Its no secret that my first pregnancy was a total honeymoon surprise. No type-A planning or checklists of any kind. However, once my EDD (estimated due date for you newbies) was revealed as May 8, 2005, I sure wanted to steer my delivery toward a super cool 05.05.05 birthday. And, no, it totally didn’t work.
Scheduling can take many forms, of course. There’s the “I don’t want to be pregnant for my trip to Jamaica” and the “I want to be in my party trimester during my best friend’s wedding” and the fully, crazy, impossible “I want my baby to be born on a certain date.”
So, it got me to wondering how many of you thought you could control the totally random miracle of conception (and gestation!) to plan a convenient pregnancy or perfect due date? And did it work?
That said, it’s probably time for you 11.11.11 folks to get going with your charts and strategic sex, right?
My son arrived waaaay past his due date to have a 7/7 birthday (not in 2007, though). No scheduling whatsoever.
Those photos of you guys are thoroughly amusing me. Totally awesome idea.
My husband is an accountant, so it was ironic that when we stopped using BC, we got pregnant WAY sooner than expected, and our baby was due April 15! Luckily Ella was 5 days late, so no conflict.
Once it’s time for a second, we’ll do some general planning around tax season, but nothing extreme.
The pictures are great!
I was a mid-April baby too — my mom likes to tell the story of how my father insisted that she sign the tax forms before he would take her to the hospital.
We didn’t try to schedule a day, but we did our best to schedule a time of year. My ideal baby-having window was between April and June, so that I’d have maternity leave in the warmer months and be able to spend time outside, instead of being stuck trudging through snow in a New England winter. We got a little impatient and the baby is due in mid-March.
We scheduled vaguely around finances. When was the earliest possible date that we could pay off debt and afford for me to stay at home? That was the earliest date we started. We have some new financial goals and when those are met, we will start TTC #2.
My only scheduling requirement was: not during the World Cup. So my son was born February 2007 (after the 2006 FIFA World Cup) and my daughter was born September 2010 (after the 2010 FIFA World Cup). I’m really hoping (planning?) that I will not be pregnant for the 2014 FIFA World Cup
I was hoping that my son would be born Feb. 1, since that’s the birthday of the soccer player (ahem…archangel, if my family is reading this) he was named after, but alas, he was born Feb. 10
We weren’t trying for any particular date with the first one, but we did use fertility awareness to increase our odds of conceiving (one very early miscarriage, and then pregnant again the very next cycle). Following that, we used fertility awareness to try to have the kids 1.5 years apart. We did as well as we could (considering that one doesn’t have control of when exactly cycles happen) — we had #2 when #1 was 19.5 months old. And #3 is due another 19.5 months after #2.
Now that you’ve mentioned it. I should be conceiving now if I want my kid to be born in an auspicious date. However, for my age, conceiving this month’s not going to give me a daughter. LOL!
My husband is an accountant so we made sure that our first two babies would not be due during his extreme busy season (jan/feb/mar).
Now he’s at a different job, but we were hoping to have this third baby after my BFF’s destination wedding in June and after my brother’s wedding in July… didn’t happen though! I’m due in March- just 2 months before I’m the maid of honor at my BFF’s wedding!
I love those pictures!! Such a cute idea.
Our only planning was geared at how far apart we wanted our kids. We were going to start trying after my daughter turned one, but decided to start a little earlier to time it with my cycle. So instead I found out I was pregnant the day before her birthday.
Wait a second @Carol, how can you plan which month to conceive for a girl or boy? How does that work?
YEP, we did it, and it totally worked. We decided to start trying for our first time in August (too shoot for a May baby) – I said to my husband, “okay, if we do it this weekend, I can take the pregnancy test on your birthday, wouldn’t that be cool? And I’d be due May 15th – A Taurus baby. We’re compatible with Taurus…” My friends thought I was nuts, and assured me it would take months to conceive. Sure enough, I took the positive pregnancy test on my husbands birthday labor Day weekend, and I am due May 15th with our first child – A boy (and a Taurus – if u believe in all of that crap…lol…Hooray for anal retentive family planning!)
