I came close to not marrying my husband. It was the classic conflict – He wanted children; always had. I didn’t; never had. We found this out very early on in our relationship but without actually saying so we decided to keep dating since we were having so much fun together and in most ways felt connected. So, we didn’t talk about kids. I thought he would just change his mind and I’m certain that he thought the same of me. None of our friends had babies back then. It really wasn’t an issue. We carried on with our dating lives. We went to movies and bars and white water rafting and continued to fall further in love. We didn’t give babies another thought.

Fast forward five years to the proposal. One Sunday night, my then boyfriend got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. He had a long speech that I honestly can’t remember but the gist of it was that times were hard but it didn’t matter because we had each other and me by his side for the rest of his life meant that he could get through any obstacle. I said yes. We began planning a wedding. Life was good. There was, however, this niggle of doubt in the back of my mind. I knew he wanted kids. He knew I didn’t. Why were we planning a forever together if that meant that one of us wouldn’t get the life they wanted? We had to talk about it. We had to bring it to the surface and dissect it. “On the weekend” I told myself, “we`ll talk on the weekend.”

Friday night we found ourselves at the mall with a couple of quick errands to run before heading off to meet up with some friends for beer at a sunny patio in the city. Who knew that one of the most pivotal moments of my life would come between a Radio Shack and the dollar store? We ran into a friend’s older brother, his wife and their newborn baby. “Here” she said “Hold the baby.” And with just that simple warning she shoved the child into my arms. I’d never held a baby that small – I’d never even seen one that small before. He was tiny, and helpless and beautiful. Somewhere, deep in my unconscious a crazy feeling ripped through and popped into my intellect. It felt right to be standing there holding this child. His parents were practically strangers to me – distant acquaintances at most – and I felt a connection to their infant son. How powerful must that connection be if this child in my arms were mine?

Through the noise of food court, through the background chatter with this couple, through the hustle and bustle going on around us I looked up at my future husband. It only took a second for the agreement to pass through us. One day this would be us. One day soon I hoped.