My husband and I are planning to try for baby no 1 this summer, and I don't know if anyone else out there has felt this, but I'm so type A, and just feel kind of lost without the ability to even do basic planning about how the next 12 months of my life are going to go. I work full time and I'm in grad school (and will be until well after baby) so when I deliver has a huge impact on my mid-range planning, not to mention I'm pretty sure that working full time, taking classes, and growing a tiny human all at once will be hugely draining, so will I even be able to keep up with my coursework next fall/spring? It's all very frustrating for someone who usually has a plan for just about everything, and I don't really feel like I can talk to people at work/school about it now because it's all hypothetical, so there's an extra element of isolation. I don't know if anyone else has dealt with this sort of stuff and can offer advice on how they managed, but it kind of feels impossible right now.
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I'm Type A most of the time. I would say to get closer to finishing your masters before getting pregnant (in case you get pregnant right away). That way, your life will still be a little more the "same"
I was convinced that my life really wouldn't change that much after having kids - HA! I thought I could still go and do like I did before... but the truth is (and I have yet to find someone who completely disagrees), your life changes in ways that you can't even predict once that baby is here. Things that were priorities to you prior to kids will go on the back burner as you put your child first and adjust to the new life.
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Are you describing me?? hahaha
I'm in a phd program, and it's really, really hard to try to plan ahead with the uncertainty of ttc. I waited to ttc the first time until I was done with coursework and my qualifying exams/was abd, and so even though it was a "good" time it still disrupted my research plans/dissertation progress. And now we're ttc for #2 and that meant I didn't apply for last-year grants for next year because I hope to take a maternity leave. I'm also teaching in the fall and had to take an extra month off ttc after an early miscarriage (I didn't know about teaching until after the loss) so that I wouldn't have any chance of being due during the fall semester. Now I'm just hoping I get pregnant soon so that I won't be due during job market season the year after or have a teeny newborn then. It's HARD to plan with the uncertainty, but what's the other option? It is what it is. I think that's how I deal--I can't change it, so I just try to accept it.
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I am pretty type A too, but pregnancy and then having a kid just forced me to let go of a lot of stuff. I'm super OCD too, it kills me lately that I am not cleaning the house to my standards (and DH can't do it the way I do haha), but being pregnant and raising a toddler, I just have no more energy to be type A about everything.
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I'm type A and was just like you. 3 years ago, had everything planned out. I thought TTC would like the average 3-6 months. Yeah, it didn't happen. After a year of BFN, we started IUIs at a fertility clinic. 6 cycles of IUIs all failed. We ended up doing IVF and we now have our twins.
As someone who has gone through infertility, I would try to enjoy yourself in TTC. Don't worry about times. Just go with the flow. I used try plan vacations (what if I'm pregnant).
Now that the twins are here, it's much harder to be type A. I learned a lot of patience after infertility. When it comes to getting pregnant, it is truly a miracle and things won't go as planned. It's even more so when you have kids.
Anyway, good luck!
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@bluestriped bee: agree 110%
I'm type A in a very male-dominated not family friendly field and I put off trying until this or that. And while I've made peace with it- it still has taken us 2+years of trying to get a successful pregnancy. I was the same as above where I scheduled vacations, being a bridesmaid, future gifts all around what ifs. (I like to plan and over analyze)
I don't have any real advice but we are taking some time off the fertility road and that has helped my type A personality bc I just keep thinking no way it'll work. When you're ready to truly try, just go all in. Our tendicies were made to track cycles! -
babies be babies
I'm generally a planner and pretty type A, but after having my first, I've learned to let a lot of things go when it comes to kids. This is just the first lesson of many that you can't plan too far ahead, your plans usually get adjusted, if not completely changed, and your pregnancy and then child is different every few months, and thus your lifestyle is different!I'm pregnant with #2, work full-time and starting a grad program in August. It sounds crazy to say, but we are just taking it one step at a time! I'm due around Thanksgiving, so I will try to finish up my fall semester's course week about three weeks earlier than normal. Schools are obligated to work around a maternity leave - just stay in touch with your faculty and talk through how you can make up any time you will be away!
It's hard not to constantly think about it/plan, though. I get that! The good news is, you will figure it out, no matter what happens -
I'm definitely Type A but the TTC/pregnancy/parenting process has changed the way I plan. I try to control all the variables I can but for everything else, I just to just envision multiple scenarios and imagine what we will do in those scenarios.