And @Heather – the particular months yielding a boy or a girl thing – its the Chinese astrological calendar thingy – based on your astrological age, conceiving in certain months will give you a boy or a girl. (note – that didnt work for us – supposedly a 32 yr old conceiving in August would have a girl. Mine’s a boy!)
You can play around with it here: http://www.chinese-tools.com/astrology/birth-prediction.html
A few days after my due date I totally tried to get labor going so that my son would have an 8-4-92 birthday. I thought 8-4-2 had a nice ring to it. (And yes, that’s 1992, not 2002. I’m far from a new mom, but love your site!). Anyway, I walked up and down the halls for HOURS and ended up with a ridiculously long labor and a son born on August 5th. Best laid plans…
We struggled to get pregnant and finally had IVF. I am *so* grateful that we had this option (and that I now have 2 beautiful children as a result), but there are no surprises with IVF. Daily blood draws and ultrasounds disclose how many follicles are growing and estrogen and other hormone levels every day. I knew exactly how many eggs were retrieved, how many were fertilized and how many were transferred. And because pregnancy is monitored so closedly, exactly 14 days later I knew if I was pregnant and my EDD. Planning? Only what my doctor ordered!
@Daina, my conceptions were also planned (with military precision as I like to say) but only based on ovulation, not on the outcome date!
Since we’re neither teachers nor accountants, and we live in California, there was no time of year that would be better than any other.
Like @RookieMom Heather, once my daughter was given an EDD of 07/07/07, I really wanted that to happen, but she had her own ideas and was Born On The Fourth Of July.
All I cared about with baby #2 was that she or he be born in the summer. I aimed for May and got July (she was born 7/17/07). Two more months of trying and I would have put our baby-making plans on hold for a few months.
We live in Chicago, after all.
I am a teacher, so we went of BC planning for sometime around the beginning of the summer, in order to maximize the semester I planned to take off. As to the exact date, eh, who cares. I was kind of hoping the kiddo would come a bit before the due date so could get out of finals week (aka babysitting for a bunch of kiddos that put down random answers on their test sheet as quickly as possible then want to goof off for the rest of the hour) but alas, our son didn’t arrive until the week after his due date. I actually traveled 4 hours away ON my due date in order to attend my brother-in-law’s high school graduation and see all the out-of-town family. My DH was sooo freaked out about that, but no worries in the end!
Our baby girl was due on our anniversary. I told her that she should come a different day please. She was born the day before. Very thoughtful baby.
I’m a teacher and while we weren’t aiming for a specific date we thought it’d be great to have our baby in march/april which would give me just enough time to take the rest of the school year off and be back in the fall with at least a 4 month old baby. We conceived before we even knew it and had our baby girl in late March over our spring break vacation, how’s that for timing?
LOVE the matching pics of you 2. Such a cute idea!
we planned both of ours for the spring… though not specific dates. luckily it worked both times
i was due 07/09/09 and i REALLY hoped i’d have a baby on 07/08/09…too bad he wanted to keep cooking until 07/17! that extra time felt like an ETERNITY.
Yes, as a teacher we thought it would be swell to have our baby in late April/early May in order to maximize maternity leave with summer vacation. Well…it took longer to get pregnant than we expected and our daughter had an October 10th due date (no, not 2010). I not-so-secretly hoped that she would arrive on my birthday (10/08), but her plans were to make an early appearance on September 20th. I panicked that morning as labor started, not because I was worried about delivery, but because I didn’t have a substitute. I quickly refocused and it all worked out. My fall baby meant that I could extend maternity leave through the holidays and not miss as many instructional days.
We’d still like to “plan” to have number 2 with the april/may time frame in mind.
I didn’t plan a specific month, but I did spend hours going over calendars and searching the internet with pro-con lists trying to decide what the best month was to have a baby. I finally decided on April with a March-May buffer. Anyway, we got pregnant in July and now my baby girl is due this April 19! It helps to not be too committed to a certain date, but I was definitely a planner.
I’m a teacher too and I wanted a summer baby so I could spend time with her and not use all my maternity leave (unpaid). She was born June 2. Perfect!
My daughter wasn’t planned. However, my parents wanted me to be born 6 months from Christmas. I was born early and missed 6 months from Christmas by 3 days. Guess that’s what two engineering PhDs do when planning their first child!
