One year ago
this week, C and I were on a romantic my-parents-are-in-a-bungalow-right-next-door-to-us getaway to St.
Lucia. Even though we are still routinely mistaken for brother and sister when
we travel with them[1] – no, really, one queen bed will be fine
we told the slightly-horrified-and-unable-to-hide-it Cambodian concierge –
we’re not shy about accepting literally any freebie travel opportunity sent our
way.
And because
there’s just something about international travel that screams it’s-time-for-a-baby[2],
we made a decision: we are going to start trying. I had just finished a pack of
birth control and for the first time in more than ten years, I would forego a
new pack. We even told my parents – which seems much stranger in retrospect than it did at the time.
Had I known then
what I know now, would I have proceeded differently? Would I have ratcheted
down my level of late teen/early twenty pregnancy terror by about eleventy
billion degrees? Umm, YES. Honestly, I have no idea. On one hand, yes I would change everything. But on
the other, bigger hand, what on earth would I have done? Besides never taking
birth control and perhaps remaining completely sedentary, I’m not sure what
realistically would have helped.
But hindsight is 20/20 so
here are a few things I’ve learned in twelve months of seemingly futile trying.
