Normally on the 1st or 2nd birthday of my kids, I like to take the time to honor their life and story by creating a memory book for them. On this very significant birthday of Brad's, his 30th, I realized that I have never really done that for my husband. I am finally taking the time now. This is the "birth story" of my relationship with my husband, the man I love and respect more than any other.
Photos of the 1st Year of Brad's and My Marriage Journey:
The day I married you, I married my best friend.
Early on in our dating relationship, I became a little concerned that if our relationship did not work out, I would lose your wonderful friendship.
So, one day, while we were driving on campus in your truck, I said to you, "Brad, maybe we should just be friends and not date anymore."
With concern, you responded, "Why do you think that?"
"Well, I really enjoy your friendship and if we were to break up later on, it might be too hard for us to stay friends."
You smiled at me with your beautiful dimpled grin and said to me, "I enjoy my time with you so much too and I want us to always stay friends. But our best chance to do that is for us to continue to date one another. Someday I am going to get married and I am pretty sure my wife is not going to be okay with me being great friends with any other girl, besides her!"
We had that conversation nearly ten years ago. I cherish that memory, because I love how it reveals our friendship being the foundation of our relationship. There is no one I enjoy being with more than you: you challenge me in my faith, comfort me in my sorrow, encourage me in my strengths, and give me the gift of laughter with your quirky sense of humor. :-)
Secondly, I love this memory, because even as a young man, you were making choices as to how you wanted to honor your future wife. I feel so blessed you chose me to be your wife and forever friend.
We waited several months into our relationship before we kissed for the first time. Neither one of us was very experienced in the "kissing department" (especially me, because you are the one and only boy I have ever kissed!), so in the beginning, I wasn't sure if I even liked it!
I am very thankful for our inexperience and can say with great enthusiasm, I love kissing you now!
On our wedding day, you took every opportunity to give me spontaneous, sweet kisses. Even though you can't tell from the black-and-white photos, my face was a crimson red from all the blushing I was doing! :-)
Photos of the 1st Year of Brad's and My Marriage Journey:
The day I married you, I married my best friend.
Early on in our dating relationship, I became a little concerned that if our relationship did not work out, I would lose your wonderful friendship.
So, one day, while we were driving on campus in your truck, I said to you, "Brad, maybe we should just be friends and not date anymore."
With concern, you responded, "Why do you think that?"
"Well, I really enjoy your friendship and if we were to break up later on, it might be too hard for us to stay friends."
You smiled at me with your beautiful dimpled grin and said to me, "I enjoy my time with you so much too and I want us to always stay friends. But our best chance to do that is for us to continue to date one another. Someday I am going to get married and I am pretty sure my wife is not going to be okay with me being great friends with any other girl, besides her!"
We had that conversation nearly ten years ago. I cherish that memory, because I love how it reveals our friendship being the foundation of our relationship. There is no one I enjoy being with more than you: you challenge me in my faith, comfort me in my sorrow, encourage me in my strengths, and give me the gift of laughter with your quirky sense of humor. :-)
Secondly, I love this memory, because even as a young man, you were making choices as to how you wanted to honor your future wife. I feel so blessed you chose me to be your wife and forever friend.
We waited several months into our relationship before we kissed for the first time. Neither one of us was very experienced in the "kissing department" (especially me, because you are the one and only boy I have ever kissed!), so in the beginning, I wasn't sure if I even liked it!
I am very thankful for our inexperience and can say with great enthusiasm, I love kissing you now!
On our wedding day, you took every opportunity to give me spontaneous, sweet kisses. Even though you can't tell from the black-and-white photos, my face was a crimson red from all the blushing I was doing! :-)
The happy new bride and groom: This photo was taken a week after our wedding at my cousin's home in Houston. We took a short honeymoon in Texas, so we could spend one last Christmas with all my family. My dear aunt was terminally ill with cancer and died less than three months after our wedding.
The week of her death, you had already made plans to travel to California for a tour of a potential graduate school. But instead, you chose to cancel your airline ticket (at your own expense), so that you could stay home and attend the funeral with me. You were a great comfort and I know my entire family was blessed that you were there.
Our family of two quickly grew to three, a month and eight days after being husband and wife, we discovered we were going to be a mommy and daddy! I was exactly four weeks along but was already experiencing the morning sickness that comes along with expecting a little one. The weekend before we found out I was pregnant, I attended a women's retreat for our church. I was one of the youngest women there, and yet, I was the first one to go to sleep both nights I was on the retreat. Then, when I got home, all I wanted to do was sleep some more. I was sooooo, soooo tired.
After a couple more days of being completely exhausted and feeling like I had the flu, I sent you at 6:00 AM in the morning to go buy our very first home pregnancy test. Much to our bewilderment and surprise, the test immediately came back as positive. "We were having a BABY!" To say I was shocked would be an understatement, but there were also other emotions, as well, I was excited and scared at the same time.
We always knew that we wanted to have children, but it had been "our original plan" to wait at least a couple of years, so you could get some of your graduate work under your belt. I had no idea how "your graduate school dream" was ever going to work with a little baby. But what amazed me about your response was that you never once wavered in your excitement of us having a baby. You reassured me YOUR BIGGER DREAM was having me as your wife and us sharing this little blessing together. In faith, we also knew God in His perfect time had chosen for us to have a baby.
