When I was growing up I can remember talking with my friends about what we thought our families would be like when we got older and what we thought life would be like when we graduated. I thought that I’d graduate high school, go to college for 4 years, find the right girl along the way and get married when I was around 22. I then thought after I’d been married for a few years that I’d have kids. I wanted 2 or 3 kids. I think most of my friends pretty much had the same plan.

Funny how things change once stuff gets real. I didn’t graduate college 4 years after graduating high school. I didn’t get married at 22, but I was close. I got married shortly after my 23rd birthday. Once I got married, something weird happened. As a kid and even a young adult, the thought of having kids and starting a family was a really cool idea. I looked forward to it. However, once I got married, that all changed.

I don’t think it happened immediately, but some time very soon after I got married I realized that the idea of having kids freaked me out. My wife soon started having an interest in starting a family, but the idea of it really made me uneasy. We talked about it from time to time and I’m grateful that it was never a point of frustration or tension between us. We were always able to talk about it honestly. After a while I realized what my problem was.

I was not at the point where starting a family was a far off and intangible thing. I was at the point where it was a reality. The reality of the responsibility of everything that comes with having kids was really weighing on me. Kari was patient. Her biological clock was ticking, but she wanted to make sure that both of us were ready. So that was the way things went for at least a year after we started talking about it. Read More...

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