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I grew up in a wonderful home and my goals in life have always been to provide that kind of home to my own family - comfortable, loving and grateful (just to name a few things). I've wanted kids since I was a sixteen. Plain and simple. I graduated high school and went to college with the plan to find a man and to have babies. My friends joked that my degree would be baby-making. When that didn't happen I moved back to my home town with my roommate (hi Renee *waves*) and worked. Surely, I would find my partner in baby making soon....
Well it took a while but my Man finally showed up.
But as it often happens, we were on different schedules. I was 25 and 5 years behind, he was 25 and not even thinking kids yet. I was expecting an engagement in a year, he was not too sure about that. All my friends were getting married and having kids already, he was in a serious relationship while his friends were all still single.
Once we got engaged we had to seriously talk about the baby stuff. He wanted to wait until 30, I wanted to start right away. But like you have to do in marriage and life, we comprised. So the plan was to wait two years. Two years of just us but the still early enough to have at least one child by 30.
The closer we got to our two year anniversary the more he started to break down. He started stressing out and I really think he questioned his life overall and maybe us for a few brief seconds. But the closer I got the more excited I became. The time I have so patiently and responsibly waited for was drawing near. Almost everyone of my friends have kids and some are working on number two (or three, sigh, or four). I'll never forget the time I had a small breakdown I had in the living room crying, no bawling my eyes out to him because my (future) babies would have no one to play with because everyone else would have babies that would be too old. This was a very low point for me.
Probably a year or more til our anniversary, he told me - "When we start trying, don't tell me please. I don't want to know. I just don't know if I can do it if I really know we're trying."
This was hard for me to hear but he said it over, and over, and OVER, and over again. In a way I understood this, but he made it clear that this was my 'thing'. The kid thing was all me and what I wanted. I know a lot of it was fear and would go away but at the end of the day it worried me. Don't get me wrong, I never thought he would go running out the door, but he's my person, my person to talk to. How was I going to handle the stress of 'trying' and not be able to talk about it?
I would talk to friends about these feelings and a few worried for me and others said, don't worry he'll come around when its time. And I knew this, I really did, but fear and doubt can be strong.
So, I'll admit those two years were very, very hard at times. Here I was happily married so why couldn't we just jump the gun, try a little earlier? But a deals a deal and we waited.
Anyways, as expected we hit our two year mark and I kept my lips sealed. I ordered extra BC because I had a lapse of fear and thought about waiting a bit longer. But in the end I stopped taking them a week before our anniversary. And since then we've been trying....
But that's not all. This (unexpectedly) long post is not just about our thoughts and history. It really boils down to this little fact - Today I just realized something. It creeped up on me and I didn't even know it. My husband, my baby-making partner is right next to me in all of this. He's been listening to me and trying to understand these last few months. He wants to know where we are in the month and he is encouraging. He is trying to be considerate of my feelings and is talking about how we'll just try again next month. There might be fear still there but its our fears now and its 'us' trying. It's a we thing.
I love him so much! And am so proud to hold his hand and call him mine.
