Our Next Step in Marriage

My husband and I met in college almost eight years ago. We started off as friends and after a few months, it became more serious. We then began seeing each other exclusively.  I wanted to graduate from college and achieve other goals before our relationship became more serious. We dated for five years before he proposed. We got engaged in June and were married in April the following year. Immediately, everyone began asking when we were going to have a child.

It was like someone had turned on a firehose and pointed it in my direction. I was feeling so many emotions. I had never experienced so many people shoving their opinions down my throat at once. Some family members were even placing bets on when we would get pregnant. I am not an easily influenced woman – I make my own decisions by being meticulously analytical and methodical. I didn’t find it ‘all in good fun.’ What was so different about our relationship now? Was it because we signed a piece of paper and our monogamous relationship was now recognized by the state? What is the point of rushing into having kids? Everyone who has children knows that your life completely changes. I know that I can't even scratch the surface in explaining how different our lives would be. After having children our lives will never be the same. Why would you put pressure on someone like that? We are still working on our careers. We are still traveling. We are still sleeping in until 10:30 am on Saturday morning.

    Our dog, Champ, turned eight years old in October. If we were going to get a puppy, it was kind of now or never. In January we brought home Rocco at five weeks old. Looking back on it this was the best decision we made. Not only because we got a puppy, but because it was a huge insight into the kind of parents my husband and I would be. What we fed him, where we walked him, how we disciplined him, whose turn it was to let him out to go to the bathroom at 2 am, the list goes on and on.

    Fast forward to now: we will be married for three years this spring. For the last three years, I have been harassed by my husband’s family every time we see them. No kids yet? Wow, what are you guys waiting for? Your eggs won’t last forever. I can honestly say I married my best friend, and I don’t know what I would do without his whole-hearted support. He is in no rush to have children, so why am I worried about it? “Stop being so concerned with what other people have to say,” he tells me, “it’s none of their business.” While we have gone through trials and tribulations as every relationship does, I think we have had a pretty good marriage so far. We have a lot of similarities but are complete opposites about other things. He likes the drumstick, I like the wings. I drive a truck, he drives a sports car. I like to be a hermit, enjoying evenings on the couch cuddled with my dogs. He always wants to be out of the house, surrounded by people. We’re good at speaking our minds, voicing our opinions, and coming to agreements with a fair amount of compromise when it is necessary.

- Thank goodness we are on the same page when it comes to this next huge, unknown chapter. -

    It might as well be an entirely different book as far as I’m concerned. Each summer for the last three years we have a conversation about whether we are ready to try for a child. Each summer we say “next year.” I tell people this and some of them scoff at me. They say, “It’s completely out of your hands, you’ll have a child when God wants you to,” like us trying to plan our lives is a joke. I want to be positive about the entire experience, I want to be excited to have a child – but everyone’s opinions about it really annoy me, making me want to put it off for even longer. I’ve never been the kind of girl to fawn over babies, at least not human babies. Piglets, calves, foals, puppies, kittens, cubs – you name it and I’m all over baby animals. They say that will change when I have my own kids, and I’m really hoping it’s true. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll be a good mom, and I try not to let other people’s poor choice in words negatively affect me. My one takeaway from this experience is that as long as you and your significant other are on the same page, no one else’s words, opinions or fictitious prophecies about the future matter.