Time to Open Up!

So there is something that has been on my mind a lot lately and I've decided I want to get it out there. I know that there aren't many people who read this, but I just feel like I need to get it off my chest! This is really long so don't say I didn't warn you!

Brad and I have been married for close to 7 years now and there are still some days that I can't believe it! Usually when we tell people this it is followed by the question of whether or not we have children. It seems that more and more lately we are getting funny looks when we tell them that we don't have kids yet. Sometimes I give an explanation, sometimes not (it usually depends on who is asking). So here it is: why we don't have children yet.

About 5 years ago Brad and I decided that maybe we should start trying to have kids. He was in fire academy at the time and our plan was that he would become a firefighter and we would have babies. So we started trying. Brad was working his tail off with school and work and I was saving all my vacation and sick time for my future maternity leave. Soon it seemed everyone around me was having babies and I wanted it so bad! Some of my friends and four of my siblings (or their spouses) were pregnant within a few months of each other. But not me. We bought a bigger vehicle with the anticipation of putting car seats in it soon. One of the residents at the U of U offered me a job to come work with him and help him open a private practice. I really wanted to take this opportunity but was worried about losing my sick time and our insurance benefits. Brad and I decided that I would take the job and hopefully he would get on with a fire department.

That September we moved (back) in to my parent's basement and in November I started my new job. Brad got a full time job w/an ambulance company and we only went w/o insurance for about a month. Taking that job was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made but to this day I know the timing couldn't have been better! It had been a year since we had stopped "preventing" and still no baby. Things were going good with our jobs and we decided to start saving for a house. In may of 2009 we moved into our cute townhouse! Brad had been applying for fire departments and things were looking very promising with one specific one. They went through two rounds of hiring within 3 months and Brad was a top candidate each time. But they didn't hire him. We were so mad and couldn't figure out why! Not to mention that almost another year had gone by and still no baby!! Life went on and about 6 months after we moved into our house we found out that the company Brad worked for would be leaving the state. Talk about someone throwing a wrench in your plans!

It was at that time we had to decide if Brad would still try to get on with a department or go back to school. For almost two years we had been planning this and now our world was tipped upside down. Did I mention we had just bought a house? Ugh! So we decided he would go back to school. Within 2 months he was back working for IHC and looking into different career options. He decided on respiratory therapy and started his remaining pre-reqs that summer. It was then that we revisited our current plan of having children. There was no way we could financially afford to have kids while he was in school. We had a 3 year commitment on our house (or pay a huge fine for selling/renting it out) and it was already tight enough with just the two of us. We felt like if there was a reason we hadn't had children yet then this was it! So we stopped trying and started preventing.

By the end of that year Brad had already applied for 2 Respiratory Therapy programs. One of them started the following summer and the other in the fall. We were really hoping for the summer one because it was an accelerated program (which he would be done with at this point), but he got into the fall one instead. He just finished up his first year and I can't believe how fast it has gone by! He has gone to school M-F in OGDEN (that includes 2 days of 12 hour clinicals) and has been working 36 hours each week. He is my hero!! Needless to say, we haven't had much time for each other, let alone another life to take care of. We just passed our 3 year mark on our house and could technically rent it or try and sell it without being fined. But we love it too much and want to start our family here (hopefully).

That brings us to the last couple of weeks. (I'm sorry, I know this is really long!) For a while our plan was to wait until Brad graduated before we started trying. We wanted to work like crazy to knock out his student loans. Then we thought maybe we would start trying at the beginning of his second year. This is what we have been planning for the last few months but we changed our minds again. I feel like Brad and I were sort of given a second chance to plan out our lives. This probably sounds so selfish to a lot of people but I truly feel that way. I'm not even 25 for heavens sake! So that is pretty much it! That is why we don't have children.

I know there are babies waiting for me. I've dreamt about them countless times and so has Brad! And trust me, there are also countless nights that Brad has held me while I cried about not being a mom. And who knows, maybe our plans will change again in a couple of months. But there is one thing that I know... I have had the last 8 years of my life to get to know my husband and I don't regret that in the least bit. People can say what they want or even think what they want, but this is our decision.