Before I get into Marriage Monday, I'd like to introduce a new blog. My Father has been talking about blogging for months. Actually a year ago, he had never used a computer before, let alone the internet. But with my blog and my Sister's it got him intrigued. He finally published his blog over the weekend wtih 3 entries at once. Overachiever? His blog is one to share his political ideas and bring thought and discussion to current events. He's very intelligent and I think he has a lot of good ideas and thoughts, even if you don't agree. You can check it out here.

Also, you can read about Kayla's party her.

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This week's Marriage Monday topic is Share a time of worse, sickness, or poorer in our marriages up till now, and then share a time of better, health, or richer.

Unfortunately this is an “easy” one. J and I of course have our moments as all married couples do. But so far our worse was soon after we were married. Our infertility took us by surprise and it ended in a 2 ½ year emotional, physical, financial and marital struggle. Infertility attacks every aspect of your life.

At first, J would say I’m seeing things and over-reacting. Luckily once we got a doctor to back me up and say I had a problem, he never once tried to back out of treatment. He left most of those decisions up to me in the sense that I was the one being poked and prodded every day.

Infertility had a huge emotional toll on me especially – as I was in a pretty serious depression by the time I got pregnant. I’ll say J always stood by me, but I think in some ways he didn’t know how to help me. This struggle was different for us both. I could not see life without a child and although he wanted children, it would not have been a life “deal-breaker” so to speak. It was hard for us to put ourselves in the other’s shoes even though we were both dealing with the same situation. Our emotions and thoughts were each our own.

I had read articles about infertility and marriage and saw so much that infertility would do one of two things – make or break your marriage. Studies have shown that couples who come out of infertility together tend to be stronger. We both learned what constitutes devastation and we learned what to let go and what to hold onto.

In line with our worst, I’d definitely have to say our best was the birth of our daughters. Of course, this in and of itself is a major life-change and had its own stresses on us as individuals and on our marriage. J went into this with virtually no experience with babies. He has always been a hands-on Dad and helps me tremendously. With Kayla, early in the pregnancy, it was just not real. I could see the connection between him and Kayla start when we found out the gender and named her. He was protective of her through being protective of me. And after she was born, she was your typical newborn blob who developed severed acid reflux disease, which meant she screamed most of the time. NOT easy. I could see the love he had for her, but I have enjoyed seeing his love and bond between him and the girls grow as they got older. It grows every day. With Alysa, I could see he was connected from day one. He knew what to expect this time around, so that bond came faster.

We are parents now, so it takes more effort to maintain our relationship – more attention to time, etc. But we see each other as individuals and also as parents of our children.