Expecting a Baby Shows How a Couple Handles Stress

Life changes always bring out the extremes in our marriage. When we were engaged and took a personality test, Jason’s pastor pointed to our
scores on the laid back/uptight continuum and said, “If you guys have any trouble, this is where it will be.”

Eleven years later, and that moment has become engraved on my memory because it has proved true so many times. Every opportunity for
growth and change makes me stress out and thrash around for control over someone or something, while my husband chills on the couch, kicking back with a soda and saying, “It’s going to be fine.”

Of course, he’s always right. But why must it always be at the eleventh hour? There is a constant tension between us, not necessarily in a bad way where I’m always pushing for a solution right now, no matter what, and he’s pushing for good enough, just in time, and maybe with some fun along the way.

With our fourth baby due in a few weeks, we are once again in the heat of that struggle. I’ve hit my last trimester, and we are still driving a car that will accommodate only three children. We’ve shopped, shopped, and shopped some more on Craig’s List, test-driving many Suburbans that fit our budget, and nothing has turned up. It’s making me crazy. And Jason is sitting on the couch drinking his Coke and telling me it will be fine.

I am pulling my hair out over space in our house, checking out books from the library about storage solutions and brainstorming Christmas gifts for the kids that will add to collections or be good for outside play, anything that won’t take up another cubby in their crowded bedroom. Jason isn’t at all stressed, and I envy him as I drive myself crazy trying to decide where I could fit one more dresser.

Baby names are another topic where I want to have it over and decided with lots of time to spare. That only works, however, if the other person is willing to give an opinion. Whenever I mention a name I like to my husband, he dodges the conversation by making a light comment about someone we know or someone famous by that name. We’ve gone to the hospital the last two times without a name decision but with a list of options, and I admit, it was resolved well before we left to go home.

I’m making this sound as if it’s a big problem, but in truth, it’s a facet of our relationship that I really like. If everything was decided and ready before we left for the hospital, the excitement might be somehow diminished. The reason I was first drawn to Jason was because I had more fun with him than anyone I’d ever met, and though some days it makes me absolutely nuts, I’m still having a lot of fun. And fun makes the last trimester, and especially the much bigger challenges in life, bearable.