Day one

"What if I didn't know I was pregnant?" I asked my husband late one night while having a drink, "What if I ended up pickling our kid by having too much to drink?"
My husband laughed. "You know you're not pregnant, so why are you asking?"
"I dunno." I shrugged, "I'm just saying, what if I got pregnant and didn't know it? I don't want to pickle our kid!"
He laughed even harder. "You're not going to pickle our kid! You hardly even drink as it is!"
"I just want a happy healthy baby, not a pickle!"

And so the nickname was started. Pickle--the placeholder name for our future baby. After many discussion and research, my husband and I have decided to try and conceive a baby so that, by November 2010, we'll be giving birth to a beautiful new baby! So as a way of logging my experience of preparing for parenthood, I have decided that from today until December of 2010, that about 442 days (a little over a year), I will be keeping a regular blog about planning for Pickle.

Why start blogging now? Well, timing wise, we have a little over 5 months before we start trying for a baby. So within those 5 months, I have to start preparing my body. I have about 20lbs to shed to be at a healthy starting weight, and I have a terrible caffeine addiction to kick. And lastly, I have to somehow wrap my head around the idea that I am going to be a mom. The idea both thrills me...and it terrifies me! In many ways I know I am ready, but I'm not so naive to think I'm going to be 100% ready for whatever little tricks Pickle may have up his/her sleeve.

So here we go! Day one in preparing for Pickle! I have already started a new diet yesterday with my attempts to eat balanced nutrition. I also started my workout plan of at least 30 minutes of cardio, which I'll be doing again later this evening. I have until the new year to drop 20lbs! Ouch! Right around the holidays...this is gonna suck! But from what I read, starting off at a healthy weight can increase chances of conception as well as decrease risk to the baby once I am pregnant. How is that for a good trade: pounds for Pickle!