Pregnancy

I guess a good place to start is always the beginning, right?

• How did you decide to have kids?
  • This might come as a shock to everyone, but Mason is actually the one who has been ready to have a kid basically since we got married! It was a decision that we both had to make together, but he’s been waiting for me to decide that I’m ready to be a mom (poor kid, yes i’m the worst). I’ve always wanted to be a mom, but the thought of actually having a kid really, really stressed me out until about December. In January, I was finally ready to have a real conversation about kids with Mason (instead of a theoretical conversation about our kids waaaaaay down the line). We talked and talked about it, and ultimately I felt really strongly that we weren’t supposed to have a kid until at least December, so we put the conversation away again until March. We started talking about it again and felt really good that it was time for us to start trying for a kid, and as Donna in Mamma Mia might say: “dot dot dot…”
  • There were a lot of things that we considered as we talked about whether or not it was time to start trying. Some of the major factors were:
    • We both want several kids (I want 4, Mason wants 5), and we want to be able to be active with each of them.
    • We are really happy in our marriage and have been since the beginning. That’s not to say that certain parts of life aren’t hard, and we disagree on different points, but ultimately we really love each other and we feel comfortable bringing another person into the world to share our life. If there were any part of our marriage that we felt needed a ton of work, we would have put off having kids until we had worked out those kinks. Some people will tell you that if you and your spouse are having problems to consider having a kid because it will bring you closer together, but that’s just not something that Mason and I believe in. Babies are hard, kids are hard, and if you aren’t jiving, adding another stress point to your marriage is not going to fix it. Mason and I both feel comfortable with adding that stress to our marriage because we’re both in a place where we are happy and comfortable, and we’ve worked through hard things together, so this new hard thing is something that we are excited to work on together. Big word: TOGETHER.
    • Money. Babies are expensive, and they just get more expensive as they get bigger (insert laughing crying emoji). We finally felt like we had stable enough income that we can sustain bringing another human into our lives.
    • This next year is going to be really hard because we are both in school, but we are really excited for this challenge and I think that mindset is really important. We know it will be hard, we know it will be 10,000% worth the challenge, and we are excited to take it on.
• Once you decided to have a kid, what did you do to prepare to deal with pregnancy and eventual motherhood?
  • Mason and I talk. Not just about kids, but about life, what we want it to look like, what we’re loving about life right now, what’s bothering us. We just talk. We spend time with each other.
  • We figured out insurance! We researched different companies, and went into detail in their maternity care policies. Ultimately we decided to keep me on the insurance that I already had because they had the best maternity benefits.
  • I researched prenatal vitamins and started taking them. If you are planning on getting pregnant, you are supposed to take prenatals before you start trying, during your pregnancy, and while you are breastfeeding. It just ensures that you are getting the right nutrients.
    • When I was in the middle of morning sickness, I just couldn’t get a pill down, so I had to start taking gummy vitamins. Fun fact about gummy vitamins: they can’t put iron in them, so you need to take an iron supplement with them. CONSULT WITH YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE YOU START A VITAMIN REGIMEN. I am not an expert, this is just has been working for me.
  • I am studying elementary education, and that has probably been the biggest help for me in deciding what kind of mom that I want to be. Watching different teachers and the way they interact with kids has helped me decide how I want to interact with my kids and their friends. I’ve also gotten to put a lot of that into practice during my practicum semesters, as well as when I was a nanny. Not everyone gets to have that same kind of experience so here are some things that I would suggest if you want experience with kids:
    1.  Look into volunteering at a local elementary school. See if there are programs where you can get one on one time with the same kid for a couple weeks. This helps you learn how you build relationships with kids, how you interact with them, and typically these are more challenging situations, so you learn how to help the child through tough things in their life.
    2. The nature of my studies and working so closely with kids has catalyzed a lot of conversations between me and Mason about how we want to discipline our kids, and how we want to deal with behaviors, as well as what behaviors we are both okay with. Long story short, we’ve had a lot of conversations about parenthood leading up to the decision, as well as after.
  • I am also a researcher… It drives Mason crazy because I have a tendency to work myself up over things that I read, but for some reason reading about pregnancy (and all the things that could go wrong) has really helped me feel more calm. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked myself up over silly pregnancy symptoms, but Mason is good at helping me calm down, and nothing has ever been something that a bath can’t fix
  • What to Expect When You’re Expecting is also a great resource for when your planning to have a kid! I’ve read snippets of it and it’s super helpful! There are also lots of free apps and blogs that you can read. Obviously, take everything that you read with a grain of salt. Everybody’s body is different and you will read that certain things will happen while you’re pregnant, and it’s not always true.
• Did you “feel” pregnant before you took the test?
  • Totally! We were trying, so I was pretty sure I was pregnant, we just had to wait for the test to be able to pick up the hCG. I actually almost told Mason that I was pregnant before the test picked up on the pregnancy!