Hello lovelies! Since I am out of town, visiting my sister in Atlanta right now, I have a fabulous week of guest bloggers lined up for your reading pleasure, and I couldn't be more excited about it!
Today's post comes from one of my very favorite bloggers, and by far, one of my absolutely sweetest internet friends! Courtney and I 'met' recently, and we are definitely in the same 'season' of life right now. We connected instantly, and I am honored to have her here to share part of her journey today!
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Hello all!
Let me first introduce myself before jumping right in for this guest
post. My name is Courtney and I’m coming over here from my blog “
With Gratitude.” I’ve been married to my college sweetheart,
Jeremy, for 3 ½ years and I’m amazed the way our marriage has continued
to grow and strengthen since the beginning of our relationship almost 8
years ago. He really is my best friend and I couldn’t imagine going
through life without him.
I have
been keeping my blog for a little over three years and it’s the best
form of journaling I’ve ever had. Not to mention the community blogging
brings with it and the amazing women you can find
who are in similar places of life as yourself, which is how I first met
the sweet owner of
this blog.
The first
time I “met” Pamela was when she stopped by after reading a post I had
written about starting our family after being married for 3 years. She
was so sweet about it and said she could relate
to me since they were also on their own track and trying for a baby as
well. When she asked me to guest post for this week, I knew right away
what I wanted to write about: the list I had started a few months ago to
help me stay positive during this time of
waiting… a bucket list if you will.
If you
follow me, you will know that it has not been the bed of roses I was
expecting when we first made the decision that we were finally “ready.”
We have been trying for almost 10 months now with
some complications along the way and it has been a very tiring and difficult journey for us at times.
It’s hard
to stay upbeat about it, especially when you see other girls around you
who blink and get pregnant, but I’ve been trying my hardest to see the
silver lining and keep a positive spirit up
even when I’m having bad days.
Every month when I see yet
another stick with only one pink line, I force a smile on my face
and tell my husband that it’s probably for the best we didn’t get
pregnant that month. And then I go on to explain why it wouldn’t have
been an optimum time for us and now we can go and
do this thing, or this, or something else we’ve been talking about
where a baby would have interrupted the plans. I’m very aware it’s a
form of self-preservation but I need to do it in order to cope with the
continuing bad news.
Another
thing that helps with each failed cycle is the reminder of things I can
still do while not being pregnant or things we want to get accomplished
before a baby comes along. When I’m having
an especially hard day, I will sit and look at the list I started {and
keep adding to} in order to pep myself up and make me feel better about
not yet being with child. I figured there are other girls out there like
Pamela and myself who are going through
similar things and it might help to post my list on here and they can
add their own ideas to it. After all, we are only going to have this
time of no children
once in our lives and we need to enjoy it while we still can.
So without further ado:
My Baby Bucket List/Pre-Bump Enjoyment
·
Start doubling what we put into our savings
accounts each month for emergencies or rainy days. We have been building
a nest egg from the beginning of our marriage before preparing for a
family but I always feel more comfortable
with extra padding in it for those “just in case” times.
·
Get healthier! I've done really well at
keeping up with my work-outs at the gym but I need to adjust my diet to
help get this body ready for a healthier environment once a bambino
decides to grace us with his/her presence.
·
Get in my girl time. Hanging out with
girlfriends and meeting for random dinner or movie dates won’t be as
easy once I’m a mommy so I’m trying to fit in as much as I can now. Stay
out late, drink glasses of wine or margaritas
at our favorite Mexican restaurants, and enjoy my carefree, young days.
·
More traveling. We are blessed to have seen a
lot of amazing places like Mexico, New York, a Caribbean cruise, Hawaii
and so on but I also know this is literally going to be one of the only
times in our lives we can just take
off on a whim. We’re DINK’s {Double Income- No Kids} and we need to
take advantage of that while we can! We have another Mexican vacation
planned for later this year and I can’t wait to sit on a beach and do
nothing but sleep and read in the sun again. We
also have several friends of ours that are scattered throughout the
country and wish to visit them for short weekend trips and get caught up
in their new places.
·
Enjoy all the sushi, wine, beer, deli meats
and coffee while I can. I’m going to savor every sip of my favorite
Riesling on the weekend nights when we’re out with friends and every sip
of my Starbucks lattes. I am going to really
miss those once we’re finally pregnant.
·
Appreciate my teeth whitening. I have an
awesome dentist who gives free teeth whitening with every 6 month visit
but he has already made it clear to me that is a BIG
no-no once I have a bun in the oven.
·
Buying clothes in small sizes before I gain
100 pounds in 9 months. I’m well aware that my body will probably never
be quite the same once I go through the pregnancy process and I’m sure I
will someday mourn my pre-baby body so
I want to dress it up in my favorite styles and fashions before they
are inappropriate for a mom to wear. Not to mention, I’m enjoying my
highest heels and stilettos to walk around in.
·
Random camping jaunts up in the mountains
for a night or two with my guy and the pup. We live in Colorado and have
the ability to take advantage of our gorgeous Rockies this summer.
·
Date nights where we plan anything we want-
sky’s the limit! We don’t have to worry about a babysitter or curfew and
can live free as birds without
too much responsibility holding us back. Overnight dates in Denver at a fancy restaurant and sweet hotel? Sounds good to me!
·
Sleep in. Even though I’m not a great
sleeper to begin with and I have an internal clock that goes off at 6:00
a.m. every morning, I have been forcing myself to lay in bed as long as
possible on the weekends and relish the quiet
in our house.
·
Be more adventurous! Boating, hiking,
wakeboarding, and other things I’m usually too chicken to try are on my
agenda this summer. I only live once right?
·
I also want to encourage Jeremy to be more selfish during this time as well. I’m going to keep my mouth shut when he plays
another hour of video games or spends time with his friends.
These are all I have come up
with so far but if you think of any others, please don’t hesitate to
share. I can use all of the encouragement and inspiration I can get
right now to help me keep a positive attitude.
And hopefully come December we will be turning our Mexican vacation into a more appropriate “Babymoon” to start of the new year.
Please Lord, let it be so!
