Sunday, August 21, 2011

Plan B

Welcome ICLW'ers!!! Please read the Our Story section to find out who we are and where we've come from!! Currently, LM is just shy of six months old and I just returned to work. Life gets crazier every day! I'd love to have you follow us--and I'm always looking for new blogs to follow too!

I watch a lot of shows on HGTV. Not because I have any gardening/decorating/cooking/domestic skills at all...but because for some reason I get sucked into them...oh, and I don't have to pay too close of attention.

I especially like watching all of the home-buying ones---from House Hunters to Property Vir.gins--there's something about watching people make a huge important life decision that I can critique and sometimes mock (seriously, some of the people on those shows have some weird tastes/requirements that I just can't help mocking).

I started watching them when we were house hunting ourselves years ago. Like all things me, it was something I was slightly obsessive about and this show was a good outlet. At first, it was all about the houses and renovations etc. But over the last few years, I've noticed different things. For instance, there seems to be a high number of people who are married couples that have clearly been married awhile and are "just us two". They're always looking for a hip home or a new location that is exotic, urban etc...i.e. not children friendly. They definitely differ from those people who talk about which room would be the nursery or where the swingset could go.

Before the journey of TTC'ing, it wouldn't have occurred to me that there is a high chance that these couples can't have children. Before IF, I always assumed it was a choice. Now I know better.

These couples are pursuing their "plan b".

It got me thinking about what our "plan b" was. We never flat out said we would do "this" if we end up not having children. It was always phrased much more "squishily"...such as, "Well..living downtown doesn't really have big backyards" or "The schools there are kind of iffy". Apparently, our plan was to be those cool hip people who live downtown (as if we live somewhere with a cool downtown!) and eat out at neat cafes and know where all the hip stores are. We'd walk the dog around and hit all the cool festivals. **Note...we're not actually very hip people..I don't think we'd be very good at it if we tried**

It's easy to think about the "plan b" now...with LM talking away in the swing next to me, intermittently projectile spitting up his bottle and laughing. Before, I didn't even realize we had it. When your heart is focused on finding a way to have that precious baby..no matter what...it's impossible to really think about it. At least it was for me.

What about you? Do/did you have one? Is it something you can think about yet? Is yours as totally "not you" as ours really turned out to be?

I learned a lot from my "plan b". I learned that it was something that we were holding on to because if we couldn't have kids, surely it would be we could just be cooler and free-er with our time/social life. It wouldn't mean it was just the two of us (and the dog) sitting at home DVR'ing Hell's Kitchen and House Hunters. It didn't fit who we really are. What would we have done in reality?? No idea. But, I hope that we would've thought about what was really important to us and headed down that road instead of trying to fit the stereotype of childless people.

Who knows? Maybe you would've seen us buying an awesome place on an island on HH International. We would've been the rational, reasonable about our budget limitations and easy-going ones :-) Suuure.

I hope you never have to use your "plan b"...but if you do--I hope it rocks your socks off.

13 comments:

  1. Hello! Just popping by from the ICLW. As for our plan B we had to use it. I was going to be a mom no matter what. We conceived using an egg donor. I can't think about life without being a mom and what we would do. I am just so very grateful for my son.

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  2. I think our plan b was being satisfied with the child I had already been blessed with. Now, I'm not one to give up on a dream easily and so kept going beyond what DH and I had originally agreed would be our "quitting" point.
    #60

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  3. Stopping by from ICLW! I too love HGTV! Congrats on your little one! I would love to feature your success story on my blog. I did 6 IVF cycles and now I write to help others and featuring success stories is something I do to inspire others. I'm your newest follower and just added your link to my successful blog list! Happy ICLW! (#52)

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  4. What an interesting post. I don't think my husband and I ever talked about our "plan b." With infertility being something we both saw family members struggle with it did cross my mind that having children isn't always an easy or sure path, but like I said, we never talked about the what ifs. It reminds me that you never know what other people may be going through. But I'm with you on the House Hunters thing. That show is addicting!

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  5. Also stopping in from ICLW.

    I didn't have trouble conceiving my son, but we're now struggling to conceive #2, which I never thought was possible. I've always pictured my family with 2 or more kids, so now I'm wondering what our "plan B" will look like for a sibling. It's so hard to think about! Good question.

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  6. Hi! Stopping by from ICLW.

    I have never thought about a plan B. Thankfully I have never had to.

    You are so right about not knowing if a couple struggles with IF by just looking at them.

    I love me some house hunters!

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  7. Our plan B: International Adoption. Which means we'll get to travel like a family of two and come home with our family of three. Woo-hoo! Love it. :D

    ICLW #102

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  8. I am one of the lucky people, I was on HGTV. We had our bathroom remodeled by BathCrashers last June - smack in the middle of our first IUI which resulted in our son, also born in March.

    Plan B was...to live in our bathroom? :)

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  9. I love your plan B's everyone ...thanks for sharing ladies. It's always so interesting to see where are paths are going/could go/we want to go etc.

    @Oak---I love that you had your bath crashed! I wish I was that lucky. And to have it work out so you had your lucky IUI at the same time...super blessed.

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  10. Hey there - here from ICLW!

    We love HGTV shows too -- Property Virgins is a great one. I hadn't realized or thought about the number of couples that are "just us two" -- good catch on the potential IF.

    Wouldn't it be nice if they would talk about IF on air? Get the word out about the one in eight couples that experience infertility?!

    Looking forward to reading more of your story!

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  11. sometimes you don't even know your plan B, until it happens.

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  12. **Note...we're not actually very hip people. I don't think we'd be very good at it if we tried** Totally made me laugh!!! I kind of feel that way about us too...

    I guess for us, our plan B always seems to be adoption. If we hit the end of the TTC road, we would adopt. I don't think we have ever really entertained the thought of NEVER having kids. We're going to have them one way or another. But I guess if God memo-ed us from Heaven and told us we would never ever have kids... I think we would be the type of people to throw ourselves into our careers and church. But the vision of us someday having some acreage with cows and chickens... I feel like that is what we want even if we never have kids. So in some ways it would totally different, but the core of who we are individually and as a couple is still the same.

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  13. We don't have a plan b yet. We're still on plan a of having a child. We don't talk about life without a child of our own.

    ICLW

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