Monday, January 30, 2012

One Year Later

I have something to confess, dear blog readers: I've been holding out on you. As much as I share on here...I've also been keeping some secrets. You see, ever since Dustin and I decided to have a baby, I've been writing a journal of our experience. I kept it up throughout my pregnancy, with the plan of turning it into a keepsake book for Piper (and us) someday. I'm so glad I was able to record so many of my thoughts along the way, but I wasn't always ready to share those feelings with the online world. (and to be honest, I'm sure there are tons of stories in there that you'd be just as happy to not hear). But now that we've made it to "the other side", it's fun to look back to the beginning of this crazy ride. I certainly won't be posting all of my musings here, but I thought this entry was a cool snapshot in time from the very start of our new lives. It's the first thing I ever wrote in her book, and it shows just how much can change in one year...

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Written 1/30/11

Ready?

Last night, Dustin and I went out to dinner and made one of the most monumental decisions in our lives thus far: We’re ready to have a baby!

A baby.

That is ours.

All the time.

But by “ready” I’m not exactly sure what I mean, because we are most surely not “ready” in most (if not all) traditional senses of the word. We haven’t figured out a single practical concern that might come along with being pregnant, let alone with having a child…

And yet- we are ready.

Ready to hold a baby.

That is ours.

All the time.

Ready to raise a child. Love a child. Grow our family.

We’ve talked about babies in an abstract way for years, always knowing that someday of course we’d want to start a family. We committed to five years of marriage first…just us…and then planned to talk seriously about having kids after that. I had various bouts of baby-fever over the years, usually lasting a few hours to a few days. But in recent months, it’s been more of a constant feeling in the back of my head, and inside my heart. Could I be ready?

We made plans of when were wanted to start “trying” (a phrase I hope to never say after this precise moment. You don’t try to have a baby. You do it. As in it. As in, the thing you don’t talk about, jeez get some manners!) but we never felt fully ready. When it would come time for me to take that tiny nightly pill…I would. And we’d revisit the discussion the next month.

But last night…was different. I held Dustin’s hand over a restaurant table, and flat out that I wanted to have a baby. Not in theory, not someday, but now. And he met me with all the understanding, support and love I could ask for. We kicked around ideas of timing, the upsides, the downsides, and tried to weigh it out the best we know how. But in the end, we came to the same place we always do. Are we ready?

And the answer this time was yes.

I was so happy in that moment….so excited for the planning ahead…so anxious to see the next steps in the journey that God is laying out for us…

I hope I always remember how I felt in that moment. The quiet, joyous calm before our worlds change forever. We’ve been us for so long, it’s hard to imagine revising our version of we, to include three. And as ecstatic as I am to begin the next steps of our lives, I’m also scared. A mere couple hours after we shared a meal and our plans, I shared my fears. Though Dustin was already fast asleep, I couldn’t help but shake him awake…needing to unload my swirling thoughts. As we laid in bed, I imagined a baby in the room next to us. And it felt different. And scary. Were we serious? Could we do this? Was this a “colossal mistake”? (Yes, those are the exact words I used.) Dustin wiped the sleep out of his eyes and reassured me, like he always does.

He loves me. And I love him.
And soon, hopefully, we’ll have someone else to love, forever.

2 comments :

  1. Holding our little nugget and watching you two, I wonder, was there ever a time you were NOT parents? You do it so well, so calmly, so unconditionally. This post made me remember there was a time without Little Pi. A time that the world was not quite so colorful. I love you all to pieces.

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