Little Miss Home Planner

It's no surprise to those who know me that I'm a planner. In particular, I like to plan my future. Some people call this anal retentiveness, some people think this is a setup for disaster. Heck, I have a passive aggressive aunt who mockingly asks when I have "such and such" planned (e.g. the birth of my first child, second child...you get the picture). But I like to think of it as setting goals for myself. And there's nothing wrong with setting goals in life! But it was so much easier when I was younger to plan for the future. Graduate high school in '99. Check. Graduate college in '03. Check. Graduate law school, pass the CA bar, and get married at age 26. Check, check, and check. According to the next goal on my mental checklist, it'd be to have my first child at 28. Not to mention that I thought I'd be working and buy a home before having my first child. Ack! What was that that happened a couple weeks ago? Oh that's right. I turned 28. Aye-ya!

Despite having these personal goals in my head, I'm not opposed to adapting to life. The hubby is still in school, and we're still in Wisconsin. That's enough reason to hold off from buying a house and having a baby. We both agreed that we would want to be living back in California before starting a family. Still, the planner side of me has a strong agenda, and can rationalize the heck out of things. In about eighteen months, John will graduate from med school, and hopefully have been accepted into a residency program back in California. Sounds great, right? Eighteen months isn't so bad. Ah, but then he begins his residency, which can only be described as boot camp for doctors. He'll be pulling 80+ hour weeks for his first year. That means if we have a baby during his first year of residency, he'll pretty much miss out on every new development of our baby's life. He'll miss all the "firsts." Considering this would be our first child, I think he'd want to be there. Enter, more planning.

I've been asked if I could wait after his first year of residency, and try during his second year. That's thirty months away. Thirty months away means that I'd be 30 when I have my first child. I would like to have at least two children, and be done with having kids by age 35. And who knows, I may want more kids. Ack! So much planning, so much planning. So here's my hope. I am 28 years and 10 days old. I have 355 days to get pregnant and have a baby before my 29th birthday. Let's make it happen! I'm officially putting it out there.

My family would think I'm crazy if they knew I wanted to get pregnant. John's in school, my law firm hasn't gotten off the ground, and we're still in Wisconsin. But I'm hopeful. My parents were 19 when they got married and my mom got pregnant. Times were tough, but they managed to make it. John's parents were immigrants who didn't speak English when John was born in the US. They were refugees, had no money, but were still able to make it. I believe that when the time is right for us, it'll happen. Tough time or not, we'll make it. I guess that's the optimist in me.

So call me Little Miss Home Planner. I'm hoping that 2010 will bring us a baby!