So for example, when DH and I decided we were ready to TTC, we went all in. I would temp, use opks, chart, and basically do everything in my power to get pregnant that month. This strategy has worked really well for us (we have gotten pregnant on the 1st or 2nd cycle every time) and the planning definitely helped with that. But once I'm pregnant, that's when the scenario thing comes into play. I hope you don't end up like me, but I have had multiple losses now, so even when I get pregnant, I don't plan out the next 9 months. I envision the birth as one possible scenario and loss as another. So this means that, for ex. we wouldn't plan a big vacation around a time when I might miscarry (first tri) or around the due date.
So for your case, you could probably try to plan out various scenarios (like if you get pregnant immediately vs 3 months later vs 6 months later) and decide in advance how you might handle those cases. If there are situations that you want to actively avoid (like being due around the time your thesis is due), you can decide to skip TTC those months. That's probably the best you can do, though. TTC is one time in your life where you just can't plan for everything!
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I'm definitely type A as well. My DH & I are also planning to TTC #1 later this year (December). I have no advice because I'm in a similar situation. We both work full time, built and moved into our first home this year and I'm keeping busy by decorating our home, working on health and fitness (down 20 pounds, 5 more to go), saving for maternity leave & future hospital bills, and researching the heck out of baby stuff. As far as future plans, we've decided when we want to start TTC. We've decided I'll take 4 months of maternity leave and then return to work full time. We've opted for full time daycare, vs. nanny, but we both know everything doesn't always go as planned, so we'll see what happens.
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I'm a recovering Type A. Parenthood has thankfully done it's best to destroy that tendency in me and I'm much happier for it. Most things just aren't worth stressing over, life will take it's course, so I'm just along for the ride. I can't control everything, and that's ok. I would have been much happier if I had realized this while I was TTC, but it has to be experienced
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@LatteLove: Thank you for the info about schools having to work around maternity leave. That actually helps a lot in terms of like what if everything goes right and I'm due late May/early June but the baby comes early, or what if it takes longer than the few cycles that would put the baby due in the summer? If/when I am pregnant I'll make sure to work with my professors around the time when I'm due.
@catlady: I'm so sorry about your losses. It must be really tough to keep going through that.
@nana87: Ugh, the whole process is so disruptive for women. I just wish I could put some of it on my husband. Imagine if you could just say to your partner "If the baby is coming on X date, you need to handle it because I have quals." It would make the whole thing so much less stressful.
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I'm very type A but with babies the sooner you learn to let some if that go the better! I've had to let a lot if my desire to plan things go with LOs.
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I think sometimes life circumstances can make it really hard not to be type A, because the workplace is built around zero flexibility. When I was in grad school, my major research university did not offer maternity leave to graduate students. All they offered was to take a medical leave of absence, but then you would lose your university-subsidized housing (which was really necessary, because the very low stipend was not enough to live off campus), the contribution to your health insurance, and of course your stipend...And add to that the very common stigma in academic fields that serious career-oriented women don't have children, so there really was no sympathy... It was incredibly rare for people to have kids in graduate school - especially in lab sciences - and the only ones who could effectively swing it financially were people who's partners had a lucrative enough job to cover health insurance, housing, etc during a medical leave of absence, or else those who managed to arrange teaching obligations during only part of the year, for which timing really mattered. I'm sure there's very talented people who were turned away because of how family/female unfriendly the whole process is...I guess just to say it's not just a matter of letting go and not being type A... that is a lot easier or harder depending on your employer, family situation, etc. So essentially I don't have much insight, I'm not very type A about it anymore because my work situation is less rigid, so the consequences of timing not working out as hoped are less severe in terms of the financial, etc consequences...
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@lemondrop: Ditto this.
And after taking 10 months to conceive DS1, a miscarriage, 5 months to conceive DS2 and then another miscarriage it has really been hammered into me.
I've learned to accept the fact that none of it is in my control and trying to organize my life around something so unpredictable is impossible.
I have also just moved my Type A personality to other aspects of my life not having to do with getting pregnant or raising my children
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I was type A until I had a baby. You just can't be with kids. Life's more enjoyable now that's for sure!
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@lemondrop: couldn't have said it better myself!
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I have to take a step back and remember to live. We have plans for different scenarios. We are both planners and it helps us feel better. lol We decided to ttc a little earlier, but we made a plan for that as well. lol I had my son during my last semester of grad school. We will try for baby #2 before I start school again.