My son was planned… we started in January, in hopes that he would be born Oct/Nov. We agreed December is too crazy with xmas & my bday and we wouldn’t try again until after April. He was conceived on Leap Day in Feb and EDD was 11/18/08… I went into labor on 11/11 (veteran’s day) and prayed he’d make his grand appearance before midnight, since being a veteran I thought it would make a special day for me, even more special! a day that we could share. No luck… he was born 11/12/08 at 3 in the morning.
We love him all the same!
We had been ttc for a few months when I did a quick calculation and told my husband we had to stop for a few months. It was November and I did not want to be 9 months pregnant in August. I guess I did my calculating a day or two too late. Our daughter was born August 31st.
We didn’t plan it at all but my husband I conceived on 09/09/09. And the magic moment happened around 10:39 so that’s 9/9/9 at 9:99. The OCD in me loves that!
We went through IVF. I HATE the heat of the summer, so I knew I did NOT want to be in my 3rd trimester during the summer…the egg transfer was done on 7/21, so her due date was 4/13 (which happened to be a Friday the 13th) – she was born on 4/5 (which is the date my aunt/mom’s sister died in a car crash in 2001, so it made the day happy again instead of sad). It wasn’t 4/5/6, though -that would have been cool!
I planned mine around the seasons. I thought it would suck to be huge and pregnant in the hot summer so I aimed for a spring birthday and ended up with a baby born in late spring. So it worked out but what i didn’t understand was that having a tiny baby clinging to you in the hot summer was also very hot and sticky.
But it was nice to be able to be outdoors with a small baby anyway and seemed better than being stuck inside due to cold and rain.
It didn’t work for us… I’m a teacher, and I thought it would be nice to have a baby in Sept, and then take the rest of the year off. That would have given me almost a whole year off with my son. It took us 7 months to get pregnant, and I ended up having my son on Valentine’s Day. It actually worked out better that way, because I was sicker than a dog during my first trimester, which ended up happening over summer vacation!
I had a very hard time getting pregnant, so schedule was definitely a luxury I could not afford.
My pregnancy was planned, but we didn’t plan for a particular birth month. My daughter was scheduled to be born in December but came out in early October near our wedding anniversary. Next time, I’m going to plan for a summer baby in case I have another premie.
I wish I could schedule it, I am due 2/26/11 and my Mom’s 60th birthday is 2/27! My husband really doesn’t want our child to share a birthday with his Grandma. But I love to joke that I know exactly what to get my Mom for her birthday… a grandson!
@Michelle B., my brother, dad, and grandpa all shared a birthday within one day. Growing up, it seemed normal to me.
Hearing my grandma tell it, it sounds like it was too much partying after grandpa’s birthday that had my dad arrive so quickly. That, and the tractor ride.
My husband is a football coach so my rule is NO football season babies. Our window is always February to May and we have two February babies!
Yeah planned to have a baby in July/ had him 6 wks. early. What a great surprise!!!! Telling my husband the night before that we still had a few things left to do in babies room……
Planned baby number 2 to have in July/ had her in July but barley made it to the hospital. She was born in 7 min. w/ no doctor there. Just 2 nurses and my husband. wow!!
My first was born on 12/3 and my second was born on 4/5. This was completely not planned; both children were born naturally, on their own time and not on their due dates. We are, however, hoping to shoot for 6/7 on baby #3. Not likely but we can wish.
Well, my parents never planned to have children, the 3 of us were all accidents. We are each born 2 years apart, born in May, June, and July. In that order.
To top it off, I am the oldest, born the day before my grandmother’s birthday. My brother, born in June, has his birthday the day before our uncle’s. My youngest brother, the July baby, is the only one of us not to have a birthday to pair a relative. I have decided to rectify this.
My husband and i became preggers with our first quite by accident in early fall. I was told that with a tipped uterus and a bad thyroid that leads to irregular cycles that conception might take a year.
I was off BC for a month.
Anyway, my baby brother will be greeting his first nephew in July. The 6th. If the date holds. You just cant plan this sort of thing.
My Mom and her siblings are all born on the 26th of different months- May 26, July 26, and October 26-each 2 years apart. I’ve always thought that was pretty cool.