HAHAHAHA- you are kidding, right?

So the pregnancy forum (I know, I know- but it's not the same situation as before).... Man, I swear, if you're ever bored, just go check out these message boards. You'll cry, you'll laugh, you'll recoil in disgust, you'll want to hand out free hugs, potentially get knocked up yourself... This latest post I read, though, sent me off on a rant of a response which turned out to be a very enlightening process for myself.

So this girl is going into her senior year of college. She's married. She wants to have kids. All good. I get it. However, she also is going to be a teacher, so she has mapped out a million and one reasons why the best timing for her to conceive anytime in the near future is basically... now. She seems pretty intelligent, and this is obviously something that she and her husband have thought a lot about. To be honest, in a perfect world, their reasoning would make a lot of sense.

Unfortunately, as I've learned over the past year, nothing is ever perfect. The road ahead is always bumpy, curvy and sometimes out entirely. In my response, I shared how difficult pregnancy was for me during the school year, and went on to ask a bunch of questions about their "game plan." It's your senior year; isn't your course load going to be more difficult? Are you working? How will you save enough to afford allllll of the baby gear that's required and the medical care that is so important beforehand? Remember that pregnancy can be exhausting; will you have the energy for classes AND work? How will you afford rent, utilities, groceries, diapers, doctors visits, baby supplies and clothes, etc., with both of you only working part-time as substitute teachers? Plus, random one time expenses can throw the best laid plans off their axis. Do you have a savings base built up?

After I read through what I had written, I realized I sounded like a raving lunatic, so I put a caveat at the bottom saying that not everyone has the same experiences, and love is the most important ingredient, etc., etc. However, her story continues to resonate with me. This has been one of the hardest years of my life, and I know things are not about to get any easier. Looking back, I know I would never have chosen the path that I'm on, though it has been tremendously rewarding in some respects. I keep hearing my mom in the back of my head, clucking away that she could warn me and advise me all she wanted, but I wouldn't really understand or appreciate what she had to say until I was going through it myself. She was right. It's been much harder than I anticipated in some ways (though easier in others), and almost every turn in the road was one she had warned me about.

So I can post all I want for this girl, or anyone else. To be honest, it's all just one bit roll of the dice. We can't plan out life like it's one of this girl's lesson plans, or a debate case, or itinerary. Life's messy. You're going to get dirty. Things won't turn out the way you plan them. So I guess I'll just keep laughing, because a sense of humor is the only thing that is ALWAYS a good idea.