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I agree with pretty much everything @catlady: said. If you're Type A, figure out hypothetical timelines, and when you're ready, go all in.
Loss & infertility didn't force me to "let go" of being type A. Being Type A just means I think of lots of different scenarios and make some basic plans for each. And it comes easily and naturally, all this planning, and makes me feel more at peace.
I had three personal "goals" I needed to do before TTC: We bought a house, I finished grad school, and my short term disability insurance kicked in. I knew about all three of these "dates" about a year or two in advance so we knew we would start TTC July 2014. So I had a target "start" date, but not "end date".... you just can't know. I went off BC in April 2014 and started tracking my cycles. We got pregnant the 2nd cycle, but lost that one, and then my cycles went wonky and both DH & I were diagnosed with infertility issues. We got pregnant on our first try of Clomid and it worked and baby stayed (yay!).
Basically, I'm of the opinion that you can't plan when to get pregnant, but you CAN plan how and when to TTC, and/or when to take fertility meds. You can't plan if the baby will be staying, but you can plan when to announce/share. You can't plan if the baby will have health issues, but you can plan to get testing to not get testing, and learn. You can't plan when you'll go into labor, but you can plan different ways of handling the different scenarios. You can't plan how your birth will go, but you can learn about multiple scenarios and decide what you feel comfortable with beforehand.
And, with all it, plan that you might change your mind!!
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I was and am super type A. I think if we'd planned for a baby it might not have ever happened because I would've overthought it to death trying to find the BEST time. Lucky for us we got pregnant unexpectedly-- at what I would have called the worst possible time. My husband was still in night school + working full time, I was in a job I hated and then ended up losing that job at 41 weeks pregnant, just a few days before I delivered. My family was still far away (they'd been planning to and did eventually move to our city but we'd hoped to wait until they were here). I was finally in a good place with starting to care about my health and exercise but had wanted to lose more weight before we tried.
But then I was pregnant.
And I wouldn't change anything. I'll never know how things might have been different if we'd had a baby at an "easier" time-- if a time can ever really be easy with a newborn. I do know that our daughter is 2 now and none if it matters. She's perfect, we're great, it all worked out. And if we'd gotten pregnant at a different time we'd have a different kid.
So go ahead and plan if you want to. But at some point just make a decision and roll with it. No matter what, it will be hard and wonderful and exactly what it was supposed to be.
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I am super type A. I knew when we were going to TTC and preemptively rearranged my work load around my future leave. Got pregnant, miscarried, got pregnant, miscarried, and then finally got pregnant again. My due date was the worst time in my career. A 5 year project was coming to a major point and I'd be on leave and miss iman assignment I really wanted. You know what happened? There were a few delays and I had my baby 12 hours after an 8 week project break occurred. There's no way I could have planned it, but it was ideal. I got my dream assignment anyway.
My advice is not to stress. Once you are pregnant, you have tons of time to prepare. You don't know if you'll have an easy pregnancy or a hard pregnancy and if you'll have an easy newborn or a hard newborn. I never expected the challenges we had, but have worked through them.
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I'm in the camp where you can't plan for when a soul joins your family. I'm Type A, but we ended up needing 3 years to have our son and that was with two losses and a brain tumor diagnosis requiring surgery and a year to recover - nothing you can plan for. And when we did get pregnant it was totally improbable and unexpected. And the pregnancy itself was a roller coaster. And then I had a crazy birth and hospital stay that included NICU. And even after DS was born he was a sh!tshow of a newborn. Basically he was terrible until he was like 4 months old.
THAT SAID, there's plenty of time to be a Type A mom. DS ended up being like his parents and thrives on a schedule. DH and I were happy to oblige and we basically lived and died by DS' infant nap and feeding schedule (and pretty much still do). As he's gotten older we've set up routines and schedules and systems that give everyone in the family a lot of predictability and regularity and we are all really happy that way. I have menu plans, set chores, and plenty of junk to research. For instance we have been on an 18 month wait list for daycare for LO2 since I was 11 weeks pregnant (another total surprise pregnancy) and apparently I have to get ready for a 2am Thunderdome line waiting experience next February when registration opens for DS1's preschool.
Basically, as a Type A person you "try" to control what you can, realize you largely can't, and then gleefully micromanage what you CAN (mmm, label makers + toy bins). And try to enjoy your kid in the meantime!
