Being a woman, a wife and then become a mother

Quote: “That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.” ― Emily Dickinson

One of the reasons I so easily understood my Husband’s point of view on not having a baby is that I don’t feel ready to become a mother just yet. I’ve always thought that being a woman is something that comes naturally but only recently have I started paying attention to my own needs and not feel guilty about it. As a human being and as a woman I have needs and cravings that only I can listen to, but they take time and sometimes money, and I used to feel guilty or even stupid acting that way.

Now I’m also a wife and I have to take care of my Husband’s needs as well as mine. The key is to keep both our needs balanced which again is not something that comes just like that. I’ve been upset with my Husband because he didn’t do something I wanted him to but didn’t ask him to do (I’m sure I’m not the only one in that case!) or because he asked me to do something I said I would do although I had something else planned for myself. The worst thing is that I didn’t even noticed being upset with him about it and I felt even worse that he thought I was. So we started discussing and found out we both were expecting a lot from each other and definitely needed to remember we were just normal human beings. It’s been some time since we are together but this year has been the first one we really have time to acknowledge these points and take time to find answers. There is no moving, no new school adaptation (well yes but nothing compared to Koç!), no studies and no big changes. We can take some time to try and understand each other more easily.

Becoming parents is a life changing experience. It takes time and can be a real challenge. As a woman your body changes and you go through many different phases where you come to love and hate yourself as well as those around you. As a couple you need to find a new balance where both lose time for each other as well as for one self. This is why we decided to give each other at least one more year before having a baby. We both need some more time and although time is running by (my Husband is 37 now) we both believe we will make better parents if we first take time to be better persons and a better couple.

So this is what this year will be dedicated to: finding oneself and each other. Let’s hope we reach our goal.

As my tradition wants it:

The good: dedicating our time to understand each other and oneself

The bad: risking to lose a great opportunity to become parents

Babyboom

Quote: “There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” ― Willa Cather

When we arrived in Vietnam there was one thing I couldn’t miss: this country is baby addicted! It has nothing to do with the Turkish way, here it looked like every woman was pregnant! I’m not kidding! When we arrived in August you couldn’t look anywhere without seeing a pregnant woman! Of course, while there are pregnant woman everywhere there are also a lot of cute babies around and slowly I found myself thinking about being pregnant. It’s not the first time that I consider the subject. For those who didn’t notice taking care of wonderful babies like Harrison and also sometimes Ian and Sajama made me languish to be a mother. I’ve always loved kids and I’ve always known I wanted to have some. However events have proven that being pregnant in Turkey wasn’t the right thing to do. And so here I am again, not working, not studying either and analyzing the possibilities.

As we since then have found an agreement, this post doesn’t have quite its intensity anymore but still, I found the experience enlightening and I’m sure I would love to have your points on the question. So here was the problem: Sath, after considering the mater on his own, told me two month ago that he didn’t wanted to have kids anymore. That was definitely not a great discussion, even less when he said he didn’t think I would make a good mom, and we agreed on giving each other until January to take a final decision. So there I was considering giving up my biggest dream. I remembered asking myself what I would have done if I had been in a friend’s shoes as she was facing that exact problem, and my reaction had been to say I would leave, I could not give this all up. Easy to say! Then a friend came by and added: “but don’t you want to have those kids with him?” And my answer was: “Yes, of course! If I married him it was also because I thought he would be a great dad!” As I won’t leave him and I won’t force him to have a baby, my two options are to find arguments to show him that being a father would be a great experience or to find a way to be happy without ever being a mother:

Considering not being a mother:

 - I love the life we have and being parents would force us to give up time for each other and our own.

- We can continue to travel without having to be over cautious.

- Living abroad will not be a problem.

- I will still be happy and more of all my Husband will be.

- I don’t know what I might be missing and not knowing make it more difficult to give up.

- I might always ask myself “what if?” and even though I know he didn’t think what he said, I will always ask myself if I would have been a good mother.

- Having a kid adds a lot of responsibilities and stress and I don’t deal well with stress.

- It would change my body and might even put all my efforts back to nothing.

- There are many countries where having a child can be inconvenient, here it would force us to travel by cab every time and be even more cautious.

Trying to rationalize the urge to be a mother:

- Kids are special, seeing them grow and develop is a life changing experience.

- They change a lot in our life but won’t change what we don’t want them to change.

- They add stress and responsibilities but give tons of love in exchange.

- They unleash so many feelings you didn’t even think existed.

- They give a more profound meaning to your life and can lighten up your day just like that.

- They take time but you can still do what you like around or with them. It just takes some adaptation.

- Having a baby in Vietnam would give me the time and opportunity to get my body back (at least as much as possible) and to smooth the changes in our lives (we can easily take a nanny).

- Traveling would take more planning but I already am a planning queen so…

- The fact that it will be our kid puts all the difficulties into perspective and makes it much easier to deal with the down parts.

- There would be a part of us both growing and hopefully continuing the small changes we try to make on this world.

My biggest problem was that I understand my Husband’s point. I don’t feel ready yet to have a baby, I would love to have more time for myself and to enjoy some easy traveling experiences while we are in Asia. But the more time passes by the less Sath is willing to have kids and, as pointed out above, it is him I want to have a kid with. This left me here, trying to make a rational choice out of something that definitely is not rational and with the hope we could agree somewhere in between!

So, what are your thoughts on this?

To end it right, the good and the bad:

Good: Gave my Husband and I the chance to discuss the matter further and to set everything into perspective.

Bad: I still don't know why I so much want to have a child... is it just selfish, to go through childhood again?