Nick and I were married in June, 2005. We had known each other since March of 2002, when Nick came over to China for Spring Break, where I happened to be teaching. We hit it off well, teasing each other, and bonding over mutual dislike of coffee and ice cream. For the rest of the school year, we wrote pages and pages of emails to each other. When I came home for the summer, I kind of figured he would want to start dating...but then he didn't talk to me. I was a little disappointed, but also happy--I was not ready to start dating him. When I went back to China to teach for another year, and we really didn't talk much. He wrote a couple of emails while he was in school, and I remember him calling on my birthday, but nothing like that first few months. I just decided he was a nice friend to have.
At the end of the school year, I came back to the States for good, and Nick was still around. He was just graduating from college, and planned to hang around for the summer. We started spending time together as friends. I knew he wanted to be more than that--in fact, he asked if I would be his girlfriend twice. But each time he asked, I knew I wasn't ready. I wasn't attracted to him in that way, and I knew that if we started dating, it would be very serious. I felt like if I said yes to him, I wasn't just saying yes to dating--I was saying yes to getting married (he had made it clear that he didn't want to "casually date" anyone anymore). One day, after we had spent a few months just hanging out (he was very patient), I looked at him and saw someone that I hadn't seen before. It's like God opened my eyes to the perfect man for me, and he had been with me the whole time. The next 2 times he asked me to be his, I said YES!
I knew I didn't want to have kids right away. We had gotten married a little bit later than our friends (we were both 26), and a lot of them were having babies, but we didn't want to. Part of it was Nick's fear, but also--I wanted to be married to my best friend for a while. I knew I wouldn't have to worry about pressure from my parents--my mom and dad had me in their 5th year of marriage, so they understood the need to be together for a while. I wanted to be married; get to know my husband, and enjoy life with him.
The first couple years were hard, I won't lie. It's not easy to marry someone and start to form your whole life around this new stranger. No matter how much you know someone, you can't ever prepare yourself for that. I even remember one day getting so upset because I felt like after we got married, I lost myself. I told Nick, "I don't even get to keep my NAME! Do you know what that's like?" There were times that I asked myself, "Have you completely lost your mind? Why did you marry this man? He's completely confusing/irritating/not right for you!" But Nick was totally supportive of me the whole way, and tried to make it as easy on (this hysterical, crazy) me as possible.
I really love being married to him. Our first 4 1/2 years have been amazing. We did a lot of traveling together, bought a house, got 2 dogs, had job-changes for both of us, and settled into our lives together.
Now that we're trying to move on to this new phase of our lives, I could not be more thankful that we waited to have kids. We have several friends who (by choice or not) had kids pretty soon after they were married, and a lot of them feel like they lost out on something. Though, on the flip side, they'll get to retire and travel the world because their kids will be out of the house--and Nick and I will be dealing with teenagers! :)
I know in all of this, there's a chance that God won't bless us with kids. I know I'll be devastated, and that will take more healing than I can imagine being able to deal with right now. But, I can say for certain that I'm not hoping to have kids in order to glue our marriage together. I'm not using the kids as a new topic of conversation. I'm as crazy in love with Nick now as I was the day we got married--even more so, actually. We learn more about each other, and more about ourselves all the time, and even if we don't ever get to expand our family, we will continue to enjoy learning more and caring more for each other as long as we live.
And there's always adoption...
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tick, tock goes the baby clock... (round 1)
My husband is afraid of babies.
I know a lot of women say that, but with Nick, it's true. Whenever little kids/babies are around, he will move. And if he's unable to move seats completely, then he will lean as far away from them as possible--as if they are diseased or something.
I'm not sure where this comes from. He's never really been around babies. All of his brothers/sister are just a couple years younger than him, so he never had to take care of an infant sibling. He didn't live close to extended family, so no one in his family had babies for him to see. They didn't go to a big church with a nursery like I did. I guess it's just a bunch of contributing factors.
When Nick and I got married, it was very firmly established: yes to kids, no to right now. I always said, "We'll have kids when Nick stops being scared of them." I've always wanted kids. Lots of them. In fact, I am quoted as saying I wanted 8 children at one point (I'm a little more aware of what that means now). I was okay not having kids right away in our marriage. After all, I wanted to be married to Nick for a while first. Enjoy ourselves as a couple before starting a new life together. But after a couple of years, I started to hear the ticking of the proverbial clock. At our 3rd anniversary dinner, I asked Nick, "Are you ever going to want to have kids, or is this a decision I'm going to have to come to on my own?" When he asked what I meant, I explained, "Well, you going to change your mind someday, or am I just going to have to start popping my pills into the trash?"
