Do Not Ask Married Couples When They Are Having A Baby!

Once upon a time, I never thought twice about asking a married couple if they planned on having kids. A perfectly innocent question, isn’t it? If I saw a married female that was childless and nearing 40 years old, I would immediately tell her that she better hurry up and make that baby! I would ignorantly ask this question with absolutely no hesitation! My assumption was that the couple was simply trying to wait until the perfect time to have a baby. Perhaps they wanted to make more money or buy a new house before they had a baby? Maybe they wanted to take their dream vacation to Europe before settling down to have little monsters taking over their world? I never considered other factors for young couples not having children.

Fast forward to my life at age 35, the age at which I got married. I pictured myself having at least 2 children, so I was desperate to have kids ASAP since I was already 5 years away from age 40!

The plan was simple. Get married and then get pregnant on the honeymoon. It was a very simple plan, but guess what? The plan worked! The excitement was crazy among myself and the rest of my family after my wife tested positive. Every day, I would dream about holding my son or daughter for the first time at the hospital. I would dream about taking a son to baseball practice, or taking a daughter to a dance class. It was surreal to believe I was only about 6 months from being a father! They advised us to keep pregnancy a secret until after the 3-month checkup, but we could not contain ourselves. By month #2, the whole family and large circle of friends knew about the pregnancy. EVERYONE was so stoked for us!

3-MONTH CHECK-UP: I watched the nurse perform an ultrasound on my wife as I excitedly waited to hear a heartbeat during our 3-month check-up. The nurse was taking longer than I thought she would, and then eventually left the room for a second. She told us she would be right back. About 30 seconds later, the nurse came back with a doctor, who was able to verify what the nurse already knew. Our baby had no heartbeat. Our baby was no longer living. A miscarriage was the last possible thing on my mind, so I was in complete shock. We cried until the tears ran out … and then cried again.

I never realized how painful a miscarriage could be until I went through it. I always thought to myself, “I know a miscarriage is terrible, but it’s not like the parents had any type of connection with the baby. The baby was never even born. They never even got to hold or feed the baby, or even talk to the baby.” My ignorance was embarrassingly high on this issue.

It was a rough moment to overcome, but we were determined to try again! Trying to get pregnant was not as easy as it was the first time. It took several stressful months to see those two blue lines on that stick again. It was six months to be exact. It took six months to get pregnant again, but felt like six years. The wait seemed worth it, though, when we saw the positive results on the test. We started to share the same excitement as we did during the first pregnancy, but this time, we kept it very low key and vowed to not tell anybody until after the 3-month checkup.

About one month into the pregnancy, we went to the doctor for a routine check-up. Unfortunately, we ended up with the same heartbreaking result as the first time. We found out that we suffered another miscarriage. The pain and tears started all over again. To make matters worse, this was only about one week before Christmas. It was the toughest Christmas I have ever had. It was difficult to fake a smile while hanging out with family members during the holidays. I was so frustrated and devastated.

It was during this period that we started to get support from others. Some of these people that supported us revealed information that we never knew. Multiple couples stated that they, too, went through multiple miscarriages, but never told anybody. I was shocked! Another couple revealed to us that they didn’t have any kids because of infertility. I was shocked! I had no idea that these couples were going through these tough times. I was just being my ignorant self and always asking when their old asses were going to finally have a baby! I told them to do it quick so their kids could graduate from kindergarten before they filed for social security! This was a huge wake-up call for me on this issue.

Since the month that the second miscarriage took place, I have NEVER asked any couple about having kids. I only talk about it if they talk about it first. It can be a VERY painful topic for some couples, so always be aware of that. They have a hard enough time dealing with it when alone with each other, but it’s even worse when the topic is brought up at parties and get-togethers when everybody is laughing and having a good time.

I am VERY lucky to say that three times was a charm for me. We got pregnant two more times and to our extreme enjoyment, pregnancies #3 and #4 were successful. We are proud and blessed parents of two healthy children. Unfortunately, there are plenty of other couples out there that did not have the same luck we did, so always be mindful. Please! I beg you! Do not constantly bombard couples about having children. Their reason for not having kids might not be the same reason you think it is!