here's my "f it"/"if things don't fall into place before" plan. If I have to wait until 29 to start TTC, I'll get off BCPs at 29 which is February 2014 (that will be 8 years of being on them ugh) or on our 5 year anniversary July 2014 (29 and five months). If things go well I'll have #1 at 29 or 30. Depending on a lot of things obviously, I'd want to have #2 around 32/33 and #3 around 34/35 and probably have to stop there. (DH and I had agreed that I'd go for a 4th if all 3 were the same gender - our compromise because he wants 4 and I want 3; but I'd really rather not go over the 35 age because of the extra tests they make you get) If our financial situation does not make it feasible, we won't have as many children (I think this goes without saying).

Obviously, this could all be shot to sh!t if we have any IF issues. I've always had a lingering feeling in the back of my mind that I would have IF issues but that could just be me being a worry wart. This also makes waiting suck more and why 29 is my latest age to start trying, because at 29 I'd still have time to work through any IF issues and be able to have a baby before nature became a problem as well. Obviously if we had any IF issues the number of kids is likely to decrease.

Also, if something awesome happens, we might wind up TTC before the "f it" time frame or I might just keep that time frame.

I'm a planner so I need to have this plan in place. It makes me feel so much better to have this plan there. It gives me hope for the future and something to look forward to. DH and I are so emotionally ready to have a baby, we just need the means and now at least I have a plan :)