January 2009

Dear Walter,

Your dad and I had a really great talk last night, all about when to have children, taking risks and trusting God. Basically I was worried, and torn between 2 opposing, but both very valid ideas on when we should or shouldn't try to conceive. I know, a bit late 11 months into trying, but better late than never.

My problem was this: Having a baby means I would be working less or not at all, meaning we would have less money. We are probably going to move overseas in a few years for Michael's career, which will be expensive to do and initially he may not be making very much at all. So...

Scenario A: Michael should make sacrifices, get any job he can to supplement our income, working in a pub or café (when we go O/S) if need be so we can have children now and I can stay home as much as possible. Driscoll seems to advocate this in the sermons I've listened to as being a man's responsibility: provide for your family so your wife can raise your children; career is not as important as family. Yes, having a child or children and moving overseas is very difficult and costly and a risk, but we should take that risk because if we put it off we may never have children.

Scenario B: scenario A is totally unfair. Why should Michael have to make the sacrifices and should I ask that of him and not of myself? After all, if/when we do eventually have children Michael will be the main provider and so we maybe should put off having children until his career is established in a path he wants to be in. Since he will spend more time working than I will we should make sacrifices early (like putting off kids) so that we can be more flexible about the amount of money he needs to earn in the first few years of his career. That way he will be able to enjoy the job that provides for his family. Then, when his career is more established and we have sufficient money we can have children.

I know that scenario A: having children now, may mean Michael takes the fulltime chorus job instead of the more risky, but rewarding freelance solo career and I don't know how I feel about asking that of him. We had such a good long talk and I explained how I feel and he said that he can see both sides, but that we will still try to conceive now. Being a financially conservative type I worry that we are being foolish, but then I think - what if we put it off for another 5 years, my Endo comes back and we can never have children? Wouldn't we regret that more? I am still torn between the two, but we're going with A and I am happy that was Michael's decision to make. And all this could be pie in the sky anyway since I may be pregnant from this cycle and not know it yet. Wouldn't that be the biggest joke: All this worry and angst, when God has already decided?