Neil and I just got home from three (technically four) days in Vegas. It was a less-Vegas-y Vegas trip than we've ever taken before. The first night, we were actually back to our room at 10:00. PM!

We went to the pool. We shopped. I went to the gym. Neil read the paper. We went to the movies every day we were there. We only gambled for a few hours each night, so we stayed out of the casinos most of the time. We're home now, and it did feel like a vacation and neither of us has the 48 hour Vegas hangover of old.

It didn't happen in Vegas, but something else has happened, something surprising. Neil and I are going to start trying for another baby in October. We're waiting until October so I can get the medicines I've been taking totally out of my system. I wasn't going to write about this, or even tell anyone - I guess out of superstition. And maybe I won't say it out loud to anyone besides Neil. The surprising part is that we know. We know this is the right time.

When I was pregnant this first time, we told everyone as soon as we found out. Then, we had to tell everyone when I miscarried. The second time, we didn't tell anyone. So, we had to tell everyone that I had been pregnant, and that I had miscarried again in the same conversation. The third time, we waited until I was 12 weeks, then we told people, but I never felt confident in the pregnancy until I was about 7 months along, and I didn't let anyone else really believe in it either . It didn't matter if people knew or didn't know. It happened and it happened again and then it didn't happen.

Neil and I were married for six years before we felt we were ready to have a baby. After four or five years, I started to wonder why I hadn't felt it yet...If I ever would. Then, suddenly, we both knew. There was no question. When I was pregnant with Hayden, and somewhat confident that we would make it to term, I remember being just so amazed at how wrong people are when they say there isn't ever a perfect time to start a family, or that you're never completely ready for it. For us, there was, and we were.

For the first year of Hayden's life, I didn't think much about having another baby. There was no rush, and we had planned on waiting a few years. When Hayden was 18 months, Neil started his MBA, and then it seemed only logical to wait until he was closer to being done. We decided we'd try at the end of the year. Christmas time came and went and we didn't want to get pregnant. We just kept pushing our date back further. I really started to wonder what was wrong with me and why I didn't want another baby. Then slowly, I started to feel a little more positive about it. We talked about it a little, but we were both ambivalent. That's where we've been the last few months. I don't know exactly when it happened, but that same certainty we felt almost 5 years ago settled upon both of us again. We are both ready and excited and sure.

I'm nervous to write about any of this, but my common sense knows what I say or type can't affect the things that will happen or won't happen in my body. I'm afraid I won't be able to get pregnant this time. I haven't had my period for three months now. I'm hoping my period comes back and I start ovulating, but I am making an appointment with my OB/GYN today to see about inducing my period, and there is the possibility of fertility medications to get me ovulating again. I'm afraid if I do conceive, that I will miscarry. That is the reality. What we went through before having Hayden seemed like the greatest injustice in the world at the time. It was the most pain I had ever felt. Looking back now, those were small, horrible bumps in the road that led to us being parents. It just happened that way and now we have the son we were supposed to have, and we are ready to face the uncertainty that will lead to the next part of our family. Whatever that is. Whenever that is.

We are ready for it.