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| March 14, 2013 |
Surprise! The feeling when you see that the second line has
developed on a pregnancy test is inexplicable. It’s exciting, and can be scary…
especially if it’s unplanned, and especially if you’re young and
“unestablished!” The average age of childbirth in Canada in 2009 was 29.4.[1] When
our baby was conceived, Steve and I had just turned 23 and 25, respectively! We
had moved to Toronto six months earlier with no real life goals (more school?
Find jobs!), and were living completely paycheque-to-paycheque – he working as
a waiter, I as a full-time sales associate. We didn’t even have enough money to
buy a pregnancy test until a week after I started thinking I might be pregnant!
When we
finally got the test, on March 14, 2013, we took one and waited. Steve had
mentioned that I could be pregnant to his parents, in passing, thinking there was no way that I actually was. I actually
felt pretty certain: I had been really sensitive to smells, and I had had a
weird spotty period. We can actually pinpoint the date of conception, as
February was a very stressful month for us and we only had sex once! The
“period” was about 13 days after that – exactly the time implantation would
have occurred. So here we were, waiting for the result! We let the room and talked
about the possibilities. I was kind of excited, and Steve was terrified. When
we were sure it had been at least three minutes, he went into the bathroom to
check… and walked out slowly, with his hands up to his face, pulling his eyes
downward like a bloodhound! I ran in and saw the positive result, and could
barely contain my initial excitement!
However,
we were so, so scared. As mentioned above, we barely had any money. We could
barely take care of ourselves, so how were we supposed to take care of a baby?!
We started googling, and found that almost all of the information out there
assumes that new parents have careers and are already well-established in life.
Scary!! That didn’t help the preliminary anxiety surrounding the discovery. There’s
nothing like the voice of the internet to make you feel inadequate! Granted, I have
a bachelor’s degree, but so far all that has gotten me is a retail job, and not
for lack of trying. What were we going to do? And what would our parents say?!
So this
is the premise of the blog: the journey of two young “premature” parents in a
world of information geared to thirty-something career-people. We want to do
things right, hard as it will be, so this will be an account of the decisions
and steps we take to raise our sweet baby as best we can! We’ll share the joys
and sorrows and new perspectives gained along the way, and hopefully some
advice for other people, be they young or less-than-established, having babies
as well. Here we go!
