Deciding TTC: Tossing Out The 5-Year Plan

Now that I'm out about my pregnancy, I feel an overwhelming urge to get everything that has happened so far recorded.  So, I guess I should start at the beginning, the very beginning.  I wish I could say that we came to the conclusion that we should start TTC for a better reason, but in all honesty, we decided to start because I got laid off.  I know, seems like a great time to make a baby, right?!?!  Not sure why, but it made sense at the time.

Pink slip season was upon us and my school district was broke, so I was expecting to get a pink-slip, but I wasn't at all worried.  I'd gotten a pink slip the year before, and basically all it said was that I may get laid off, but really, they didn't think it would actually happen.  There were several versions of the pink slip, and I'd gotten the "good pink slip".  Yes, thats what they called it.  That was what I was expecting this year. 

On March 13th, the doorbell rang and a very unenthusiastic postal worker greeted DF.  The state requires that all California teachers be notified of any potential layoff for the folllowing year by no later than March 15th, but they traditionally come the Saturday before via certified mail.  By 9:30 am, she'd already delivered several, mostly to teachers who had no idea they were coming.  

I opened mine, and to my shock, the pinkslip read "WE WILL NOT BE NEEDING YOUR SERVICES NEXT YEAR."  I guessed this was the "bad pink slip". 

I panicked.  This was beyond bad. California was laying off over 20,000 teachers, and I was one of them.  Because of the massive number of laid off teachers in the area, it was highly unlikely that I'd be teaching next year.  No one would be hiring.  To make matters worse, umeployment was well over 10% in our area, meaning that even looking for a non-teaching position would likely not land me a job either.  The worst part was that this was the first job that I actually enjoyed, and I had no idea what it would be like to be anything other than a teacher.

DF, the fantastic man that he is, calmed me down by helping me crunch numbers, and figure out how much I'd make on unemployment.  He calculated and explained that we'd be just fine if we started cutting back on some of our expenses. 

We'd also been talking about having a baby for a long time.  In fact, we were nearing the end of a 5-year-plan that started soon after we started dating.  We knew we were serious, and started talking marriage and babies very early on.  Me, I would have just said we should get married and start making babies and figure out the rest later, but DF's a planner.  According to him, we had a lot to do: getting my teaching credential, securing a job in the area, paying off our massive credit card debt, and getting married.

We were in year 4 of the 5 year plan, which was the engagement/wedding phase.  Year 5, the 2010/2011 school year,  was working/saving as much as we could while TTC.   After completion of the 5-year-plan, I'd be a SAHM for the next year or two, before returning to my job as a teacher. 

DF suggested, that since I wouldn't be working, maybe we'd ammend the 5-year-plan and start TTC a little early.  It somehow made sense at the time, and I knew I could continue to look for work while TTC, and according to everything I'd been reading and hearing from friends, it takes awhile to actually get pregnant, so the new plan sounded good, but not too scary. 

I'd ordered my birth control from Kaiser several days before.  In the 10 years that I have been on the pill, and in the countless years that I have been having all my prescriptions mailed to the house, this is the only one that has ever not shown up.  No more birth control... maybe it was a sign.

Time to make a baby.