what did you learn?

I admit, I sometimes feel that I was a little young to start a family. Not measured in life-experience mind you, just in years. I FINALLY have friends (that I knew before I had kids) who will now understand why I live off coffee and peanut butter. But I want to also mention that having babies is not an easy job. Or is it always easy to get pregnant.

Sure there are lots of women who have no idea HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?! I'm not one of them. Technically. I mean, I did take Health and Biology, and I had a pretty hippy mom who was REALLY open about sex and such. What I didn't know was that it was all a LIE. Ok, so, high school health taught me that if you have sex several things will happen: mostly that you'll get pregnant, an STD and DIE. Besides those really scary things, I went to a small high school. I wasn't about to have everyone I knew all up in my business.

What I mean about this whole "LIE" that I was taught was that they said it was easy to get pregnant. That's a bunch of BS if I've ever heard it. It is a hell-of-a-lot more complicated than that. Did you know that any given month, if all your ducks are in a row, you've only got about a 20% of getting pregnant? And if you're older, it's less than that, and if you're younger it's about a 25% chance.

This brings me to my pregnancies. Sami was one of those, we had sex ONCE that month and got pregnant, whoops, pregnancies. I'll admit, it was more than a little shocking. Once?! I mean, really?! Fine. I raise my hand and say we weren't doing EVERYTHING we could to protect against getting pregnant, but ONCE?! That's when that whole LIE about how easy it is to get pregnant totally bit me in the butt. On the other hand, getting pregnant with Rebecca took all the faith I had, all the strength I had, and all the luck in the world. I'm not kidding when I say we tried for 8 months to get pregnant. I was at the end of my rope, then all of a sudden, the stars aligned and it happened. I guess like the stars aligned when I got pregnant with Sam. Only this time, I truly understood what it meant to eat, sleep, breath trying to conceive.

I have a few friends who are pregnant right now (oh right, I mentioned that). But I also have a few friends who are NOT pregnant right now. Not because they don't want to be. They desperately do. They desperately want to get pregnant, but not only that, they want to actually hold a baby in their arms and raise it. Many of them have suffered miscarriages. Which, in itself is devastating, but the fact that they've gotten pregnant, only to have it end in heartbreak, makes the desire for a child just that much more urgent. It humbles me that these women are still my friends. I always feel so lucky that they don't hate me for having the one thing they desire most. I'm grateful for all my friends, but for those that don't have babies or who are having trouble getting pregnant, I have a special place in my heart. And I have a 2.5yr old for sale if you're interested. She's almost housebroken and very smart. ;)