Timing

Terence has been feeling his age the last couple of days. At least he says he's starting to feel his age. I guess having a newborn is much harder now than it was ten years ago. He mentioned the other day that he kind of wished we had started our family earlier so we would be younger now. This surprised me a bit-- I pointed out to him that we hadn't waited to start our family at all. The only reason that we had M a year and a half after we got married (rather than within the first year) was because I had the miscarriages before that. How exactly could we have started our family any earlier?

He thought about that for a moment and then said, "Well, we could have gotten married sooner. Like right after my mission."

This made me laugh. Right when Terence got home from his mission I was in Utah. How exactly would we have met? As it was, we got married barely a year after I returned home from my mission, not exactly an endless, drawn out courtship. I posed the question-- would he have denied me the chance to go on a mission just so we could have started our family at a younger age?

He had no answer for that. But he brought it up again today, repeating a conversation he had with someone at church on whether or not we would have a sixth child. Terence thinks that if we had gotten married right after his mission, number six would have been a much likelier option. (He really thinks he is going to be old and decrepit by the time S leaves home.)

I've been pondering that today as I've worked my way through my first evening alone with all five kids. Am I too old to be handling a newborn? (At my most sleep-deprived moments, I do have my doubts.) Would it have been better to get married at 21 and skip the mission? Would I change that just so I could be a little younger when the baby of my family is a teenager?

No, I wouldn't. My mission was a pivotal part of the growing experiences I had as a young adult. I learned lessons as a missionary that I just can't imagine my life without. It's not that every young woman needs to serve a mission to be a good mother, but I know that I am a much better wife and mother because of the things I learned as a missionary. Silly Terence. It's possible that if I hadn't gone on a mission, he may not have wanted to marry me in the first place-- or I may not have wanted to marry him. And even if we had married anyway, it would have taken me a good deal longer to learn how to live peacefully with him!

No regrets here. . . even if I will be in my 50's when S leaves home.