The Before JellyBelly

I find it hard to remember what my life was like before we started our TTC journey. Like so many I just took it for granted that I would get pregnant. I figured that we would follow the logical trajectory of boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy proposes to girl (which he had to do twice because I didn't quite believe him!), girl plans wedding (with boy hanging around to provide menial labour and to lift heavy things), boy and girl get married, boy and girl move into house then girl has a baby.  

Yeah, that baby thing....

Last night we saw one of our favourite bands, the Cowboy Junkies (if you've never heard of them you can check them out here). It was a great night. I've been a fan of the Junkies since I was a teenager but I didn't see them until Mr. JellyBelly and I were dating back in 2004. When I remember back to JellyBelly circa 2004 I pictured my life to be so different. I guess no self-respecting person would wish for two and half years of heartache, right?

I knew from very early into our relationship that Mr. JB was the one for me. I had just ended a long-term relationship and wasn't really looking into anything besides healing my life. We were fixed up by a common friend who had never really played matchmaker. He called me one night and we spoke for almost three hours! I tried every trick in the book to see if he was a psychopath or not -- I told him that I wasn't looking for a boyfriend, but I was in search for a husband. And that I also wanted four kids and I didn't want to leave the neighbourhood that I was living in. Well he bought it. Hook, line and sinker. He said that he was done with dating and he loved the area that I lived in. AND he also wanted to have tons of kids. We went on our first date three days later and we've been together ever since. 

I guess we looked at starting our family through rose-coloured glasses. After all we both come from HUGE Catholic families (his dad is one of ten, as is my crazy mother) that seem to pro-create on demand. I ignored the fact that my own parents had a hard time conceiving me (not that crazy mom talks about that) and that Mr. JB's mother had a hysterectomy when she was in her 30's. I looked around at all of the fertility around me: my best friend who got preggo on her first try, an old roomie that conceived on try two, our fruitful co-workers. The list seemed endless. After all, I was relatively healthy (yay colitis!) and I got my period every 28 days. What could go wrong? 

If I could go into a time-machine I would tell JellyBelly circa 2004 that she should be more realistic. I know that a big part of my frustration with my IF journey is the high expectation I placed on my fertility. I've always been task-oriented and I've achieved pretty much every goal that I've set out for myself (well, I failed at growing a couple more inches, but that was out of my control). I thought that my baby-making ability would just follow suit. 

I remember the night that we got engaged I planned it -- when I was going to get pregnant with baby number one (November 2005) and when I was going to get pregnant with baby number two (February 2007).  Babies three and four were in the master plan, but I didn't have an exact ETA for their arrival. 

So here I am, it's February 2008 and I have a fruitful blog, but no babies. I'd trade one for the other any day. I wouldn't even have to plan for it.