My husband and I took things slowly before we got married. By the time we heard our wedding bells ring, we had been together for a total of seven years and engaged for three [1]. To us, our love and life were not a race — it was a leisurely journey, and taking things slow always felt right [2] to us. And frankly, I loved savoring every new chapter in our lives without rushing into big commitments.
We knew we wanted to eventually have kids — two, to be exact [3] — but we also knew we wanted to enjoy being newlyweds for at least a couple of years before we became parents. After all, we were only 25 when we got married; we had our whole lives ahead of us to have a family. We planned on partying late into the night with our college friends, taking tons of fun spontaneous road trips, and spending lots of passionate evenings together [4] as newlyweds, not comforting a crying baby.
That all changed just three months after we got married. My period was late, but I thought it was due to the stress I was feeling from having a cornea transplant [6]. When another week went by and Aunt Flo still hadn't paid me a visit, I decided to take a pregnancy test, first at home, then at the doctor's office. The results were positive, but my feelings were not.
Although we used the rhythm method as a form of birth control [7], it failed us. (According to Planned Parenthood, fertility awareness methods, like the rhythm method, are only 76 to 88 percent effective [8].) When I found out I was pregnant, I immediately felt a state of shock, followed by one of panic and fear. No way was I ready to become a mother! I selfishly wanted my husband to myself and a life without kids for a while longer. I knew that having a baby would change everything . . . I just wasn't ready for such a drastic change so soon.
Although I struggled with the notion that unlike everything else in our lives, my pregnancy was not planned, I knew I wanted this baby with all of my heart. I always wanted to be a mother, and my husband and I were thankfully at a point in our lives where we could start a family. Our relationship was solid, we had wonderful jobs with great health insurance [9], and we owned a nice house in a quiet and family-friendly neighborhood. The fact of the matter was because we took things slow with our relationship for so many years, we were as prepared as we could be to start a family.
So I got ready. I read all the pregnancy and baby books, magazines, and online articles I could find. The more I learned about my growing baby, the more excited I became about becoming a mother and starting a family with my husband. Like many first-time moms [11] do, I went overboard on shopping for baby clothes and ended up buying way more than my baby would ever need, because I couldn't resist how gosh darn adorable they were. The idea of being a mother and caring for my baby was all I could think about. I couldn't wait to meet my baby girl.
In the back of my mind though, I still worried about how having a baby so quickly would affect my marriage [12]. I talked to my husband about how I felt, and he reassured me that everything was going to be OK — and it turned out, he was right. Having a baby brought us so much closer in ways I never dreamed. Becoming parents helped us see each other in a whole new light. Watching my husband rock our baby to sleep [13] filled my heart with so much joy. He was a dad now, not just a husband, and it was amazing to see him in his new role. And after watching me go through my pregnancy, birth, and the challenges and exhaustion of breastfeeding [14] and early motherhood, my husband had a whole new level of respect for me.
So we traded in our late-night partying for late-night feedings and our spontaneous road trips for visits to the newborn club. I'm not going to lie: having a baby was a big change for us — but it was a change we welcomed with open arms. We may not have started our family exactly when we planned to [15], but in retrospect, I'm so glad I got pregnant when I did. Our baby girl is now 10 years old, and she has been an absolutely wonderful blessing. I simply couldn't imagine our family and our lives without her.