This is the first of three stories about how my three awesome kids came into my life. They may be funny or sad in places, they may convey some things I’ve learned along the way, hopefully they’re at least a bit interesting, and hopefully they give some context to lots of the other writing that will appear here over time.

My wife and I dated all through college and got married the summer before our senior year. We were 21. Being so young and still in college, we had no immediate plans to start a family. We always said we would wait for 10 years until we had kids. In the end that plan turned out to be pretty accurate. Sort of.

After about 10 years, we started trying to get pregnant. That process turned out to be more difficult than we’d anticipated. It turned out to be REALLY difficult, REALLY frustrating, and REALLY life altering. How the hell could it be so difficult to reproduce, everybody else was doing it? I don’t remember exactly how long it took and I choose to not think about how much money we spent, but we finally got pregnant late in 2003. In the end, we learned a lot about our relationship through the counseling that it took to get us through the struggle with our marriage intact. In fact, our relationship is probably stronger today for having gone through that challenge together and come out the other side. Now, later in life, I've come to learn and really believe that you grow the most as a person during the hard times, not the easy ones.

So after years of infertility treatments, and a relatively easy (don't tell my wife I said that) pregnancy, my oldest was born on my birthday!

That was almost 14 years ago and is the gift that keeps on giving. Looking back on it, the only regret I have is not starting sooner. I wouldn't change anything else because it made me and my family who we are. We're far from perfect, but that just means we have plenty of opportunities to grow!

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://mysilverrule.com/2018/06/30/fatherhood-my-journey-part-1-of-3/

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