Newlywed panic

[Luna_Lovecraft]

Well, it would be pretty painful, and you’d miss all the wonderful phases up to that point. You can’t have a 7 year old without having gone through 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and newborn.

I know I am having this conversation with a person who has never had children. Once you have them, you never think this way again.

While I understand what you’re getting at, childless people can and do adopt older children. A good friend of mine, a never-married, childless woman of 60, legally adopted a 16-year-old boy if you can believe it. He’d been her student as a youngster and was in foster care. When he aged out of foster care (few folks was teenage boys) he was placed in a group home, where he didn’t exactly flourish. So she fostered him and eventually adopted him when he was 16. He’s 23 or 24 now, a graduate from a tech school (that she paid for), fixes office equipment for a living, and is married with a child of his own. He calls
her mom and his kid calls her grandma. I’m as sure as I’m sitting her that if she hadn’t opened her life to the child he’d be in prison today.

And then there’s me. I was muddling along through life when I met a guy with toddler twins. Within a year I went from thinking two cats were about all the excitement I could handle to full-time step-parenting a couple of four-year-olds. Talk about going from zero to 60…

Luna

 

[ryecroft]

And then there’s me. I was muddling along through life when I met a guy with toddler twins. Within a year I went from thinking two cats were about all the excitement I could handle to full-time step-parenting a couple of four-year-olds. Talk about going from zero to 60…

Luna

I’m dissapointed in you Luna! Are you trying to imply two twins are more exciting than the two cats??? shame on you!!! My cat Schrodinger is sending you a disdainful glance…I know you can feel it…

 

[Luna_Lovecraft]

You should already be taking prenatal vitamins. I think I’m going to start giving them as wedding gifts the way I give baby orajel as a baby shower gift. A lot of people don’t know that you should start taking them before you get pregnant.

Wedding gifts are meant to help newlyweds establish their household. This is why we give place mats, cutlery, and linens as wedding gifts instead of teething rings and diapers.

If we give prenatal vitamins as a wedding gifts, we’re sending several messages, none of which have anything to to with expressing our love and well-wishes at a couple’s new marriage.

• We’re suggesting that we’re more pleased with and interested in the bride’s potential fecundity than her nuptials. While a bride might be terrific breeding stock, it’s not for us to suggest this on her wedding day.
• We’re suggesting she doesn’t know how to prepare her body for pregnancy and breastfeeding. She may not, and while we may have much to teach her in this area, her wedding is neither the time nor the place for this instruction.
• We’re suggesting that we know more than her and her physician about what and what kinds of medicines she should be taking. Some women need prescription vitamins. Some women need vitamins that are compounded just for her. Some women need liquid vitamins. Short of asking the bride, we have no way of knowing her requirements.

I think it’s best to go with the assumption that the bride is smart enough to, in conjunction with her medical care provider, decide for herself what’s best for her and her (future) pregnancy.

Besides, pragmatically, would you ingest any medicine of which you do not know the exact provenance? That came wrapped up as a wedding gift or gaily-decorated gift bag? That you don’t know how old it is or where it’s been or how long it sat in the back of your wedding guest’s closet or car trunk? That you don’t know how much heat or cold it was exposed to?

Luna

 

[Luna_Lovecraft]

I’m dissapointed in you Luna! Are you trying to imply two twins are more exciting than the two cats??? shame on you!!! My cat Schrodinger is sending you a disdainful glance…I know you can feel it…

Completely off-topic:

The first time the girls came to my home the cats, who’d never seen children before, bolted to the top of their 7-ft. cat perch and peered over the side, highly alarmed, at the human-like creatures down below waving feathered toys in their direction. In their minds it was Panic! Panic! Invasion of the Tiny People-ish Things! Panic!.

 

[SamH]

I always thought of how nice it would be to have a husband and kids, but I never thought about what it would be like to actually HAVE the kids. For some reason, I always seemed to forget that I’d be pregnant and have to give birth. Anyway, now that I’m married and we’re hoping to start a family at some point, it’s starting to make me freak out. Part of it is because I’m realizing that getting pregnant is sort of the point of no return – you can’t really undo that. I’m not saying that I’d want to, but it’s just so definitive.

If it didn’t “freak you out” a little bit you probably wouldn’t be taking the idea of introducing children to this world seriously enough.

Just like that first night you move from home, the day you get married, and when you sign the papers to buy your first home. All perfectly normal events that hundreds of millions of people have done, but it still keeps you awake at night when you do it.

As for pregnancy sex - what’s that?

