Was it a surprise? Or was it planned?

I found out I was pregnant on Friday. It's now Tuesday, and I've been having waves of thoughts, feelings, and realizations. I've told my family and four of my oldest friends. So far, no one has asked me yet if this baby was planned.
Besides telling them off for being too cheeky and personal, I'd have no idea how to answer. I've been pretty open in the past about my ambivalence toward having kids. To paraphrase one of my favorite cartoonist/bloggers, "it's always been a dream of mine to have raised a family in the past."

We've been using NFP / fertility awareness method since we got married almost two years ago, which is a whole other wrinkle in the surprise vs planned question (since apparently, it has to be one or the other). Basically, I take my temperature every morning, and note the changes in cervical mucus throughout the month. I can observe additional signs, such as sore boobs after ovulation, or "noticing the jawlines of tall guys on the subway" right before ovulation. Women can only get pregnant in a small window of the month - from 5 days before til 3 days after their ovulation. So there are "red light" days when you know you're ovulating, and "green light days" when you know you're more than a week away, and are safe to have sex. But, for someone like me with PCOS & irregular cycles there are also some "yellow light" days.


Many women have 28 day cycles - 14 days from the start of the period til the ovulation, and then 14 days from the ovulation til the period. The first half of my cycle sometimes drags on for 4 or 6 or even more weeks with no sign of ovulation. So, we get impatient. We think, if it's taking my body this long to ovulate, it may not even be an effectively fertile egg. So, we have sex on a "low risk" day. 



We've probably done this 5 or 6 times over the past couple years. Maybe we were on vacation or it was a special day or we were feeling carefree or had just seen a cute baby. But this time, I got pregnant. 


So no, this kid was not planned. But the decision to use NFP, and to play around with the marginally safe days, means it's not really a surprise either. 


In some sense, it's a huge surprise though, as I imagine a first pregnancy always is. It actually worked! I got my diagnosis of PCOS 2 years ago and had to tell him, 3 months before our wedding, that I might never have my own kids.  I started my period on October 24. We had sex around November 26. And I think my ovulation was 5 days after that, on the outside edge of what's biologically possible. What made this time different, what made these gametes so determined?

My two friends who got pregnant in the last year did plan it. They knew what month they wanted to conceive, went off the pill 3 months before that, and dutifully scheduled sex on their fertile days. One of these friends has said repeatedly that she'll get her tubes tied after she has two kids. I'm happy that their lives are unfolding according to their plans, but....I can't imagine being 100% sure that I'm ready for kids, just as I can't imagine (barring financial or health disasters) being 100% sure that I'm done.

Well, my plan may have been having this kid in 2-5 years. Of course, in 2-5 years, I'd be having an entirely different kid, which is weird to think about. This is one area where being a cradle Catholic and "leaving it up to God" feels right. Even if I have a plan for the timing, and can make it so, I have no idea what are the different potential people at stake. It's such a huge uncontrollable decision, that I felt almost more comfortable not really making the decision.

But seasonally, I think the timing is actually great. We're seeing a lot of family & old friends around the holidays to tell them, and the Christmas story is something to contemplate. The cold weather will help if I have to run outside with nausea, and there is plenty of hearty food to eat, since I am so hungry.
Second trimester in the springtime should give me a surge of energy, and we will have to move or radically change our one bedroom apartment around that time. There will be a couple weddings and a bachelorette party to attend, other peoples milestones to celebrate.
Being heavily pregnant in the summer will be uncomfortable, but it will be easy to wear maxi dresses & sandals for months, go to the pool everyday, and there won't be a blizzard on my due date.
When I'm delirious with the newborn, and learning to breastfeed, we'll have mild September weather - perfect for sitting around the house topless, or going for short sanity walks.