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Update: My Latest Plan
So, I had a chance to talk to DH about repatriating in September 2013 on the way to Paris this weekend (captive audience, haha) He said that sounded like a reasonable timeline and I was thrilled. Thinking of starting our life together at home makes me really happy and excited...
Then, later on I made the mistake of showing him my timeline in paper form (on year calendars) and I got the whole wishy-washy "Well its such good money here" "Europe has that magical charm of cobble stone streets and old buildings I never feel in America" "Going home will be so boring compared to life here"
Ugh, Men!
Now I am facing the once-a-year agony of adding maternity coverage or not. DH sounds like he would be on board if we decide to have a baby in Belgium, but the practical side of me is like NO WAY b/c then we would not have the baby time excuse to get us to go home, settle, and buy a house (which are all my goals). We need more support than we have here to have a baby, and we never know how long our contracts would be. Its easy for us to just up and move, no problem - but to do that to our baby? Make them face 8 hour flights to go see the grandparents, transport of all baby's stuff back to the USA, it all seems a bit much. Also, I do not know enough French, nor have the desire to learn it to really be able to take care of baby here - what if they got hurt and I could not communicate with the doctors?
But for some reason, thinking about not being covered to even have the OPTION to have a baby until Feb 2013 just makes me feel SAD 
Any advice?
P.S. Sometimes I am just as wishy-washy as DH about wanting to go or stay - when I was making all my plans, I was excited but also a little bit sad to leave. It will be a lot different at home, but I really do not want to stay here forever. I guess I will just hang on to my loose timeline of Sept 2013 being the goal. If we get to the beginning of 2013 and want to keep staying, we can stay.
We're headed to the Maldives on Christmas Eve!
Re: Update: My Latest Plan
Cobblestone is charming! But could you maybe sit the difference, go home toward the end of the year, say, Oct? At that point, maybe start trying for a baby. Best case, it'd be born in jul, plenty of time to re-settle. And if it takes a couple months, well, at least you've started mid/late 12 v not at all til 13.
GL
I hate auto correct. Makes me more illiterate than normal. Anyway, what I meant to say was even if it takes a while to get pg, if you start in oct '12 that's a significant head-start on just starting to try in Feb 13.
Ok, while that may be slightly more coherent, keep in mind my "kid" is in my siggy block, so I'm hardly an authority!
Sorry girls, I never meant to offend anyone. I did mean to put myself through it more than to put my baby through it. DH wants one more year of just us - he thinks being married for 2 years with no kids is a very good thing.
For me personally - painfully shy, horrible at French, and a constant worrier - it's much easier for me to have kids in America instead. We'll just have to see where we are in Feb 2013...
We're headed to the Maldives on Christmas Eve!
I really really hope I'm not coming off mean, as I don't want that, but really, you need to stop planning and start enjoying!
Start enjoying your life in Belgium as long as you're there. Stop trying to plan for a house and a ife in the US which you don't have yet - and YH might not even want. You'll need to work together on that, figure something out that you both want. From what you've been posting here, it seems like you're trying to force what you want upon him and never consider what you want together, or what he wants.
also, maybe the most important. Who knows when or if you'll have children. You might have a goal to have them by x-date, but really, you can't just plan to have kids. You can totally plan to avoid having them, but planning when they come just doesn't work that way. You've seen all the siggies here, the stories on here of other women TTC and having a hard time with it. If you're going to try to plan and change your life around having children, you might actually end up missing out on life.
What if you move back to the US to buy a house and start a family and then find out you can't.
I really really don't want to be a downer here, but life doesn't always go according to plan. When I was 20 I had a 5, a 10 and a 15 year plan, I'm 32 now and some of my plans for when I was 25 still haven't happened, some of my 35y/o plans already happened when I was 25. It's called life.
If you want to have the option of having children in the coming year or 2, add the maternity coverage to your insurance. If you're sure you don't want to start having babies until you're back in the US, don't add it until you have a plane ticket in your hands. And please, please try to make your life as awesome as possible and make a possible future child an awesome addition to your fabulous life, instead of having your so-so life become miserable because things and babies don't happen according to your pre-set timeline.
Sorry this is so long, and again, please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to be mean. I've just seen too many relationships/lives ruined due to excessive planning which didn't work out.
My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DI'm not trying to be snarky, butI see a lot of "my" instead of "our" in your posts. If you really want to have a baby, that is something you have to communicate with your husband about. Just because you make plans, it doesn't mean he'll always be on board.
Babies are stressful to even the best marriages, and if you're not happy with the way it's going now, you're definitely not going to be happy if your baby plan is realized and your H isn't in the same place emotionally.
Another thing - don't try to rush your life in Belgium. Enjoy all of it before you get straddled with an child. Travel as much as you want before it happens, because babies are EXPENSIVE.
I agree with NLFoodie and bananas. Can I ask why you want a baby so badly in a time when you're free to travel and enjoy? Are you feeling your biological clock ticking or do you feel like you're missing something in life? If your H isn't on board, then you two really need to talk about this. It sounds like you're really pushing him to TTC when its the last thing on his mind.
Also, stop with the planning. You'll find yourself so disappointed in life when your expectations aren't met. It's important to know what you want and when you want things, but you're setting yourself up for failure and disappointment, and it seems, resentment and resistance from your H.
I agree with what everyone above me said. Stop planning! Especially for 2013. These constant updates for approval of your plans is getting a tad annoying.
I won't tell you to stop planning like the others, its just in some people's natures. I know DH and I have five year plans and one year plans and ten year plans. It's just who we are. They change constantly but it works for both of us to have them as something to look forward to, to work towards, just to know that maybe something better is on the horizon if we're not feeling particularly happy about our situation at the moment. Yes, maybe it is better to stop and enjoy the roses but not everyone works that way. And I don't think being concerned about being in a different country or not knowing the language are silly, either. They certainly would be concerns for me and many people. The IN life is not for everyone and it comes with its own unique challenges. If you don't think it would be the right choices for your family there is no shame in that!
I do agree, however, that two years married without kids could be nice. I sometimes wish we'd done it that way. Our oldest was born 13 months after we got married and while I wouldn't change him for the world I do think sometimes "wow, it could have been nice to have more time as just us first" when life is particularly stressful. I also agree that if your DH is not on the same page about when to start a family you need to respect that. It is a BIG decision and not one to be entered into lightly, but I am sure you know that already.
DH and I are planners - when we go on a trip, we have books and spreadsheets and plans and tickets for everything. When we got married, we had a plan for where we were going to live and have kids and everything. Obviously, we didn't plan on loving Scotland so much we're still here, but besides that, we do tend to do things on time.
However... obviously I'm super sensitive about this right now so it took me a bit to respond - but most people can't plan on when they have kids. Like PP said, you can plan when NOT to have kids, but not when to have kids. I understand wanting to have a certain kind of life before bringing children into the picture, but you can't assume that everything will go to plan.
It really does sound like you and DH have entirely different ideas about where you're going. None of us can really weight in on your decisions, so I really think that you guys need to sit down and have a proper conversation about it, not while on a plane. Figure out, at bare minimum, where you guys want to live and go from there.
And I was born in a country my parents just happened to live in at the time and (G-d willing), will have a child in another country and I don't have a problem with any of it. Almost anything can be dealt with, it's just a matter of being flexible.
BFP Apr 2012, EDD Dec 19 2012 * twin h/b at 6wk, 9wk scan * Baby A lost at 12wks, Baby B was my rainbow born at 36wks