We were married on a snowy day the following February and I can remember right before the doors opened and I was about to walk down the aisle I thought to myself “I can’t do this, I should not be doing this, this is never going to work” Not exactly what blushing brides say. Our daughter was nine months old when we got married and she wasn’t at the wedding. She tells me now that it was wrong of me to not have her there, but it did also take her ten years to realize she was born before the wedding. She would have known a lot sooner if she was in the pictures! We didn’t get a honeymoon cause we had to use the money to replace my totaled car. It was probably better we didn’t cause we weren’t used to spending that much alone time together so what would we have talked about? Life seemed to even out for a while and he was working and I was raising our daughter and working part-time and started going back to school, things seemed ok, but not great. We then planned to have our second child. From the minute I got pregnant it was nothing like the first pregnancy. From the get go I was sick; morning sickness, stomach flu, dehydration, back problems, bleeding, it was a mess. I was miserable and uncomfortable and he became more and more distant. I was alone a lot. Too much time alone can make you crazy; thinking, planning, rethinking, re-planning, thinking some more. You know how with the change of seasons, you know it’s happening, but not really and then one day you realized it just kinda happened? That’s how it was when I knew something between he and I wasn’t the same. It wasn’t tangible at that point but I could feel it and it was coming on slowly like sleep until it hits you all at once. That’s how they explain falling in love right? I received a call from the doctor’s office at 30 weeks pregnant that my 12 week blood work had been done incorrectly and I needed to come to the office immediately and have a test done to see if my baby had down syndrome. I was a wreck to say the least, but we had the test and that’s when I saw ten tiny toes and ten little fingers and I fell in love. The next day I went into premature labor. They say the stress of something being wrong with my baby had my body react even though I didn’t feel stressed or nervous. I trusted the doctors cause as we know I did not hold a medical degree nor have any medical training. I arrived at the hospital and they gave me some meds to stop the contractions and sent me on my way. Within a few days I could tell this was not your typical false labor and something was wrong….terribly…terribly wrong. For the next ten days, yes TEN days, I was in and out of the hospital with contractions at 5 minutes apart, 3 minutes apart then 1 min apart and each time they would give me medicine, try to keep her cooking inside of me and send me home. TEN DAYS! The last visit to the hospital the doctor told me if I made it to my 33rd week they will induce me. So the appointment arrives, we make our way into the office and I know that this ten-day torture is going to end and the doctor says…..”I’m sorry, I just can’t. Try and hold out a little longer. But if you really want to have this baby today….go home and have sex” WHAT?! Have you seen the size of me? I’m having contractions every minute and you want him to put that up inside me now???!!! We left the office and I cried all the way home. And then….I said….”Do it.” He looked at me like I was from the exorcist. “Do what?” “It! Do it! Do it right now I can’t take it any more!” And with that he did do it and I thanked him and then we waited. Don’t you just hate waiting? Patience is a virtue, one that I do not possess. I am getting better at it, cause life has made me wait forty-one years to be the me I love today, made me wait to find a love I didn’t think existed and made me wait to fully understand what life is really all about. What are you waiting for? How long do you plan on waiting before you can’t wait anymore? Life is not about waiting, it’s about doing, it’s about acting, it’s about living. It is however also about patience. Patience to give yourself the time you need to be who you’re supposed to be. Patience to not settle for a love that is less than you deserve. Patience. Used to be a dirty word to me.