 

[CountrySinger]

Completely off-topic:

The first time the girls came to my home the cats, who’d never seen children before, bolted to the top of their 7-ft. cat perch and peered over the side, highly alarmed, at the human-like creatures down below waving feathered toys in their direction. In their minds it was Panic! Panic! Invasion of the Tiny People-ish Things! Panic!.

Our oldest cat (Lizzy) HATES children. If our landlord’s grandchildren play in the backyard, she just glares out the window and hisses at them. If she sees a child on TV, she tries to attack it. I never told my husband this, but once the neighbors child came over to play with our kitten. Lizzy came over, looked at the child, and puked on her shoes. I was laughing so hard.

 

[white_sheep]

Wedding gifts are meant to help newlyweds establish their household. This is why we give place mats, cutlery, and linens as wedding gifts instead of teething rings and diapers.

Wow, some of you really went overboard on this idea. Ok, I was mostly joking. The point remains that you should start taking prenatal vitamins prior to becoming pregnant.

If we give prenatal vitamins as a wedding gifts, we’re sending several messages, none of which have anything to to with expressing our love and well-wishes at a couple’s new marriage.

Let me reiterate that I was mostly joking. If you have to give someone prenatal vitamins as a wedding gift for them to have gotten the message from you then you aren’t close enough to be doing so in the first place. It’s one of those catch all situations. If you are close enough to the couple to do so then you would have told them already.

• We’re suggesting that we’re more pleased with and interested in the bride’s potential fecundity than her nuptials. While a bride might be terrific breeding stock, it’s not for us to suggest this on her wedding day.

This may be slightly pedantic, but the word nuptial includes breeding as part of its meaning, not just marriage ceremony.

• We’re suggesting she doesn’t know how to prepare her body for pregnancy and breastfeeding. She may not, and while we may have much to teach her in this area, her wedding is neither the time nor the place for this instruction.

Actually, we could assume that she almost certainly doesn’t know this information, and what better time for someone to learn than when they are preparing to be wed!?! Isn’t that the natural time to learn it?

• We’re suggesting that we know more than her and her physician about what and what kinds of medicines she should be taking. Some women need prescription vitamins. Some women need vitamins that are compounded just for her. Some women need liquid vitamins. Short of asking the bride, we have no way of knowing her requirements.

Ok, well if you are some person who the doctor says shouldn’t take prenatal vitamins then I suppose you’d already know that. My guess is that this situation would be very rare, if not just altogether non-existent. I understand that some people need special formulations because they react to the regular pills. That doesn’t change the facts any.

Oh, and this whole you should always talk to your doctor bit is loony. What do you think a doctor is going to say if you ask him whether you should take prenatal vitamins when you’re pregnant? Seriously. What are the range of responses we can expect? Most of the time they’ll just say yes, or look at you like you are crazy. What isn’t going to happen is for the doctor to say “oh, well, we have to carefully examine this situation. What I’m going to do is take a blood sample and have it tested in the sophisticated, high-tech, new-fangled, blood spectral analyzer and we will see if you are a candidate for vitamin supplementation”. Hellooooooooo? This doesn’t happen…

I think it’s best to go with the assumption that the bride is smart enough to, in conjunction with her medical care provider, decide for herself what’s best for her and her (future) pregnancy.

Is this really where we’ve come to as a society? Something as simple as the decision to take vitamins is so difficult that we have to advise a doctor about it and we’re better off not even talking about it. Again, you can go with the assumption that the bride DOES NOT KNOW that you should start taking prenatal vitamins PRIOR to becoming pregnant. You go ask half a dozen 20 year old girls when they should start taking prenatal vitamins and see what they say.

 

[white_sheep]

This sort of highlights a lot of the general responses I get – the idea that we have “a lot of time to get ready”. Yes, there is nine months between the positive pregnancy test and birth, but the big panic is that you can’t opt out of it. You have nine months to accept the inevitable. When we got engaged, we had almost a year to plan our wedding and talk about things and prepare. However, we could have called it off at any moment. We made a decision, then thought and reevaluated and decided to continue on. With a baby, that process has to take place before we have sex, not before I give birth, and I don’t know about anybody else, but the decision to have sex on any given day is not necessarily thought through with the planning and contemplation that we gave to deciding to walk down the aisle. We could be snuggling on the couch one day, one thing leads to another and bam pregnant. You wouldn’t get married with that sort of laissez-faire attitude, but couples will often have kids that way because the decision and agreement to have kids was already made beforehand.

For us (and me specifically), and hopefully for others, nothing is ever static. We’re constantly thinking and reevaluating. “Are we ready today?” We’ve figured that we’re ready, or as ready as we could be, so we allow ourselves to “be ready” – until that nagging voice in my head starts asking “Are you sure? Really sure? Super sure? There’s no going back later – you have to decide now, not in nine months.”

I would say that you accepted the inevitability of children when you became engaged.

Planning a wedding is much more difficult and complicated than having a baby. More expensive too, most of the time.

Baby prep: get a crib, swing, bouncy chair, diapers, wipes, and cook a week’s worth of food. I also get my wife an ice cream cake. There you go. Easy peasey. Hardly a day’s work.

 

[Pink_Lemonade]

Oh, and this whole you should always talk to your doctor bit is loony. What do you think a doctor is going to say if you ask him whether you should take prenatal vitamins when you’re pregnant? Seriously. What are the range of responses we can expect? Most of the time they’ll just say yes, or look at you like you are crazy. What isn’t going to happen is for the doctor to say “oh, well, we have to carefully examine this situation. What I’m going to do is take a blood sample and have it tested in the sophisticated, high-tech, new-fangled, blood spectral analyzer and we will see if you are a candidate for vitamin supplementation”. Hellooooooooo? This doesn’t happen…

Loony? Some people, including myself, have conditions or take medications that alter the absorption of vitamins and minerals. In which case a specially formulated prenatal vitamin will be required, along with a doctor’s consultation. A doctor is not going to “look at you like you are crazy” if you ask what the correct vitamin and mineral amounts are to take in pregnancy- not all prenatal vitamins are equal.

 

[white_sheep]

Loony? Some people, including myself, have conditions or take medications that alter the absorption of vitamins and minerals. In which case a specially formulated prenatal vitamin will be required, along with a doctor’s consultation. A doctor is not going to “look at you like you are crazy” if you ask what the correct vitamin and mineral amounts are to take in pregnancy- not all prenatal vitamins are equal.

Oh, ok.

 

[28562]

As for pregnancy sex - what’s that?

If you figure it out, let me know. I’m curious myself.

 

[ryecroft]

Ok, well if you are some person who the doctor says shouldn’t take prenatal vitamins then I suppose you’d already know that. My guess is that this situation would be very rare, if not just altogether non-existent. I understand that some people need special formulations because they react to the regular pills. That doesn’t change the facts any.

Is this really where we’ve come to as a society? Something as simple as the decision to take vitamins is so difficult that we have to advise a doctor about it and we’re better off not even talking about it. Again, you can go with the assumption that the bride DOES NOT KNOW that you should start taking prenatal vitamins PRIOR to becoming pregnant. You go ask half a dozen 20 year old girls when they should start taking prenatal vitamins and see what they say.

Actually it’s not all that weird- someone like me with kidney stones often can’t take a prenatal with extra calcium with it or I’ll get more stones - my friend can’t have too much of certain other vitamins - it’s fairly common - but it’s not just the vitamins - I think you know it’s implying that you know they’ll be considering having children straight off- not all couples do. But I could see it being given as a ha ha situation - with someone you knew really, really well!
God Bless
Rye

 

[ellen42]

I’d like to thank everybody who has replied to this thread. It’s really made me feel better and like I’m not crazy for thinking like this. In fact, I seem to be “normal” in this regard – there’s a first for everything, I suppose .

Getting married in and of itself says that you’re ready to accept kids. Not that you’re planning to have them right away, but that you’re 100% ready to accept it should God have that in His plans for you.

I would say that you accepted the inevitability of children when you became engaged.

Planning a wedding is much more difficult and complicated than having a baby. More expensive too, most of the time.

Baby prep: get a crib, swing, bouncy chair, diapers, wipes, and cook a week’s worth of food. I also get my wife an ice cream cake. There you go. Easy peasey. Hardly a day’s work.

First off, I do not agree that getting married (or especially just being engaged) means that the couple accepts the “inevitability” of having children. Granted, that was my word, not yours, but I used it in a different context. Children are the inevitable result of pregnancy (with some tragic exceptions that needn’t be delineated here). However, children are the expression of love within marriage, not the inevitable consequence of marital relations. Everytime a couple has sex, a child does not have to result. Ask anybody here using NFP, or a couple suffering from infertility – or my own experience, really. We’re 10 months into a lifetime of joy and have not gotten pregnant yet and not for lack of trying.

Secondly, how much did your wedding cost? I think you’re grossly oversimplifying the process of having a baby. You do know you have to take care of them for at least 18 years, right? That week’s worth of food isn’t going to last you nearly long enough.

Wow, some of you really went overboard on this idea. Ok, I was mostly joking. The point remains that you should start taking prenatal vitamins prior to becoming pregnant.

Are you familiar with Poe’s Law? I think this was a classic example.

Wait – was the week’s worth of food thing another Poe? I should really recalibrate my sarca(name removed by moderator)eter.

