"My Facebook is full of babies." Why we don't have kids yet

"My Facebook is full of babies." 
Why we don't have kids...yet

    When my husband and I got married four years ago, we became part of a small, but growing group of our peers that were a part of that "club." Though we certainly did not get married at an extraordinarily young age, we seemed to be toward the front end of the wave of weddings that soon inundated our Facebook news feeds. Logging on to check out other couple's wedding photos and updates to see who else had found the happiness that we had was a lot of fun. We attended and were involved in beautiful weddings of our friends and family members. Sharing stories of honeymoons, anniversary trips, and the hilarious woes of adjusting to living together was a norm at functions with friends. Then, almost so slowly that it went undetected at first, our social media front pages started to evolve. Wedding updates became less frequent, replaced by chalkboards brandished with "We're expecting!," gender reveal party announcements, and posts asking for breastfeeding pump recommendations. Within just a few years, the majority of our friend's focuses had shifted from wedded bliss to parental bliss, and Tony and I hadn't even considered having children yet. How and why had things changed in other marriages and not in our own? Were we getting left behind?

     Let's back up a bit to help you get a better sense of how things work between my husband and me. Our relationship goes back 13 years when we met and became high school sweethearts.

We had a pretty typical teenage relationship; we went to prom together, spent as much time with each other as possible on the afternoons and on weekends, had dinners with each of our families on alternating nights, knew we were in love and said we would one day get married, and promptly broke up when high school ended. Attending different colleges, other relationships came and went from both of our lives without much consequence. And yet, I could never fully shake the memory of how much fun we had together and how close we had become in such a short period of time, to have it all given up in a typically high school I'll-never-speak-to-you-again breakup. One particularly quiet summer, Tony and I both found ourselves single and decided to put the past behind us and catch up as old friends.

    There was no turning back after that. We picked up right where we had left off, as if the previous four years had never happened. We found out that all the cliches about the first love never completely going away were true and were married 3 years later. I found that what set us apart from other couples was the fact that, without setting out to do so, we had sincerely become best friends. We rarely went anywhere without the other person in tow, made sure that we were friends with each other's friends, took an interest in the other's hobbies, found comfort and support in each other at the end of a long day, and made sure to put the other one first as often as possible. Our fear of missing out on the other's fun had created in us a bond that was completely fulfilling, a bond that made us a self-sufficient unit, and a bond that made moving away to two different states where we had no connections to lean on feasible. 

    We lived together in Kentucky for two and a half years, just a few hours from our closest friends and family, then just as soon as we had settled in and made a life for ourselves it seemed, we packed up what we could fit in a tiny U-Haul and moved 9 hours away from all we had known. Scared and unsure what the world had in store for us, we still remained each other's rocks and our friendship only grew stronger. We had each other, and that was all we needed. 

     But why had other couples decided, or been blessed with the realization, that something was missing? Was it because we hadn't purchased a house until three years into our marriage? Was it the changes in location and careers? Were we just not ready or not equipped to become parents? There were several days that I closed my Facebook or Instagram apps in a disgusted huff because the overwhelming amount of babies I scrolled through were making me feel like there was something wrong with us. "Why does everyone have kids already?" I asked Tony one day. He replied that he had noticed the same thing, "I guess everyone is just in a different place than we are right now." 

     'What place are we in?' I wondered. We're crazy about each other, we're closer than ever, we're happy with our careers, we're financially stable, we have everything going for us. Maybe we had it all wrong. Maybe there was no 'OK, we're ready now' feeling that we said in the past that we would wait for. Maybe deep down we weren't mentally mature enough to have kids yet. Maybe there was something physically wrong with us that we hadn't been blessed with a surprise without trying for one, because that happens to couples every day. What was going on here was a mystery to me. 

     Then a few months later, Tony and I woke up early on a Saturday morning. Faced with a few extra hours than we wouldn't normally have, had we been able to sleep in that day, we decided to head to the mountains just an hour or so away. We loaded our dog, Rusty, in the Subaru and took off for a morning hike. Our morning hike got us pretty hungry, and as we enjoyed a nice lunch outside at a quaint mountain restaurant, everything felt just right. Tony reached down to pet Rusty's head and casually asked what I wanted to do with the rest of our day. "How far is Gatlinburg from where we live?" I asked him. With a twinkle in his eye he replied, "Three hours or so, why?" "Let's go there; it's been years since we've gone." And off we went.

     We decided to make the trip the old fashioned way, and stopped to purchase a map, called a hotel on the way (rather than booking a reservation online), and arrived a few hours later with just the clothes on our backs; just two buds and their dog, ready for a spontaneous weekend getaway full of pal-ing around. As we drove back the next day it hit me: we weren't done building "just us" memories. Our time being best buddies has been so fulfilling that we haven't felt any stereotypical pull to have a baby yet. When we got Rusty a puppy friend this summer, I began to realize that the phrase "starting a family" wasn't one that ever applied to Tony and me. We were a family from the get-go, an infallible unit that expanded to include two wonderful dogs under its umbrella, and would one day swell even more with the addition of human kids. 

   

     I do understand that every couple is different and no two couples have the same reasons for or circumstances going in to having children. I have also been told by many wonderful parents that marriage is so much more full with children in it and that their lives didn't fully begin until they had their amazing kids. I've seen couples become stronger once children entered their lives, and I can certainly look forward into the future and see how ecstatically happy Tony and I will be with little ones in our home. Yes, Brittany, we really do want children, I promise. ;-) For at least this moment, however, we're just so stinkin' crazy about each other that it's not our time quite yet. For now, we've got our doggies, we've got four amazing nephews and a sweet niece, we've got wonderful parents and siblings, and most importantly we have each other. That's enough. 

    I no longer wonder if there is something wrong with our decision to have a home that at this moment has a bar instead of a dining room and an office instead of a nursery. One day I know those things will change. I no longer feel like the only one not plastering baby posts across social media, and instead scroll through them with a smile because... well,... you guys have some freaking adorable kids. 

     I also have grown to notice that we're not the only ones who have taken these first years of our marriage for ourselves. We're not the only pair that listens in amazement at a couples baby showers instead of giving advice from experience. So for those of you out there that are like us, you're not alone. We've felt the same way and understand what it's like to make the mistake of saying that you "have an announcement" at a family gathering, and getting mixed emotions when it's not the announcement that they naturally expected. We've said it too... baby pictures really do get more likes than that deliciously cold beer silhouetted by the sunset that you posted, and we don't get it either. Don't worry. You've made a great decision for the two of you. Everyone is different, and no one knows you guys as well as you know each other. You'll get there one day, and so will we. Maybe this year, maybe next year, maybe 5 years from now. For now, stay close, have fun, and take care of each other.