All these beautiful couples so happy about being pregnant and having babies.
All these young lovers wondering, what is true love? How will I know?
Quit planning the fairytale wedding that gives you a title so you can present the image without doing the work. A lack of vulnerability and communication kills partnerships. Prioritize your partner. Be humble. Give respect. Make sure you know how to validate each other, how to express your needs with an I statement, rather than slip quietly into resentment of your own story. Be faithful by always protecting and valuing your partner. Always check in, and reach for connection when you are upset so that you each of you feel seen and heard. In the end you will want to unite physically to match what you just created emotionally and spiritually. There is no great sex without emotional intimacy.
We all have different ideas as to what love is, and it’s all based on our individual experiences with love. It has to do with how we were loved by everyone around us, how, or IF, we emotionally developed, and I believe our genetics have a lot to do with who we choose, unless we make a conscious effort to break that generational cycle.
I see excited couples getting pregnant and wishing so hard for babies, and it breaks my heart. It’s such a simple biological desire. I have definitely experienced loving somebody so hard that I wanted to procreate with them only to be grateful later that it didn’t happen. There were also those who wanted so badly to procreate with me, and I listened to that little, itty-bitty, tiny, weak voice in the back of my head that told me no. I’m grateful. Because I’m certainly not a girl who says no.
The thing is, when you are starry-eyed over your womb being filled with life, or you are fiercely overcome with the power of planting your seed into this amazing creature you call wife, biology allows us not to think about what it will realistically be like later.
I’ll tell you what it’s like. There are five minutes of utter bliss each day. Then that baby is up all night, one with an ear infection, the other woken from the screams, but you aren’t sure if you should go to the ER and your spouse refuses to get up and help because he was at his job and will be at his job again tomorrow, and you haven’t slept a full night in two years because this baby never sleeps, wants to be constantly held and won’t stop crying. You will go to get your tubes tied for sure. When you are in the post-op, you will refuse to wake up from anesthesia, begging the nurse to let you spend the night because your baby rarely naps more than twenty minutes, except when in someone else’s care.
Most days you’ve cleaned the floor five times due to puke, spills, and dog pee because you couldn’t even let the dog out. You try to drink a glass of water for the fifth time, and again it is knocked out of your hand or you are punched in the throat by an adorable baby fist. Then the wash machine breaks, and next thing you know, your breastfeeding nipple is infected and you’ve come down with the flu so badly that you crap your pants with the baby in your lap and lie in a filthy coma on the couch wondering how long the baby will cry before someone comes to help after you’ve gone ahead and died.
While pregnant you agonize over whether you should use cloth diapers to save the environment, but then there you are in the thick of it, on the road, the baby has just shit an entire garbage bag full of diapers, there is no hose, both of you need a shower in the truck stop, and because your spouse is “driving” and won’t let you have a turn “driving” so you can have a break from hours of trying to keep the baby entertained with stupid preschool songs, funny face, ice rings, music, yogurt that is now coating every surface of the interior, that eventually you just take off your top, straddle the passenger seat with your arms in a plank over the baby and dangle your boobs in his face, much to your toddler's confusion. Your husband later complains you won’t do that for him, and when was the last time you put on lingerie for him? At the truck stop you ask your partner to hold the baby for two seconds, at which time you drive the car to a dark corner of the lot, hide under a sleeping bag and lock yourself in while clutching the keys with eyes pinched shut. He desperately knocks on the glass because he wants to keep “driving” and you hysterically cry at the thought of them getting back in the car.
So I ask you, what will this guy be doing when you are like this? Will he get angry at you because you didn’t ask for help? Will he go directly to shame and yell at you for not handling it better? Does he know how to evaluate the situation and figure out how to help? Does he accuse you of being crazy and probably on your period? Will he care at all about you recovering from this trip to his mom's before he decides to take another vacation by himself, hang out with his friends or go ride his bike?
I honestly think a first date should be the two of you on a road trip with a baby. If you can fall in love like that, you're solid. He's the one.
Anyone can have fun on vacation.