Ouch?

"Mom always said if you married Toby you'd end up a baby machine."

It has been two or three years since one of my dearest high-school friends said this to me.  It still stings, for many different reasons.

Let me fill in some back story.  Not trying to brag here, buy my future was promising in high school.  I scored very well on the ACT and SAT.  I even won the National Merit Scholarship, which was a big deal at the time.  I'm talking I had my picture in the paper and everything. 

I planned a brilliant career in Engineering or Astronomy.  I was going to fulfill the dream of all rural kids:  I was going to GET OUT.  I would be a success, by leaving the land of my childhood far behind. 

Toby and I began dating at seventeen.  We decided to get married the summer before our Senior year.  I had not been looking for a life-long, life-changing relationship.  It started out that I liked him and he liked me, and then things snowballed.  It wasn't complicated, but at the same time it was VERY complicated.  What was going to happen when I went away to school?  Was he going to go on a mission? 

If you have read my blog very many times, you have probably realized that I am the type to over-think every situation.  I worry endlessly about making decisions and whether or not I'm choosing the best thing.  It was never like that when deciding if I was going to marry Toby.  I felt sure about that, more sure than I have about most everything since. 

I have regretted so many decisions I've made.  But not these seven.  Not the ones that brought Toby and each of our children into my life to stay.  It hurts sometimes to think of the people who are disappointed in how my life has gone.  I know it is very different from what I envisioned for my future. 

It's easier for me because I know what I got in return.  I have lots of interesting things going on at all times.  I get to laugh at invented grammar in kids who aren't old enough to speak as conventionally as the rest of us.  (Examples:  Loch says "we's" for "ours" and Ivy conjugated "freaked me out" into the past tense, "frucked me out.") 

It's not just the funny stuff, either.  I have had a baby to snuggle for the past twelve years on a near-constant basis.  How many people get that?  It's almost enough to make me take it for granted.  I certainly have.  I have six kids who are not perfect, but I think they will make the world a better place than it would be without them.  I am proud of them.  Dang proud.

Sure, there are downsides to having a lot of kids.  I would love "sleep through the whole night" as my default setting.   I would love to have a conversation with my husband without scheduling it on the calendar.  Couch that doesn't smell like urine?  Count me in.  Drive a car instead of a gas-guzzling people-mover?  Oh, heck yes.

It should not matter to me what others think.  It is my life.  Women have the right to choose school and work as their path, but act like the decision to have kids is only for the ignorant and unambitious.  Heaven forbid a woman might actually choose to have more than two.  Obviously, we had six kids because I married a Mormon, not because I think my kids are so awesome the world needs more of them.

When my friend dropped that conversational atomic bomb on me, I didn't know how to react.  I don't remember what I said in reply.  I wish I had said something breezily inappropriate and sarcastic, but I probably blushed and looked at my feet instead.  I wish I had said instead:  "When I married Toby, my ovaries high-fived the universe."