The Glad Game - Maggie

I'm now 38 weeks pregnant, which is a little bit exciting! I have enjoyed being at home now that Christmas is over and James is back at work, cooking dinners and cleaning and washing and ironing (baby clothes, yay!) and just doing normal day-to-day things! I also sleep, a lot.

The Glad Game:

I am glad to be having our baby now, instead of when we first got married over 2 years ago when we wanted so much to have a baby, for the following 'Glad' reasons.

James and me reasons:

1. A phone conversation James and I had when we'd been married a couple of months:

Abby calling James...
Abby: James, I'm about 5 minutes down the road from your work, and I have a flat tire!
James: Oh ok - there's a spare in the boot.
Abby: Excuse me?
James: What's wrong?
Abby: Um, I have a flat tire... I'm near your work....
(pause - confusion on both ends)
Abby: ...and it's hot.
James: Yeah... hey look I'm really busy, but there's a spare in the boot, okay? I'll see you here soon!
Abby: Um.. sure.

2 minutes later, James calling Abby...
James: Hey, are you okay? You sounded kind of upset before.
Abby: Not really - I'm on the side of the road, 5 minutes away from your work, and I have a flat tire.... and I'm hot.
James: Yeah but I'm at work - and there's a spare in the boot!
Abby: I can't possibly change a tire!
James: But I showed you how!
Abby: But you have to be strong! And I wasn't watching! Why would I need to know how to change a tire??
James: Um...
Abby: I'm just down the road - can't you borrow a car and come and rescue me?
James: But I'm at work!
Abby: But I'm on my way to pick you up! You finish in 2 minutes!!!
James: Um.. I'll see what I can do. You really can't just change it yourself?!
Abby: (Silence)
James: Okay. I'll try and come.

After a few minutes James came and changed the tire. Both of us were a little shocked with each other lol. Now we know waaaaaaay better :) And now we have RACQ.

2. When we first got married, James couldn't believe how emotional and 'girly' I was. It drove him crazy if I ever cried, (maybe once in a blue moon) and couldn't understand it at all. In the last nine months I have cried every other day or so - not for any hideous reason, just the hormones going crazy. It took a couple of months but now James knows better than to ask me 'why' I'm crying, and especially to try to push the point! - He generally checks if there's a reason or if I just want a hug, and gives me a hug lol. He doesn't try to understand it anymore, and he's better at picking the times when he can laugh at it, and when laughing at it will result in bigger floods of tears. If I had actually been emotional at the beginning of our marriage, we would have gone crazy, and he may have left me (I'm sure he wouldn't have, but he may have been tempted..).

3. Basically James grew up around guys and is not used to anything or anyone being a 'girl'. He couldn't believe how much of a 'princess' I was (I kept telling him he was lucky he didn't marry someone who actually was really girly!) and I couldn't believe how 'mean' he was sometimes. We had a lot of learning to do lol. Now we're having a baby girl - hahaha :)

It feels it's just gotten better and better between us though, and now it feels perfect, but I'm sure it'll just get better. James is so understanding and kind and nice to me, and he's all squishy when it comes to Maggie lol - I predict some serious finger wrapping.


Financial reasons:
I was going to drop out of my final year of uni and have our baby. But I finished, then worked for a year, and now I unexpectedly qualify for maternity leave. As my Dad said upon hearing that news: "You can't say you don't get blessings for paying your tithing". James is not a citizen, and studying full time he's not making a heap of money, so this is huge for us. We didn't really know what we'd do financially, but Heavenly Father sorted it out.


Spiritual:
Maybe I needed to learn patience. Or have it be reinforced that the Lord works in His own ways in His time, and that he knows what's best. Maybe we also needed to pray really hard for something for a really long time and to finally have that prayer answered, and know that it's an answer to prayer.


Education:
I got my degree!! And maybe at times while I'm 'Mum' over the next few years I can study by correspondence and get some post-grad qualifications. Now that I'm qualified, and especially since I've worked a whole year, I can always go back if I need to.


There are other reasons to be glad that I won't go into now, but I'm sure there are kazillions.

Oh one more shot at being glad.

I am glad to be an obese whale who can't touch her toes or barely roll over, because it is a good contraception for obesity. I will never get unecessarily fat, and will even try not to get as fat next pregnancy.

Oh, I'm also glad because it means we get to have a baby.

xo