I always wondered if maybe God would give us a "miracle baby" to help Nick along. You know--I'm still on the pill, but we get pregnant anyway? I have a few friends from school who this has happened to, so I wouldn't have been surprised. Though, after the discussion about the trash-pilling, I'm not sure Nick would ever believe it was an accident.
I was a faithful pill-popper, though. Ortho Tri-Cyclen. I started taking it about a year before we got married--not because I needed the fertilization protection. Nick and I didn't have sex until we were married. I've always had a bad acne problem (mostly on my back), and so I started taking it so that I would actually be able to wear a bathing suit in public without being completely embarrassed by my skin. I tend to be kind of forgetful sometimes, but for some reason, I never forgot about my pills. Probably because of the years I had such terrible skin--I didn't want to go back to that at any cost.
After that 3rd year, the ticking settled down a bit. Probably because we got another dog. I can tell already what it's going to be like with kids, though--pop one out, and about a year and a half later, you start wanting another one. When we got Waldo, he had so many health problems, it pretty much settled the kid thing down. Now Waldo's a year and a half, and healthy, and guess what.... Tick, tock (round 2)!
I know a lot of women say that, but with Nick, it's true. Whenever little kids/babies are around, he will move. And if he's unable to move seats completely, then he will lean as far away from them as possible--as if they are diseased or something.
I'm not sure where this comes from. He's never really been around babies. All of his brothers/sister are just a couple years younger than him, so he never had to take care of an infant sibling. He didn't live close to extended family, so no one in his family had babies for him to see. They didn't go to a big church with a nursery like I did. I guess it's just a bunch of contributing factors.
When Nick and I got married, it was very firmly established: yes to kids, no to right now. I always said, "We'll have kids when Nick stops being scared of them." I've always wanted kids. Lots of them. In fact, I am quoted as saying I wanted 8 children at one point (I'm a little more aware of what that means now). I was okay not having kids right away in our marriage. After all, I wanted to be married to Nick for a while first. Enjoy ourselves as a couple before starting a new life together. But after a couple of years, I started to hear the ticking of the proverbial clock. At our 3rd anniversary dinner, I asked Nick, "Are you ever going to want to have kids, or is this a decision I'm going to have to come to on my own?" When he asked what I meant, I explained, "Well, you going to change your mind someday, or am I just going to have to start popping my pills into the trash?"
I always wondered if maybe God would give us a "miracle baby" to help Nick along. You know--I'm still on the pill, but we get pregnant anyway? I have a few friends from school who this has happened to, so I wouldn't have been surprised. Though, after the discussion about the trash-pilling, I'm not sure Nick would ever believe it was an accident.
I was a faithful pill-popper, though. Ortho Tri-Cyclen. I started taking it about a year before we got married--not because I needed the fertilization protection. Nick and I didn't have sex until we were married. I've always had a bad acne problem (mostly on my back), and so I started taking it so that I would actually be able to wear a bathing suit in public without being completely embarrassed by my skin. I tend to be kind of forgetful sometimes, but for some reason, I never forgot about my pills. Probably because of the years I had such terrible skin--I didn't want to go back to that at any cost.
After that 3rd year, the ticking settled down a bit. Probably because we got another dog. I can tell already what it's going to be like with kids, though--pop one out, and about a year and a half later, you start wanting another one. When we got Waldo, he had so many health problems, it pretty much settled the kid thing down. Now Waldo's a year and a half, and healthy, and guess what.... Tick, tock (round 2)!
Monday, December 28, 2009
A Journey of Life...
I'm starting this blog to record the "Baby Makin Journey" my husband and I started a couple of months ago. I guess, if you want to be technical, we started this journey 4 1/2 years ago when we were married. However, we were taking prevention pills that thankfully did their job well. So, the journey really started when I went off of said pills. November was my first month in over 5 years that I haven't had some sort of birth control in my system.
I want to get more into detail of the thought processes that have been going on in both of us, but I just thought I'd set up an introductory post first. I'm not going to publish this blog publicly for a while. I'm just going to keep it as a record of my thoughts.
Here are some things I'd like to write about:
1. Tick, tock goes the baby clock... (round 1)
2. So happy together...
3. The only one going as planned...
4. What kind of plan should I have...really?
5. You've been counting??
6. Wishing...and hoping...
7. What is contentment?
I want to get more into detail of the thought processes that have been going on in both of us, but I just thought I'd set up an introductory post first. I'm not going to publish this blog publicly for a while. I'm just going to keep it as a record of my thoughts.
Here are some things I'd like to write about:
1. Tick, tock goes the baby clock... (round 1)
2. So happy together...
3. The only one going as planned...
4. What kind of plan should I have...really?
5. You've been counting??
6. Wishing...and hoping...
7. What is contentment?
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