Pre-baby Bucket List

ticktock0903

Good Morning ladies!!

So my wife and I are planning to ttc towards the end of the year. I am super gung-ho about it but I am having to rein in my excitement because I don't want to overwhelm her with my baby-mania. Over the weekend we decided to make a hers, mine, and ours pre-baby bucket list. Basically a list of what we wanted to accomplish both personally and together before we attempt to bring a little one into our world.

So what was/is on your pre-baby bucket list and do you have any neat suggestions preferably low cost....

YBnormal85

I had one of these, although most items weren't too fun haha. I had things like pay off my car and finally get my wisdom teeth taken out ( didn't want to deal w that while pregnant). DW and I also tried to do as many things we thought might be tricky when I was pregnant or when we had an infant. The one thing we didn't get to was to go roller skating with my sisters.but that is easy after baby comes. We rearranged some ofnthe furtniture we knew wed need to move to make babys room. I didnt want dw to be stuck doing it alone. We traveled a bit too. Hope that helps!

KH826

We did not have a pre-baby bucket list. However, there are some things that we did before we started TTC that I am really glad that we did:

• Traveled to Europe together (we had both been separately, but never together) - we went to Italy, Spain and France on our honeymoon. It was a fantastic trip!
• Did lots of heavy duty yard work that I did not want to do/worry about when pregnant
• Took several long weekend road trips, just because...
• This isn't really a bucket list item, but something I am really glad I did... I was a HUGE coffee drinker pre-TTC. I weened myself off of caffeine a full month before we started trying, so that I wouldn't have to deal with caffeine withdrawals at the same time as prepping for our first IUI. I am really glad I did this. Any changes to my diet, etc. I did a full month before we started so that I could get used to it and could just focus on the IUI when the time came to get started.

There are things that I wish we would have done/could have been able to do pre-TTC (such as pay off more debt, etc.), but that just didn't happen.

All in all, I wouldn't change anything, and truly there is nothing that we really want to do that we won't be able to find a way to do with a baby (might just take more planning, more time and more money to do certain things!). Just enjoy your time together and try to be in the best place emotionally that you can as an individual and as a couple before you embark on your TTC journey, because it can certainly be a roller coaster ride!

Good luck!

ticktock0903

See we have things like

1. Go on a Bahamas cruise
2. Take cooking classes together.
3. Take a few day trips
4. Get in better shape

valeriegp

I also reduced my coffee intake. I went to one cup of half caf a day during the TTC, then during each TTW it was easy for me to have decaf for that one cup. (But, I admit, for the 5 times that TTC didn't work, I went back to some caffeine during the non-TTW time!)

I didn't have a list or anything, but thinking back here's what I would have done:

1. Get a full dental check and any work done that  you need. Pregnancy can be hell on your teeth, so start in the best place possible.

2. Not only do heavy yard work, but also whatever state your yard is in, if you will be carrying, make sure it is easy to care for. That doesn't make much sense, but what I mean is this: I am the "landscaper" and I carried, and I was basically on strike for most of my pregnancy until this spring. I was just too tired and then, after my son was born, too tired and busy. He is now 15 months old, so you can guess how bad our yard looks after 2 years of minimal care.

3. Sleep. Nap. Nap. Nap. 

4. Binge on TV series. 

5. Eat lots of soft cheese! 

6. Save money for the process and the SPA if you need to do that.

redrockmama

We didn't have an official bucket list and like others ours wasn't very fun stuff.

1. Both finish grad school

2. Both have good jobs

3. Buy a house

4. We also decided to go on one last hurrah baby free vacation to Mexico

We had 5 years together with just the two of us before getting pregnant and it will be almost 6 by the time the baby gets here, so we've had a lot of time to be selfish and do whatever we want really. 

SweetPea0307

We totally had one of these. We had it on a list on my wife's phone. A couple examples:

• New job for me (did this. Got a job with more responsibility, not less like I had been thinking, but oh well, I'm happier)
• Travel to a spanish-speaking country (went to Colombia)
• Roof deck (this got rejected by the city )
• New floors (not yet)
• New storm windows (not yet)
• Motorcycle trip (did this. It was terrible, but cured my wife of her lust for a motorcycle)

We were like you in that we decided we were going to try to have a baby a year before actually starting to try. I have to say, I kind of wish we had just went for it right away, but at the time it seemed way too early.

ticktock0903

SweetPea0307 said:

Motorcycle trip (did this. It was terrible, but cured my wife of her lust for a motorcycle)

We were like you in that we decided we were going to try to have a baby a year before actually starting to try. I have to say, I kind of wish we had just went for it right away, but at the time it seemed way too early.

Love the motorcycle one! If it were solely up to me..we would probably be doing it right now as well but my wife wants to wait until the end of the year...and so we wait. But soon...very soon I hope.

SweetPea0307

Don't wait till too late in the year. Part of what made our trip a disaster was we did it in late October and it was so cold!

holdingThumbs

We just got back from a super romantic fancy-pants vacation, and at various points over the weekend, one of us would remark, "We couldn't do this with a baby!" - and then we would both roll our eyes in the "Yep, I'd happily give it all up to have a family" kind of way.

I assume most of our bucket list items would be met with that sentiment.

And funny, I put the kabash on S's motorcycle riding the day after our 1st anniversary.  My thought was that if something happened that first year that left her incapacitated cognitively or physically, it would be really sad, but not my problem.  After the 1st year, though, I would be a jackass to leave her.  Selfish, right?, but I would like several more decades together before we start changing each other's diapers.  

ticktock0903

Right now our big ticket item is a cruise to the Bahamas in Sept for our one year anniversary but we are planning several smaller things up until that point. We didn't get to have a honeymoon because of my military obligations at the time so my wife is really adament about us having a honeymoon of sorts before the baby journey begins.