expecting Baby Michaud

happily expecting Baby Michaud

(due late August or early September 2008)

Robert and I have been together since we met at the Tower Court Mixer at Wellesley the night before my first day of classes in my first year. When Baby Michaud arrives, we will have been together almost fifteen years, and married for over ten of them (Robert calculates these things down to the months and weeks, but that's not quite my level of precision).

Like my parents, who were married fifteen years before they had me, Robert and I had plenty of time just for us, for crazy running-out-for-ice-cream times or opening-night movies until 4:00 in the morning. I don’t mean to say there will never be anything spontaneous again, or that we’ll never take anymore long rambling trips again—just that we realize that life changes with a child, and that's okay: we don’t feel like we missed out on anything, on any part of our lives, so far. We also didn't want to be like the stereotypical smart couple in Idiocracy who forever postpones having a baby because it's not the "right time"—we decided that now, really, was right enough.

Robert, ever the economist, thought of it this way:

we have enough money to have a child—we live well but still save money, so while money isn't everything, we know we can afford a child and the expenses that go along with one;

we have enough space—we’ve got an extra bedroom and an extra half bath, and while our apartment (as Robert’s mother, the doyenne of suburbia, keeps reminding us) isn’t huge, it’s plenty big enough for us plus another, smaller, being;

we have enough time—we both work full-time but have some flexibility in our schedules, and we've each been a lot more busy in the past than we are now (what with renovating apartments and writing books on top of our regular jobs), so we know that together we can handle the second shift of parenthood together on top of what we do now;

we have enough love (yes, key the “awwwwww” sound at this point)—we’re happy together, and we believe we have enough joy and love to keep us going and to share with a child.