transitions in marriage - in-laws

I adore these people.  This is my family.  They are my in-laws but I don't really think of them that way.  They have never been anything but my family.  I have always known that I was blessed to marry into this family.  I love them.  My husband was 29 when we got married.  His family thought he would never get married.  I think they were just so grateful that someone would marry him.  They have accepted me 100 percent from the day they met me.  I have never felt like an outsider.  There are three other sisters in law and two brothers in law in this family.  We all feel the same way.  Sometimes when our spouses get crazy we migrate to our own corner of the room and stay out of the way.  I love my nieces and nephews they are some of my favorite people.  I am proud of them.  I adore them.  This is an amazing and powerful group of people.  This is a group of people who love and serve God and I am proud to be a part of them. They are my people.   I often think about how much I hope that my children will be as blessed as I was.  I am determined to be the same type of mother in law as the on I was blessed with.  I think the reason I have fit so well into the family is because she loves her son and she is proud of him.  She has let him develop his own life and she supports him in the decisions he makes.  I think this is easier said than done but she is very good at it.  I hope I can be a good mother in law like her.

Transitions in marriage - children

My husband and I will be married for 16 years tomorrow.  Sometimes it seems like we have been married forever.  It is hard to remember life without him.  Other times it feels like we got married yesterday.  We were a little bit older than the average Mormon couple.  My husband had finished law school and had a good job.  I was a hairdresser making a pretty good living.  We had both dated a lot and we knew what we wanted.  We had both been around long enough to understand that our marriage wasn't going to be perfect.  We knew that we would face challenges but we had no idea what they would be. Our challenges have never come directly from our marriage.  Our challenges have come from having and raising children.  

After about three years of trying to have a baby and lots of fertility drugs we were blessed with this little man. 

We were both excited to be parents.  I couldn't wait to stay home and be a mom.  This transition was harder for me than I thought it would be.  I went from a very social job where I was surrounded by fun and engaging people to spending 10 - 12 hours a day with a baby.  I missed conversation.  When my husband got home I would talk a mile a minute and he just wanted to collapse.  My husband was very patient.  During this time we learned that I needed to get out.  My husband would take me to movies or dinner.  Our baby was so good.  He never cried so we took him along.  My husband had to adjust as well because he was used to my undivided attention and now he had to share that attention with a baby.  We worked through this transition by serving each other and as soon as our baby was old enough to leave with babysitters we started regular date nights again.  When our baby was a year old we decided to try for another one.  This proved to be more challenging than the first time.  After several years we decided to try in-vitro fertilization.  This is what in-vitro looks like...

This is only one of the shipments of drugs I had to take both orally and through self administered shots.  This was a rough time.  I was emotionally unstable.  I cried all the time.  I felt like I was going through this on my own.  Everyday there was another Doctor or drug or test I had to have done.  It was exhausting. I think the reason my husband and I were able to handle this time so well is because of our faith in God.  My husband felt so bad for me.  He truly didn't know how to help me.  This experience with the medication and infertility took a tole on me and we decided that if this attempt at in-vitro didn't work we would be finished trying.  Together we made the decision to quit trying.  This was so comforting to me.  I also remember one appointment when my husband actually cried.  This made me feel like he was going through the trial with me.  Thankfully we were blessed with these little beauties...

 Lauryn and Clara were an answer to our prayers.  Mostly they were an answer to Cameron's prayers.  He prayed for siblings for about three years.  He came to all of my appointments and he is the one who picked their names.  The birth of twins threw us into another transition.  This one was more difficult. They were preemies and stayed in the NICU.  I had complications and was on bed rest after we brought them home.  My husband was in a huge trial and was gone all the time.   Our moms stayed with us for 6 weeks.  We were bickering a lot and having a hard time re-defining our roles.  Finally we realized that we needed to connect and we couldn't really do this with our moms there so we asked everyone to leave.  Within about a week we had it figured out.  We were back into a good routine and back in sync.  One rule that we made was that we couldn't take offense to anything said or done after 9pm.   We were so exhausted that we had to let things roll off our backs.  This became a funny joke between us.  We got into a good rhythm and divided up responsibilities.  Some of my fondest memories are sitting at night watching our shows, burping our babies.