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I had big type A plans for having kids. Then I got pregnant by accident while I was still writing my dissertation and not yet working full time. I again made type A plans for baby 2...and then it took 6 months to get pregnant and just when I thought I wouldn't get pregnant anytime soon and so i made a job change - that's when I got pregnant!
I learned that babies don't let you plan, they mess with your plans (from conception to forever) and it always works out in the end :).
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I am the definition of type A. I thought I had some control over when I would get pregnant but turns out there is no such thing. I put so much pressure on myself to get pregnant, and it took forever. Finally once I gave up after 13 Cycles I got pregnant by some miracle. I hate to say this but you really can't plan on getting pregnant, just let your body do its thing!
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"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans" - John Lennon
I'm a planner, you should see my calendar set up. when we TTC our first I had it all planned out when i would come off medications, talk to HR, come off BC, temping, go crazy knocking boots. We were going to have an october baby and i would take 12 weeks FMLA and go back to work in the New Year. It was going to be perfect. one month before we were going to pull the goalie, my husband got laid off. Luckily, it only took him 2 months to find a new position. We got pregnant in January and I was due in October. Everything was according to plan. Baby came 2 weeks early NBD. It was great, I patted myself on the back for planning everything and willing it to all work out.
Fast forward a few years, we decide we want to move before we TTC #2. My body hates being on BC so i get off the pill. We're temping and being really careful. We list our house for sale and wait and wait and wait. Finally we have a buyer, now we have to find a house, we tour 57 houses. and come up empty. its saturday morning another busy day of house hunting, "where's my period?" "oh no what have we done?!?" So here I sit 6 weeks pregnant with a EDD of 1/5/17 knowing that my luck i'll have this one on christmas day. We move out of our house in 5 weeks and in with my parents for another 6 weeks before we'll even get the keys to the new house. We hired movers, I can't help lift, can't paint, can't nest. Its going to be one crazy rollercoaster, but it is what it is. I can't send it back, we wanted a baby - we'll do our best and amend and adjust our plans and expectations as needed.
and you will too, there are just somethings that are out of our control. I might be in the hospital and miss my 3 year olds christmas morning. I'll be sad, and it will suck but it will be exciting because she'll get a brand new Sibling as a christmas present and for years to come it will be a part of our family story.
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Pretty much what calady said.
I'm pretty Type A, but so much so that I use my Type A-Ness to plan for "buffers" and different scenarios including the scenarios where I can't plan. Lol.
Even before I was pregnant, I created a hidden registry for items I wanted. I kept abreast of the prices and scoped out deals.
When I was about 6 weeks, I purchased a car seat and stiller system because it was a great price. Same with a chunk of a cloth diaper stash.
I stagger my planning. If I hit a "milestone" I'm allowed to move forward with my plan. Otherwise I try to control the factors I have influence over to make it happen.
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I would say I am type A. I really never thought it would take this long for me to get pregnant. I know my cycles so well, I know when I'm ovulating, my cycles are like clock work. But here we are 9 months later and I'm not pregnant yet.
I have planned for a lot but I have also tried hard to scale back a bit. I'm worried that if I go in too far with the planning, I'll jinx things and it won't happen. I have a list of books I want to read the second I get that BFP though. I have ideas for a nursery.
As for when the kids come though, I'm confident that I will be more "go with the flow". From everything I've read, I think you just have to.
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Hi! I am a working mom of one with one on the way and I am working 3-4 days a week at a non-academic job while I am getting my PhD.
I got pregnant during the fall semester and will have baby #2 in July/August. I have a two year old daughter who I had 3 months after finish my masters in my field. I will go back to taking one class in the Fall (maybe two) if I am feeling great and a full break from work for about 10-12 weeks.
My life is very not normal and I have to work really hard but I am type A so that's not a struggle. Struggles are energy and worries about my children (and my spouse). I have a very supportive spouse but he gets burnt out sometimes with how much I need him to do and we occasionally have our struggles.
I would be happy to talk to more! I am basically doing a crazy thing having little kids while in the middle of my PhD coursework but its a night program for lots of working folks so its not unusual to go at a slower pace.
I'm generally a planner and pretty type A, but after having my first, I've learned to let a lot of things go when it comes to kids. This is just the first lesson of many that you can't plan too far ahead, your plans usually get adjusted, if not completely changed, and your pregnancy and then child is different every few months, and thus your lifestyle is different!
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