I met my husband a bit later in our lives. He was 30 and I was 32. I had been married 7 years before that, and it was very brief and pretty much a mistake (neither of us were ready to be married I think). So I was a little skittish and was enjoying living alone.
We met at work and I became close friends with Rich pretty quickly. I remember offering to help him with a project that he had to get out the door and I realized we were already great partners and there was a lot of trust there. I fell for him hard, and he for me.
So we married when we were 32 and 34, and we were really happy. We bought a house and tried to get pregnant. It took me a little bit of time and a bit of Clomid, but it finally happened and I gave birth to Katherine just shy of my 38th birthday. I was sort of shell-shocked because it was really hard at first — Katherine had colic and we were up nights trying to help her stop crying and feel better. Rich devised a method to help her release all the gas trapped in her system by walking up and down the stairs, sort of stomping, and tapping her on her back. It did seem to help. She finally was better by two months or so.
There were times that we were really tired and we agreed that we would let her cry for 10 minutes and then one of us would pick her up to soothe her. I remember those 10 minutes. They were hard.
I had waited so long to have kids that I found myself surrendering to being a mother. I already had had a 15-year career as a technical writer and I was ready to just be a mom for a bit. My boss had offered to hire me permanently (I was a consultant), so I was able to stay home for a few months and come back part-time. I was literally in heaven. Katherine was born in March and we were together all day every day during the warm Spring and early summer.
I loved her beyond reason, I sang and rocked her to Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed” and choked up and began to cry. I felt deep joy to hold her, to have her, for her to be real. She was such an easy good baby, a delight. I gave myself over to caring for her. My husband did too. We were a team and we were madly in love with Katherine. I think we were made to be parents and made to do it together, and we had not known it until we had Katherine. We were all in.
