Trying to conceive

Although Arlo was a ‘surprise’, there has never been any question about having more children. Once we decided to have Arlo, we knew we were comitting ourselves to siblings too, and hopefully close in age, as Sam and I had both experienced with our brothers and sisters.

In January I was ready. I never really had that Oooh, do I want another child now? / What’s the ideal age-gap? / How do I feel about all of his? thought process that most women seem to go through. I enjoyed my time as a new mum to one, I enjoyed my reclaimed freedom and some great nights out as he got older, and then when I was ready, I just knew that I was ready. I am so glad that I just enjoyed each stage for what it was, because it feels very different now. I’m no longer living in the moment, I’m constantly looking towards the future, and it doesn’t feel good.

Sam needed a little more time to get used to the idea, but by March we had a workable financial plan sorted and were both 100% onboard. Obviously, that was around seven months ago, so you are probably already thinking that there must be a bit more to this story.
I have wanted to talk about it, but I withheld. My reasoning is pretty stupid – I didn’t want people to know we were trying because I wanted I wanted to surprise people, in a good way. I wanted the experience of happily announcing a pregnancy. I didn’t have that with Arlo. The response was mostly “Are you joking?”. We had to convince our friends that we weren’t having them on. Some took several phone calls or conversations with both Sam and I before they believed us. Some had to confer with mutual friends to check we’d told them the same things. Then there were other friends who took our word for it almost instantly and straight away showed lovely, genuine, happy surprise – but I was too shell-shocked by the whole idea that I was having a baby to allow myself to feel their happiness.

But I gave up hope for that idea a while ago. It’s no longer as important as being able to talk freely about what has been going on over the past months. It’s better than the innocent questions about a sibling for Arlo as he approaches his second birthday. So, I am going to share the posts that I have written and kept private for half a year. I am hoping that this will make for an even better surprise when it does finally happen, as you will know about the journey to get there.

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I actually wasn’t even sure whether I was going to publish this yet. I was going to write it and mull it over for a while. But Sam just came along to use my computer, somehow managing to click publish on this post sending it out on Twitter, RSS and to email subscribers. I pulled it, but it was a bit late. So that’s my decision made for me. Lesson learned – always set the post to private straight away.