Lasting Love

We can keep trying

6 months we've been trying for this baby with no luck. It's really making both of us much more stressed out than we normally are. It's like we aren't even the same people anymore. We hardly even look at each other anymore unless it's for sex or when we're around the kids.

"Kay, you need to stop that!" I yell taking a toy from her. I must have asked her 5 times to stop banging them together because I can't stand the noise, but she just won't stop.

"I think it's time for a nap." Justin picks Ben up and takes Kay's hand to walk them upstairs. I know he doesn't agree with me yelling at her like that and that's why he's doing this. Soon, he'll be down here yelling at me. I start to clean up some of the mess so that we can actually walk in the living room when I hear him run down the steps and into the room.

"What the hell was that?!"

I drop what I have in my hands "I told her before to stop. She won't learn of we just keep giving her warnings."

"So you just take it and yell at her?" He looks at me in disbelief "Why not put her in time out?"

"Because," I can feel my blood pressure rising "I thought this would work better. It put an end to the noise didn't it?"

"I don't understand this!" He yells "You have no patience towards them at all, and yet you still want another one? How about caring about the 2 that you have?"

How could he think that I don't care about them? "You're such and asshole, Justin!" I grab my purse and my car keys "How would you know that when you haven't even been home recently?"

He follows me out to the garage standing at my car door "Maybe if our house wasn't somewhere that I was worried about causing a fight every five minutes I would be home!" He slams my car door shut and backs away. I pull out of the garage and think about what to do. What I should do is go back so we can sort this out, but I don't think that is the best idea right now. We both need some time to calm down.

I open the door to an all too familiar house. I've always come here when I need help or advice.

"Court!" I walk into the kitchen and find her. She can see that I've been crying and pulls me upstairs into her bedroom.

"What happened?" She hands me tissues "Are you okay?"

"No," I start sobbing. She's the only person except our parents that know we've been trying for another baby, and one of the only people who knows what it's like on a person level "Courteney, we don't even talk anymore. It's like the only time we want to be near each other is when we're having sex, and that's only because of the baby, not because we want to have it. He practically called me a bad mother earlier because I can't handle the stress of this. I take it out on the kids and I know that's wrong, but I'm sick of fighting with him." I could go on forever, but she knows what I'm going through, and what I'm going to say.

She doesn't say anything, but wraps her arms around me to hug me knowing that's what I need.

"I know it's hard to do this," she finally speaks up "But it will be so worth it in the end that you'll forget all of this. You two need to take some time each day to talk to each other. Just 5 minutes to say how much you love each other, and that you're the same people you were when you got married. This is going to be stressful on both of you, but you made the decision to try for another together, and you have to stick together through it."

"But he isn't even home anymore." I can't really blame him for this "All we do when he is home is fight. I miss the days when we wanted to be together all the time. Now it's like we hate each other, but are forced to work together."

"You both need to calm down. Don't think of it as something that must be done. Think of Kay and Ben and how they would like if they had another sibling to play with. I know both of you love them more than anyone else in the world, and making them happy is all you want. If you put the stress of thinking about it too much on yourself it's just going to hurt you. You need to stay as stressfree as possible." She's right. Thinking about it in a way that I'd be giving my two children another sibling makes it much less stressful, and I know that will help Justin too.

"Thank you," I hug her "That really helps."

She stands up and opens the door with a smile "Now, go home and makeup with your husband. You two need each other." I get up and leave her house. It's 9:30 now which means the kids should be asleep, and Justin is hopefully still awake.

The lights in the house are all dimmed and it looks romantic as I pull up the driveway. The TV is soft, and the upstairs lights are off letting me know that the kids are asleep. I walk into Justin's office where I find him working on a script.

"Hey," I say silently as I walk in and sit on the couch "I'm sorry about earlier."

"No." He gets up and sits next to me "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have criticized you like that. You're the best mother our children could have, and I know sometimes stress can get the best of any of us."

"But I shouldn't let it get to me when dealing with them. I need to find a better way to deal with it so that they are stuck in the middle of this whole situation." I think about what I want to say "We need to start looking at this as a way to give them a sibling instead of just something that would be cool to have."

"I like that." He agrees with me "And from now on we talk it out before it becomes a big fight. We can keep trying for as long as we need to, and eventually I'll be listening to you complain about being pregnant."

"Yeah," I laugh as he wraps his arms around me. I lay my head on his shoulder and look up at him "I love you."

"I love you too."