What a difference a year makes

This time last year, I was in Cancun, Mexico.  I was playing on the beach, celebrating my best friends wedding.  We played in the ocean and swam with the dolphins and climbed around ancient ruins.  We drank constantly (go go all-inclusive resort) and ate as much as we wanted.  We laughed and relaxed and just enjoyed ourselves.  Hell, we nearly bought into a time share!  Colin and I were there for almost a week, a kind of second honeymoon for us and it was amazing.

We were preparing for our move back to Montana.  I was in school, furiously working to prove that I could do it.  I was packing our apartment and completely overwhelmed.  We had found a place to live in Missoula, and I was anxious to get home to the mountains and friends.

Having a baby was the furthest thing from my mind.

Before we even got married, we were talking about children.  We had agreed that we were going to wait 5 years or so.  We wanted to get to a place where we were financially stable and we wanted to make sure that our relationship was stable.  We were both worried that adding a child to our relationship too early on would cause more problems for us.

A year ago, we had life all planned out.  We were going to move to Montana and Colin was going to start a church.  I'd finish school and become a teacher.  We'd live out our lives in the mountains, comfortable and surrounded by friends.  We would eventually start trying for a baby and we would take things as they came.

The best laid plans and all that jazz...

Six months ago, I was frantically praying that the test would come back negative.  It didn't, obviously,  Neither did the subsequent ones.  My emotions those first few weeks were all over the board.  Horrified and terrified and excited and sad and frustrated and angry.  There were a lot of tears and a lot of frustration.  We spent hours talking it out, debating how we were going to afford to bring a child into our lives.

It took some time, but many of the emotions faded away.  Now, we both look forward to Roland with excitement and love.  There is still a fair bit of terror in there, but I don't think that is necessarily a negative emotion.

In 9 weeks, we are going to have a new addition to our family.  He is going to be loud and demanding and make horrible smells.  He is going to depend on us completely to take care of him.  We will have to raise him to be a good person, teach him right from wrong, and show him all of the wonders that the world holds.  We often talk about things we are going to do with Roland.  Camping next summer, the waterslides the summer after that.  Children's museums and aquariums and silly little road side museums (you know, the ones with the 2 headed calves.)  Everything that we would do together will be that much more exciting with him.

The past year has been insane and exciting.  The next year will be as well.  I'm still terrified, but I can't wait to see what the future holds for our little family.