When my husband and I married, we put ourselves on the “five year plan.” We would both work full-time and save up money to start a family. When we married, I had no desire to be a mother yet but figured I would want it someday. Then, my nephew was born, and my biological clock started ticking. Unfortunately, my nephew’s birth did nothing to get my husband’s clock going. All he saw was a whole lot of work, sleepless nights, dirty diapers, and one big fat expense.
After four years passed, I started counting down the days until we would start trying to conceive. I went off the pill and switched to other forms of birth control so my body would be ready to conceive after we had been married exactly 4 years and 3 months, which would keep us on the five-year plan. (Have I mentioned my control freak tendencies?) Hub balked, saying that the five-year plan meant trying to conceive after five years, not baby in arms by that time. I won the argument, and we started trying to conceive.
While I was excited, hub most certainly was not. Every time anyone mentioned the word “baby,” his eyes would glaze over in a look that my friends dubbed his “deer in the headlights” look. This never changed until he held his son in his arms 4-1/2 years later.
At first, hub was relieved that conceiving was taking a while. After all, there were quite a few perks for him. However, as I sank into a depression from the infertility, he very much wanted to conceive to “get this monkey off his back.”
Having such different views on our situation was taxing on our marriage. He was in no hurry to conceive while I felt an intense need for a baby now. I had to drag him kicking and screaming through several different tests and procedures during fertility treatments. Rather than being partners in the process, he became another obstacle I had to navigate on my quest to become a mother. Fortunately, I wanted a baby badly enough for the both of us, which gave me the stamina to keep going no matter how hopeless everything seemed.
After we adopted our son, we went through fertility procedures again for a second child, but my heart was not in it. I did not want a second child enough for the both of us. I no longer had the stamina to do all the work, “climb every mountain,” and “forge every stream.” This is why we remain a family of three.
Related Topics:
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Related posts:
