14 Years

14 years ago, right now, I was sitting at St. Joe's Ann Arbor getting ready to have baby Alec.  I think back on that time and cannot even believe how far we've come as a family!

Steve and I got married on August 23, 1997--I was 22, he was 23.  We were both students at EMU.  Prior to our wedding we had 6 months of premarital counseling.  This counseling was a requirement for a wedding in our church, but it wasn't until later that I learned that it was usually only 6 weeks.  Apparently, we needed more!  Perhaps it was because when our pastor asked us what we were looking forward to most about marriage, we answered, "Having fun!!"  He must've thought, "Oh boy.  These people need some work."

Really?  How embarrassing.  And when he asked us how we would handle certain conflicts like dishes that needed to be done, we answered with, "We don't care about the dishes!  We just want to have fun!"

Wow.  I feel like we need to go back to that church and explain that we really aren't that "airheadish"--we just didn't really know what marriage was about.

A couple months after we got married, we were sitting in our living room on our only piece of furniture, which was a tiny loveseat.  We were watching T.V. on our 13 inch in a large entertainment center.  That's pretty much all we had.  I remember that day because I looked at Steve and said, "Do you want a baby?"  "Sure!" he replied.  A baby sounded really fun and fun is what we wanted to have!  I took my first pregnancy test a few weeks later and it was positive!  We were SO excited.  We announced it to everyone in about 2 seconds.  I took 22 more tests after that.  I would make Steve get me a new test every single day.  I was way too embarrassed to buyt the test myself!  23 tests total.  I would line them up on the table and watch how the line got darker and darker as each day passed.  Apparently, I didn't believe that the first ones were accurate.  I also saved all 23 tests in a ziploc bag and put it in Alec's memory box.  Dorky.  But, I just KNOW that someday he will want to line them up all in a row like I did!  Right? 

So, 14 years ago today, I was sitting in a hospital bed ready to give birth!  Alec was born at 3:17pm and he was 7 pounds.  He came so fast that I missed my epidural opportunity, but that was okay.

We have enjoyed Alec everyday since!    He is a great big brother to his 5 siblings and a very important part of our family.  He loves the Lord, loves hard work, and loves to learn.  He looks forward to going to college and getting married and having babies.  He is wonderful!

Steve and I have also come a long way since that day.  We no longer believe that life is all about fun, but we do have joy!  We no longer believe that we need to have a lot of money to be successful, but we are very rich.  We also do our dishes regularly and we even occasionally fight over them!  God is good!