why july

i just realized this morning that the only reason we picked july to be our month to start trying was because our friends had said that they'd start trying then, too. thing is that they "accidentally" got pregnant a whole year earlier, so our reason seems a little lame at this point. in reality, august is more appropriate for us because we want the baby to come just before summer starts, so mil will have a whole summer to be a stay at home dad before starting med school. if we start in july, we might actually have the baby in march which is two months before summer break starts... doesn't make much sense. that said, we're still going to start in july because (a) i want to get started already, (b) yay sex!, and (c) since there's only like a 25% chance of getting pregnant in each cycle (assume we're both all well and good on the inside), we'll have a 75% change of getting prenant by september which means baby comes in may which is still cool by me. anyway, i just realized that we had a retarded reason for ttc-ing in july and thought i'd share it with the blog.

is it normal?

is it normal to keep going to babycenter.com and keep checking your ovulation dates months before you're going to start trying?
is it normal to look at baby stores online before you've even tossed the old diaphragm?
is it normal for your husband to start patting your stomach knowingly well before there's anything interesting going on in there?
is it normal to be jealous of your older sister-in-law who's almost 8 months pregnant? (i mean there's no way you're going to beat her to the punch at this point)
is it normal to visit babycenter.com routinely just to see if there's anything else you should be doing in the month before you start trying?

i think i know the answer to these thorny questions: nope.

one month and counting...

i can't get pregnancy off of my mind... every woman i see with a slightly protruding belly is pregnant in my mind. i wonder what they are thinking, what they're feeling, how far along they might be. are they older than me? younger? did they get pregnant after years of trying or accidentally?

waiting sucks. in approximately one month mil and i will get down to business. who knows what will happen, but we're trying to make sure we're well prepared. i've already started to decrease my caffiene intake (which also sucks) and made an appointment with the dentist. mil is getting used to the idea that he's gonna have to limit his alcohol intake for a few weeks, and i'm loading up on my folic acid. in the meantime, all i have is babycenter.com and my many parent blogs to keep me company. i'm noticing signs that mil is starting to get excited, too, but he keeps it pretty well hidden. i'm trying to figure out how this potential pregnancy will figure into my next job, but i also don't want to get ahead of myself. just because we have plans to try doesn't mean that we will succeed, and even if we do, there's no telling when.

i'm also not sure whether we should tell my folks before we start trying. mil is afraid that they'll try to talk us out of it since we're not exactly where we'd like to be financially, what with mil going to med school and all. on the other hand, we do spend a lot of time with them, and they are likely to notice if i no longer partake in wine with dinner. i feel like i am too old to be sneaking around on my parents like that... as an adult, i feel like i should be able to tell them about our plans without feeling like we have to defend our decision... anyway, we'll see if a good opportunity comes up.