To conceive or not to conceive? That is the question.

People warned me that, after having a baby, weight loss would be more difficult. Once again, I was extremely naïve and assumed it would not apply to me. I was wrong.

I have been disappointed with my progress on Weight Watchers. I assumed I could lose 25 pounds in three months like I did before I had Josh. It has been a month now and I am down a total of 7 pounds. Sounds great, right? Well, I lost 6 pounds the first week. I lost 2 pounds the second week. I lost 0 pounds in the third week and I gained 1 pound last week. That gives me a net loss of 7 pounds. At this rate, I’ll be back where I started in another two months!

What makes this struggle all the more stressful is that annoyingly loud, ticking biological clock. We want more kids and I am not getting any younger. I wanted to be at my “fighting weight” before starting to try for baby #2, but it feels unrealistic now. At this rate Josh will be married with his own kids before I can start on giving him a sibling, if I wait until I reach goal weight.

Dear Husband points out that, I was able to lose weight before and I will be able to do it again, whether it is before or after another baby. He has left the decision up to me as to when we start “trying” again. The core issue is, that I am worried about how long it will take to get pregnant again. If it happens right away, while a blessing, there goes the opportunity to drop some poundage. However, if I wait until after I lose weight, and it takes a long time to get pregnant again, will I kick myself for having waited so long?

See, this is where my need to have control, my being neurotic, comes into play. I want to know now what the right thing is here. I want some voice from heaven to proclaim the decision I should be making. There are always the voices in my head, but they can’t seem to agree here. The magic 8 ball has been no help either, it keeps telling me “reply hazy try again”- thanks for news flash there. I even resorted to flipping a quarter for the heads/tails option. I know you are not going to believe me but, it bounced on the floor and for the life of me I can’t find where it landed.

Since I am not getting any clear signs, for now, I am doing what I always do – procrastinating. I am putting of making the decision (which in essence means I am actually deciding to wait to try again). Each time I pop a birth control pill I agonize as to whether the decision is the right one. Each time I step on the scale, I feel like waiting isn’t such a bad thing. Each time I see a baby girl, I get misty eyed at the thought that I could have one myself, if I just tried. Each time I see a little girl stress about diet, I worry about the example I’d set for a daughter with my weight obsession and think it's a good idea to wait to conceive until I am more comfortable with my body.

The original quote I co-opted in my title, is from Hamlet. The phrase has been used and parodied by numerous people since the moment Shakespeare wrote it. The character of Hamlet is one I relate to, on the decision making level. Hamlet is unable to do, he is only able to be. He is incapable of making a difficult decision that he faces (though scholars debate what the nature of the decision was suicide or revenge). However, at the end of it all, what Hamlet believes in is “special providence”, a faith that God has the ability to sort out the messes in the world. That’s the same kind of faith I have too. Of course Hamlet is a tragedy, which ends with a huge bloodbath, so maybe he’s not the best example to choose for my indecisiveness.

Maybe I’ll just make the decision myself after all. I just need to go crawling around on the floor first, that quarter has got be here somewhere!