Letters to myself

Yesterday my husband and I were eating dinner and I went on an all out venting rant to him. Not about him, but about my anxiety about my life changing so much once we do get pregnant. All of my friends have children and I've watched the transformation many times over the last few years. Some seem to keep more of their old lifestyle than others, some are more bound to a schedule than others, and some get more sleep than others. As we get further and further into this journey of trying to conceive  the more I find myself getting anxious. I don't want to be one of those parents that can't do things because my children have to be home at 5:47 pm sharp to lay down for a nap. I understand that I have no idea what it is like to have children, but I've seen nap time completely transform lifestyles and I am scared of that. The other day as I slept in until 9:30 I thought to myself, "there's no way this will happen for at least 13 years once we have a child". It scared me. I like my lifestyle. My husband and I have a wonderful relationship and I can't help but think that once we have a child our time together will be stretched and become all about changing diapers, feedings and who gets to sleep that night. 

As I'm venting this all out to my husband he simply said, "write your future self a letter reminding yourself of all these things and if you ever get stuck in these things I will tell you to read the note". It was a light bulb moment for me. I'm now in the process of writing two letters to myself, one about how much we long to have a baby and the struggles we are dealing with daily trying to conceive and the other about how much I don't want to be a scheduled mom. Both will get tucked away somewhere special for when the time comes when I may  need to read them. Just the process of writing the notes is making me feel better about things. This technique could work for so many situations in life. I remember writing down why I wanted to be a dental hygienist on our first day of classes. I went back to that tiny piece of paper in the front of my binder numerous times throughout school. I hope these notes will come in handy someday too!