In February, the weekend of Valentine's, we went on a "second-honeymoon" to visit New Haven, Connecticut. I am the odd one out in this photo; I am the only non-graduate student candidate or then current student at Yale.
This photo was taken while on our trolley tour of New Haven, during our visit to Yale's cathedral-looking gymnasium. While there, we also enjoyed a Shakespearean show, ate lunch at the Yale's faculty club, as well as ate at some of the most famous eats in New Haven, all compliments of Yale's biotechnology department.
Even though, we did a lot of fun things and met some nice people, I did not feel at home in Connecticut. I had a really hard time envisioning us raising our child in the Northeast for the first seven to eight years of his/ her life. While you were away at meetings, I cried many, many tears in our hotel room and prayed to God that He would make a way where there seemed to be no way.
On your birthday, March 15th, we received the news that you were accepted into the 4 year NIH/ Oxford/ Cambridge program, which was an absolute dream come true! You quickly accepted their offer, and the next month, we traveled to Maryland (this is the MD visitor center) to find a place to live for your first year in the program.
I finished my student-teaching and final semester of college, and then graduated from Texas A&M in May. The day before my graduation day, we found out we were having a baby girl. We both cried tears of great joy when we saw our precious baby for the first time.
As a surprise to our families, I decorated my graduation cap with pink letters that said "Baby Girl". I also made copies of our sonogram photos and rolled them up into a "graduation" scroll. It was a joyous occasion as we said good-bye to the college chapter of our lives and celebrated the new chapter of becoming parents.
We remained in College Station for a couple more months. During that time, you traveled to Cambridge to visit our future home. In the meantime, I remained at home and endured the summer heat of Texas while I packed up all our belongings. It was bittersweet to say good-bye to TX and our beloved friends. But at the same time, we very thankful for the opportunity God had placed before us.
In July, you drove the U-Haul with your dad to Maryland and I flew up to our new home. When we were finally reunited at the BWI airport, it was one of the most magical moments of our marriage.
We shared several mini-adventures in our new home, as we explored Washington D.C. and other neighboring areas.
We were blessed to receive several hand-me-downs for our nursery. You, however, encouraged, me to make it my own nursery in small, inexpensive ways. I had so much fun painting letters, finding a special nursery shelf that displayed our "announcement graduation cap" and other sentiments. We were so excited for baby Jillian to arrive!
On the morning of September 30th, my water broke at 2 AM. At first, I did not know what in the world had happened to me and I was perplexed why I could not keep my pants dry. After changing three times, and as my contractions grew stronger and more painful, the realization hit the two of us at the same time that "we" (I say that loosely) were in labor. We called the doctor and he heard me moaning in the background and told us to immediately come to the hospital. I was shocked, I thought I was supposed to labor at home for at least a few more hours before leaving for the hospital. But you happily obliged the doctor's instructions, and ran to get our car. You even thought to grab a towel for me to sit on in our car as we raced to the hospital. And you were in such a hurry to get me there, you purposefully ran your first red light!
By the time, we got checked in, it was close to 3:30 AM and my labor was progressing quickly. Once admitted, I was having a very hard time managing my pain and was clinging as hard as I could to the hospital's bed railing. Throughout this time, you were beside yourself with worry and didn't know what to say, except for "You're breathing so well, Lauren. You're breathing so well." Over and over you repeated that to me. I was a bit annoyed, because one, I wished you could have been a little more creative in your words of praise, and second, because I knew it wasn't TRUE! The next thing I knew there was a whole slew of hospital staff in my room and I had a mask on my face giving me oxygen, because I was "breathing so well". :-) No really, even though you were at a loss for words, there was no one I would rather have shared those moments with, you were the proudest daddy and most supportive husband any one could dream of! After pushing for less than 10 minutes, at 6:20 AM, our Jillian was born to us. You did the honors of cutting the umbilical cord and at last we were all together as a family.
At times, we found our finances a bit stressful. The D.C. metroplex is an expensive place to live and graduate students are not paid much, so the majority of our paycheck went to pay for our rent. We had no home phone, Internet, cable, or other "luxuries". And it felt like all of our "extra" money paid for necessary diapers, or for doing our laundry down the hall. Even going to the grocery store was stressful because I did not know much about couponing or shopping the sales. And yet, I can say, without any hesitation, that I am very thankful for that season. It taught us to depend on the Lord in ways we had never done before and we were blessed to be witnesses to how God faithfully provided (and even exceeded) our daily needs.
During that time, I was often reminded of the three things you told me while we were dating and hard things came our way:
1) God is in control
2) He is on His throne
3) He loves you more than you could ever know.
Together, as we drew closer to the Lord, we drew closer to one another. And we both will be forever thankful for the life lessons that we learned.
A moment captured on Thanksgiving of little Jillian asleep on her daddy's chest.
You and Jillian were the best of playmates. You took the greatest delight in our baby girl and loved watching her develop with every little milestone.
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