Why I'm Not Even Thinking About Thinking About Having Kids
My husband and I have been together since November 11, 2008, and the past 5 years, 11 months, and 11 days have been absolutely noteworthy. We've been married since May 5, 2013, and the past 1 year, 5 months, and 17 days when I have been able to call Caleb my husband have been everything I expected and even more. We have laughed together, cried together, spent long nights and early mornings together, seen each other at our healthiest and our sickest, smelled the bad morning breath and witnessed the ugly morning bed head, comforted each other through unplanned emotional breakdowns, and held each other through hard times and celebrated some great times.
Now, with almost a year and a half of marriage under our belts and almost 6 years of being committed to each other, the inevitable question is asked to us almost weekly by family, friends, and strangers alike:
"So, when are you all having kids?"
I remember the first time I was asked this. It was last Christmas, when my sister in law announced that she was pregnant, and her and one of my other sister in laws revealed that they had a bet that Caleb and I would be the first of everyone to have kids. We all kind of laughed, my cheeks got red with embarrassment, and then, it happened, "So, when DO you all think you will have kids?"
Hold up, sister. Just stop right there.
I should have known that it was coming soon.
I stuttered for a second. My heart raced, my hands got sweaty, and my mouth was instantly dry. I forced a laugh and mumbled, "Oh, I don't know."
I should have thought about what my response was going to be the first time that someone asked me.
There are so many reasons why I have no clear, direct answer when someone says, "When are you having kids?"
My mother in law is the worst about it. When she saw the apartment that we moved into in May, her first response was, "That's not big enough for you to have kids in." Well duh. I told her, "We aren't having kids in this apartment." She rebutted, "So, you'll live here for a year, and when your lease is up you'll get something bigger for the baby?" I pushed back tears, squeezed Caleb's arm, and let him take over. The comments have increased and it comes up from her alone on a monthly basis. And while I am so incredibly flattered that she considers me worthy of giving birth to her grandkids, I am still repulsed every time it comes up in conversation.
First off, I would like to point out how utterly hideous of a question I think this is. Reasons?
1) It's a quite personal question. Where have people's manners gone these days? Think of what is really underneath it all...you might as well say, "When do you plan to start having unprotected sex with the intention of turning one of your eggs into an embryo to eventually be birthed into a full sized human baby?"
Maybe if people had to say it as bluntly as they meant it, it would be a topic that was mentioned much less often and not taken as lightly. What my husband and I do in the bedroom (or what we don't do in the bedroom) is nobody's business besides ours and my gynecologist's on my yearly checkup to decide if I want to renew my prescription for my birth control. It is the most intimate area of my life, the one thing I share with Caleb and Caleb only, and what goes on behind closed doors is going to stay behind closed doors.
2) Beyond the thought of it being a personal question, the person asking it probably has no idea what is going on inside either of our bodies. What if one of us were infertile? My mother, her sisters, her mother, and my dads mother and my dads sister all had at least one miscarriage, so the chances of me having one are actually pretty large. What if we already were trying to get pregnant, and I had gotten pregnant, and I miscarried? What if that had already happened 3 times? Someone asking that question probably would not have the slightest idea that we were going through that, and they would be rubbing salt in an open wound.
3) What if we hated kids? My husband and I don't hate them, but there are people who do. We always say that we don't hate kids, we hate parents that don't do their jobs, but I am completely aware that there are people out there who just automatically hate anything under the age of 16 and don't want to make eye contact with them or acknowledge their existence.
Beyond the reasons why I hate this question, however, is my reasoning behind why I don't have a sensible, tangible answer at this point in our lives.
For starters, Caleb and I are very young. My mom had my brother at 32 and me when she was 35, and that was considered ancient at the time. But now, there are women in their 60's having babies. 50 is the new 35 when it comes to child bearing. Caleb is 23 and I'll be 23 in December. We are still in the prime of our 20's, the years where we can be wildly selfish, go out for an impromptu dinner, stay up as late as we want on Friday drinking wine and eating cheese and sleep in on Saturday with no worries of anything stopping us from doing so. We don't have a lot of responsibilities outside of school and work and our dog and cat, and that's the way we like it right now. We like being able to have a little too much wine, to lay in bed and talk and laugh as loud as we want without hearing a baby cry down the hall, or crank up our music loud enough to hear it throughout the whole apartment but just low enough so our next-door neighbors don't complain. We can rent movies with a lot of loud noises without worrying about waking the kids up and I can take the dog outside to go to the bathroom without having to bundle up a kid to carry on my hip while Kora takes her sweet time finding the perfect spot to go.
Secondly, we are mature enough to admit that we are at an age where we want to be able to do whatever we want without anything or anyone inhibiting our decisions. Bringing a baby into the picture would change everything. Everything would be centered around what the baby needed and not around each others' needs. We love having the ability to just be with each other, to nurture and grow our marriage, and to grow in Christ together. We love being able to make things about each other every minute of the day without having to throw a whole other human into the mix.
And lastly, God's timing is everything. I am a full believer that, while we can make plans, and track when I am ovulating and crunch numbers about when we will be able to afford a child and start saving for their college fund, that God's got the upper hand on all of this. If He thought that Caleb and I were ready for a kid, I think He would've allowed me to get pregnant by now. While birth control is a great way of trying to control it, I trust in God more than anything because heck, He got Mary pregnant before she even though of raising her dress.
So, that my friends, is why we aren't even thinking about thinking about getting pregnant right now. And maybe, someday, we will think about thinking about it long enough that we can start to talk about talking more about it. But until then, I will do what I can not to put my business in everyone else's mouths, and for all you know, my "pregnancy" announcement on social media may even be a picture of my holding my firstborn. Because pregnancy is personal.