Your First Year of Marriage...

As I was driving home from picking Kobe up from school I heard a man on the radio (it was a Christian radio station) talking about how important your first year of marriage is.  How it shapes how the whole rest of your marriage is going to be.  He said he encourages young couples to not take on too many activities outside of each other because it is so important to spend that first year bonding together.

So, I am trying to relate this to myself.  How has our first year of marriage shaped our marriage thus far?  Oh, this should be fun.

Lets start with what I remember about our first year of marriage.  

1.  9-11, as in the twin towers, happened exactly 1 month after our wedding date.  I was actually at my first day of my new job when it happened and we all listened to what was happening on a little radio.  I called Ben and he was at our little apartment in Wixom, watching it on TV and talking to his Dad.  It was so long ago I called Ben from the work phone because I DIDN'T HAVE A CELL PHONE.  Wow, how did I exist?  :)

2.  Later that same month I got pregnant, about a week and a half after 9-11.  Yes, Kobe was part of the baby boom that resulted from 9-11.  We weren't trying to get pregnant, we just did.  :)

3.  Over the next several months I attended college at William Tyndale, Worked at the Dry cleaners, and felt sick every morning.  Ben was working for AFLAC, making no money, but went to work everyday and we were living off what I made.

4.   As our bank account decreased there was lots of crying and gnashing of teeth.  I was very stressed out, VERY emotional and very not myself.  I felt very alone.  I know it was hormones now, but that didn't make it any easier on me or Ben at the time.

5.  About 6-7 months into my pregnancy I started to have a pain in my back that made it so I could not sleep, or get comfortable.  We went to the doctor several times, the ER several times, by now the pain had moved into my leg and the ER doctors thought I was in labor.  I knew I wasn't but whatever, what doctor ever listens to you anyway?  On the final trip to the ER a random female doctor said, lets just check to see if it is a blood clot to rule that out.  They did an ultra sound and immediately found it.  I was in the hospital for about a week and then came home with the lovely task of injecting myself 2 times a day with heparin.  (which has recently been in the news for killing quite a few people).

6.  We then moved in with my parents so my Mom could take care of me.  On May 30, 2002 I went into labour at around 6:16 am.  Long story short I had a C-section around 8:15 pm.

7.  We brought Kobe home to Mark and Cindy's house and from there celebrated our One Year Anniversary there.

So, how has this shaped Ben and I's current relationship?

1.  We love GOD.  Our start was rough, but God brought us through it.  Any "success" we have had, any joy we have, we know it all comes straight from HIM.

2.  We are hard workers.  We both work our butts off to not let our finances get out of control and having seen them go out of control was a great learning experience.

3.  We truly are each others best friend, the only person we really count on to be there for us no matter what is going on.

4.  We also are aware life is fragile and we seem to always have constant reminds of it.

5.  We also realized that using birth control helps you not make babies :)  We take adding children to our family very seriously, we try to be very responsible in our actions.

6.  We also spend most of our free time with our families or having family time for ourselves.  

So, anyway, I think even though we probably did everything "experts" would advise us not to in our first year, I know GOD had a plan and the lessons we learned have made us as strong as HE needs us to be.