Last night we went to Andy's end of season basketball party. One of the parents there, who I never got a chance to meet during the season, was forced to tell everybody how young she was. It turns out she went to the local high school, the one that most of our kids will attend, and was asked what year she graduated. 2003. OMG! 2003! Turns out she had her son her senior year in high school. Wow! Her parents have been awesome and she has lived with them while she finished high school and college, got a job, and just finally saved enough money to buy a house of her own. That's fabulous.
Some of the parents were having a hard time getting past her age. One of the moms even went as far as to mention that she was old enough to be this woman's mother. Ugh, slightly uncomfortable. Regardless of how old she was, she had done everything we had. Her son was the same age as ours, she did all the parenting things too, and it was probably a lot harder for her. It made me wonder what I would have done in her situation. I'm pretty sure I would not have wanted to have a baby while still in high school, but my family life also did not turn out the way I envisioned it would be when I was eighteen.
I always assumed I would meet my future husband in college and get married soon after graduation. That's what my parents did, sort of. They actually met in high school. The worked at the same restaurant. They dated seven years and then got married after college. My mom had her first baby right before her 27th birthday. Eight years later she had me, her fourth. I didn't think I'd be exactly like my parents, but thought it would be kind of like that.
I met Charlie when I was 23 and we started dating a few months before my 24th birthday. He had plans for himself and I was not going to tie him down (okay, I'm being a little dramatic here). So after dating two years and then waiting patiently (okay, I'm exaggerating here too) another two years for him to go to grad school, we finally got married in the fall of 2000. I was a ripe old age of 28. I agreed that we would enjoy marital bliss for two years before even thinking of starting a family, and after reneging on that and lots of begging I got pregnant in the summer of 2002 and Andy was born in February 2003.
My goal was to have three kids and to have them all two years apart. Unfortunately nobody told the baby fairy that and it took a year and a half and a little help from a crazy doctor to get me pregnant with Sarah. Sarah was born in May 2006 and due to some health issues with her that were not found during my pregnancy and the fact that we now had a girl and a boy, Charlie was done. It took me a long time to convince him to have Amanda and some serious devine intervention for me to get pregnant the last time. My healthy baby girl was born in August 2009.
Now I have the family I always dreamed about. Doing the job I always dreamed about. Sharing it with the man of my dreams. Awwww. So what if it had happened the way my eighteen year old self had envisioned? Even though we didn't get married as early as I had hoped, we did so much during that time. We had flight benefits and we saw the world. We used to go to Europe at least once a year. We went on ski trips. We went on cruises. We went to the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii. We got engaged in Australia. We did so many things many people don't get to do until they retire. In fact, when Charlie complains about how far away retirement really is (and how long it will be before the kids will finally be out of the house), I remind him that we've already done some of our retirement. We've done a lot of things that people don't get to do until they retire or maybe never.
Would I do things differently if I could do it all over again? There are little things I would change. Not buying our first home so far away from the office, maybe. Quitting my job sooner to stay home with Andy, sure. Using a different fertility doctor, definitely. But getting married right out of college and starting a family soon after, no. It was good for me to be on my own. It was even better for Charlie and me to spend all that time together before we became a family so that we could really get to know each other. We have the same goals and values and ideas about where we are and where we want to be and he is my very best friend. I don't know if we would have had time to get where we are if we had done it so much earlier. It might be easier to juggle three kids on five hours a sleep if I were a tad bit younger, but I'll accept that as one of the pitfalls.
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