I think you know it’s implying that you know they’ll be considering having children straight off- not all couples do. But I could see it being given as a ha ha situation - with someone you knew really, really well!

On the other hand, giving them an obvious baby item may start rumors flying. A pre-natal gift would imply she isn’t already pregnant, but a high chair or stroller or something like that could just sentence the couple to a lifetime of having to say “No, she wasn’t pregnant when we got married!” I’d always worry about some overanxious relative (usually a hopeful grandparent-to-be) reading too much into anything baby related.

 

[AthenaC]

To provide an alternate perspective -

I got pregnant at 20, WAY before I expected to, wanted to, or thought I was ready. However, there was really only one thing to do, and that was to accept the inevitable and change my frame of mind. To give you an idea of how unprepared I was, my newborn baby girl’s diaper was the first diaper I ever changed. I was on the phone with my mom, “Mom? How do I take care of a baby?” No joke. But one day at a time, 8.5 years later, I have an 8-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old daughter. They are both still alive (yay!), well-nourished, reasonably hygienic, and overall well-adjusted kids.

Overall, the people that say to take it one day at a time are very wise - if you can put yourself in that mindset, you will be happier. Also, a quote from a homily I heard a few years ago - “I got this news on Thursday, but God knew about it on Wednesday, and he knew about it on Tuesday. Nothing is a surprise to God.” Whenever I think about that, I become more at ease about uncertainly in the future and have faith in my ability to handle it with God’s help.

So, just to throw that out there - if I can be a good parent, you can, too.

 

[ellen42]

To provide an alternate perspective -

I got pregnant at 20, WAY before I expected to, wanted to, or thought I was ready. However, there was really only one thing to do, and that was to accept the inevitable and change my frame of mind. To give you an idea of how unprepared I was, my newborn baby girl’s diaper was the first diaper I ever changed. I was on the phone with my mom, “Mom? How do I take care of a baby?” No joke. But one day at a time, 8.5 years later, I have an 8-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old daughter. They are both still alive (yay!), well-nourished, reasonably hygienic, and overall well-adjusted kids.

Overall, the people that say to take it one day at a time are very wise - if you can put yourself in that mindset, you will be happier. Also, a quote from a homily I heard a few years ago - “I got this news on Thursday, but God knew about it on Wednesday, and he knew about it on Tuesday. Nothing is a surprise to God.” Whenever I think about that, I become more at ease about uncertainly in the future and have faith in my ability to handle it with God’s help.

So, just to throw that out there - if I can be a good parent, you can, too.

I’m sure I’ll be quite similar to you when the time comes. As I mentioned before, I wasn’t “babysitter material” when I was a teenager. My first diaper change will likely be on my own child. With any luck, it won’t be my child’s first diaper change and I’ll convince my husband to deal with most of that.

I’ve seen enough of my friends and relatives have kids and have that sudden realization of “I have no idea what I’m doing” to know that I’ll likely have that moment too. It quite reminds me of this

 

[AthenaC]

I’m sure I’ll be quite similar to you when the time comes. As I mentioned before, I wasn’t “babysitter material” when I was a teenager. My first diaper change will likely be on my own child. With any luck, it won’t be my child’s first diaper change and I’ll convince my husband to deal with most of that.

I’ve seen enough of my friends and relatives have kids and have that sudden realization of “I have no idea what I’m doing” to know that I’ll likely have that moment too. It quite reminds me of this

LMAO!!! I thought I was the only one on here that liked xkcd comics. Love it.

The other thing I found out (again, just taking it one day at a time), that as my kids got to be a certain age, I got better at handling kids in general who were that age. So right now I’m reasonably proficient at third graders on down, but one of my coworkers recently dubbed me “the baby whisperer” because I was the only one in the office that could get her baby to sleep the day she brought her to visit.

And last year when I volunteered to help with Faith Formation at church, and they assigned me a 4th grade classroom, I admit I kinda panicked. But they paired me with a more experienced teacher and by the end of the year I actually liked the 4th graders.

Also, someone on here mentioned that they were thrilled the moment they found out they were expecting. TBH, I never had a moment of “I’m having a baby!” excitement. After I had both of my babies, I didn’t even want to hold them. Probably mostly because I was a little exhausted after, you know, getting them from point A to point B (if you know what I mean). But I didn’t really start enjoying the mom thing until each one was at least a month or so old. Until then, the care, feeding, and affection was simply a choice for me; I chose to do it because it was my obligation, and the “mommy” feelings came along for the ride later.

In sum, I was the definition of “not a kid person,” and any outside observer would have told you I should never have children. In my experience, being a good and loving parent was a choice that I am very glad I made. Also, if you don’t have the feelings you expect right away when you are expecting / a new mom, don’t panic.