{"id":51,"date":"2016-08-01T19:49:36","date_gmt":"2016-08-01T19:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/?p=51"},"modified":"2016-08-01T22:38:46","modified_gmt":"2016-08-01T22:38:46","slug":"were-not-not-trying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/01\/were-not-not-trying\/","title":{"rendered":"we’re “not not trying”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/p>\n

We talked about having kids many times before our wedding and many times after.\u00a0 Each time we thought we were \u201cready,\u201d we came up with reason during date night why it made sense to wait a little longer.\u00a0 We felt as though we could be more \u201cready.\u201d\u00a0 So we waited, and while we waited, we really enjoyed life.\u00a0 My husband is a little kid at heart.\u00a0 I am a planner, someone who looks ahead at what is next– so much so that I often miss living in the present moment and enjoying what is going on right in front of me.\u00a0 Tony grounds me.\u00a0 I am an excessive documenter of life.\u00a0 If I don\u2019t capture it on camera, how could I possibly remember it years from now?\u00a0 Tony helps me stop and enjoy the present.\u00a0\u00a0 In October of 2015, we traveled to Seattle together.\u00a0 Tony was presenting research at a conference, and I was tagging along for my first trip to the Pacific Northwest.\u00a0 We decided that it was to be on this trip that we \u201cstop preventing\u201d pregnancy and see where it takes us.\u00a0\u00a0 He warned me that if I turned into Monica Bing and began peeing on ovulation sticks that month that he would not be happy.\u00a0 He told me that he needed a few months of transitioning from preventing pregnancy to achieving pregnancy without all the scariness of my inner control freak self coming out.\u00a0\u00a0 And he was right to say that.\u00a0 I was convinced that I was going to get pregnant on that trip.\u00a0 I had been off oral birth control for about a year, so that shouldn\u2019t prevent us from getting pregnant.\u00a0 And I have regular cycles, so around two weeks before my next one was due, I should get pregnant, right?\u00a0 Seeing my first negative pregnancy test in November devastated me in a way that surprised even me.\u00a0\u00a0 I always thought\u00a0that I was open to having kids, but truth be told I was never a person who felt as though I needed to have children to feel fulfilled in life.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have dreams about having children. \u00a0\u00a0Birth to me is absolutely miraculous, but also scares the crap out of me.\u00a0 I have a nurse brain- a NICU nurse brain to top it off.\u00a0 I know much more than I wish I knew about birth trauma, neonatal complications and fetal demise.\u00a0 As a NICU nurse, I meet so many parents who make me question what the world God was thinking as He blessed them with a healthy baby.\u00a0 Why does the couple who struggled for years to achieve pregnancy lose their child at 36 weeks unexplainably in utero?\u00a0 Why is a 19 year old having her second baby when she can\u2019t even afford food for the first one? I have asked myself these questions since first stepping into the NICU world in nursing school, but suddenly those questions weighed much heavier on my heart.\u00a0\u00a0 November came and went, and my cycle was a few days late.\u00a0 Could it be? Was I pregnant?\u00a0 No. BFN.\u00a0 (That\u2019s big fat negative on a pregnancy test.) \u00a0I began to learn these common abbreviations in the TTC (that\u2019s trying to conceive) community.\u00a0\u00a0 In early December I was convinced that I was pregnant.\u00a0 Sore boobs for two weeks- it had to be, right? No. BFN and incredibly painful period on Christmas Eve as I worked.\u00a0\u00a0 I was only 3 months into \u201cnot not trying\u201d and I was already getting frustrated.\u00a0 I kept thinking to myself, maybe good times are ahead in 2016.\u00a0 I remember celebrating that idea on New Year\u2019s Eve\u2014that pregnant days were surely ahead in 2016. \u00a0I wasn’t wrong.<\/p>\n

P.S. Seattle was amazing! We thoroughly enjoyed the sights and lived it up while we were there!<\/p>\n

\"image\"\u00a0\"IMG_4600\"<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4605\"<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4615\"<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4642\"<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We talked about having kids many times before our wedding and many times after.\u00a0 Each time we thought we were \u201cready,\u201d we came up with reason during date night why it made sense to wait a little longer.\u00a0 We felt as though we could be more \u201cready.\u201d\u00a0 So we waited, and while we waited, we really enjoyed life.\u00a0 My husband is a little kid at heart.\u00a0 I am a planner, someone who looks ahead at what is next– so much so that I often miss living in the present moment and enjoying what is going on right in front of me.\u00a0 Tony grounds me.\u00a0 I am an excessive documenter of life.\u00a0 If I don\u2019t capture it on camera, how could I possibly remember it years from now?\u00a0 Tony helps me stop and enjoy the present.\u00a0\u00a0 In October of 2015, we traveled to Seattle together.\u00a0 Tony was presenting research at a conference, and I was tagging along for my first trip to the Pacific Northwest.\u00a0 We decided that it was to be on this trip that we \u201cstop preventing\u201d pregnancy and see where it takes us.\u00a0\u00a0 He warned me that if I turned into Monica Bing and began peeing on ovulation sticks that month that he would not be happy.\u00a0 He told me that he needed a few months of transitioning from preventing pregnancy to achieving pregnancy without all the scariness of my inner control freak self coming out.\u00a0\u00a0 And he was right to say that.\u00a0 I was convinced that I was going to get pregnant on that trip.\u00a0 I had been off oral birth control for about a year, so that shouldn\u2019t prevent us from getting pregnant.\u00a0 And I have regular cycles, so around two weeks before my next one was due, I should get pregnant, right?\u00a0 Seeing my first negative pregnancy test in November devastated me in a way that surprised even me.\u00a0\u00a0 I always thought\u00a0that I was open to having kids, but truth be told I was never a person who felt as though I needed to have children to feel fulfilled in life.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have dreams about having children. \u00a0\u00a0Birth to me is absolutely miraculous, but also scares the crap out of me.\u00a0 I have a nurse brain- a NICU nurse brain to top it off.\u00a0 I know much more than I wish I knew about birth trauma, neonatal complications and fetal demise.\u00a0 As a NICU nurse, I meet so many parents who make me question what the world God was thinking as He blessed them with a healthy baby.\u00a0 Why does the couple who struggled for years to achieve pregnancy lose their child at 36 weeks unexplainably in utero?\u00a0 Why is a 19 year old having her second baby when she can\u2019t even afford food for the first one? I have asked myself these questions since first stepping into the NICU world in nursing school, but suddenly those questions weighed much heavier on my heart.\u00a0\u00a0 November came and went, and my cycle was a few days late.\u00a0 Could it be? Was I pregnant?\u00a0 No. BFN.\u00a0 (That\u2019s big fat negative on a pregnancy test.) \u00a0I began to learn these common abbreviations in the TTC (that\u2019s trying to conceive) community.\u00a0\u00a0 In early December I was convinced that I was pregnant.\u00a0 Sore boobs for two weeks- it had to be, right? No. BFN and incredibly painful period on Christmas Eve as I worked.\u00a0\u00a0 I was only 3 months into \u201cnot not trying\u201d and I was already getting frustrated.\u00a0 I kept thinking to myself, maybe good times are ahead in 2016.\u00a0 I remember celebrating that idea on New Year\u2019s Eve\u2014that pregnant days were surely ahead in 2016. \u00a0I wasn’t wrong. P.S. Seattle was amazing! We thoroughly enjoyed the sights and lived it up while we were there! \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journey-to-parenthood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/image-2.jpeg?fit=3264%2C2448&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8oEBX-P","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hopemeetsjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}