Getting To Know You, Getting To Know All About You

Now I realize the progression should be; getting to know you, marrying you, having your baby . . .

But in this case it felt like; having your baby, getting to know you . . . . .

Jerry and I were a completely different couple in Kansas than we were in Germany and that bothered me a lot.  Germany felt like we were on a long European vacation and Kansas felt like real life.  Though we still talked of getting married, it wasn't something I was wanting to jump right into.

For one thing, I didn't want a "shot gun" wedding.  Tacky.  I know, I know.  I was pregnant and certainly I should have thought about that BEFORE conception but you know --here I was pregnant now so . . . .

I think my family thought the whole reason Jerry was coming to Kansas was for us to get married.  I kept thinking to myself having a baby is not a good enough reason to get married.  I know, sounds backwards and odd.

Its just that to me a marriage is a "til death do us part" commitment and I wanted to be certain both Jerry and I were in it for the right reasons.  Bringing a baby into the world to unmarried parents is tough but so is bringing a baby into a bad and/or doomed marriage.  My family was still embracing the bi-racial relationship and that just confused me more.  On the other hand, they were pressuring me to get married because they were uncomfortable with the unwed pregnancy.  Well, "they" doesn't exactly mean everyone.  In fact, every family member had a different opinion and every family member wanted me to do what they thought was best.

It was confusing.

When I was a young teenager my grandmother gave me some advice.  She told me a woman should never make a big decision or sign any contracts when she's "on her monthly".  What she meant was, for women that experience PMS and can have high and low emotions, you might want to put off making any big decisions until you are certain they are decisions driven back facts and not hormones.  That kept coming to mind because although Jerry was being sweet and trying so hard to take good care of me, he was also annoying me.  One day I was ready to run to the Justice of the Peace and get married and the next day I wanted to put Jerry on the next plane back to Germany.  As far as Jerry knew, things were great between us and we were headed straight for the alter.  I kept telling him I wanted to wait and he was agreeable to whatever I wanted to do.

I mean, I had such a hard time embracing a maternity uniform, imagine me in a maternity wedding dress?  That makes as much sense as maternity BDU's!

My grandmother's words kept ringing in my head and I wondered if I was having such a difficult time because I was pregnant with raging hormones.  Because I was so confused about everything, I decided I did not want to get married until after the baby was born.  But I didn't tell anyone that.  All I could think of was, the last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt Jerry.  In fact, the thought of hurting him killed me. 

Jerry and I did not end up going to Chicago to meet my family and now I can't remember why.  I do remember looking into flights for us and calculating driving but we never did go.  My Dad was especially disappointed. It was soon time for Jerry to go back to Germany.  My due date was November 15 so he planned to come back then.  And so now I was going to be alone again.  As Jerry was packing to leave I began to realize how much I really did enjoy having him there.  Though we both were still figuring out things about each other, we really did love each other.  We just had things out of order and that made it more difficult.

We were getting ready to leave for the airport.  Jerry was literally zipping up his suitcase when the phone rang.  It was my sister Val.  Her words were very slow and determined.