The King spent many years convincing me that we were never going to get married or have children. He had been married before and after that ended, he felt that he’d done that and didn’t want to do it again. I resisted of course, wanting to have children, wanting to be married, arguing for my side, on many occasions until the early hours of the morning.
We had a great life together, the business was taking off, we lived in a great place. Things were going great for us. There was always that underlying thing though. I was disappointed but started to accept that we didn’t need a piece of paper to prove our love and commitment. I even began spewing the rhetoric I’d been fed whenever we were asked if we were getting married. The King must have been so proud 😛 He’d convinced me, his job was done.
Then something changed in him. I really did want kids but I could live without the wedding. So I convinced the King it would be great but due to some previous complications it would be difficult and take a long time to achieve this goal and we should just try and see what happened. I went a chinese herbalist to help in the process. He gave me the most revolting concoction to make into a tea to drink. I did it, I was on a mission. Along with drinking this I had to ‘put circles on the chart’ and plot my temperature each day to predict ovulation and all that crap that you do when you’re convinced you need children desperately. The King didn’t complain about the ‘circles on the chart’ however 🙂
I did this each day for a few months, going back to both the chinese dude and the gynaecologist to check progress several times. There was disappointment but I kept trying. I’d count days, do pregnancy tests, nothing. ….. Then one day, something!
I remember being excited but also worried how I would break the news…. so like all good technologically savvy people, I emailed….. 6 little words ‘I did the test, don’t yell’. The reply came ‘Well you’re going to be busy then aren’t you’. I guess that meant he wasn’t changing diapers?
Things moved along in the usual fashion until one crazy day, 25th September,1999. We had been working with a couple who had connections with an Asian company and we were very close to a huge deal with an Asian internet tv channel. Things were pretty frantic and moving at a fast pace.
I was out this day, doing the banking, grocery shopping and whatever else was required in town (we lived 12mls/20kms out ). When I arrived home, the King said he had to go into town for a meeting and he’d call later on and let me know the outcome etc. I was happy not to go, I had begun to feel very tired anyway.
The call came, the deal was done, we were going to Brisbane with these people for dinner, ‘Get dressed up, I’ll be there in an hour to pick you up.’ So I got dressed up and waited for the car to come up the driveway. Then I get another call, ‘Put the dogs inside, Bev is scared of them.’ Huh, she’s been here before, I don’t remember her being scared but ok.
The next thing I know a helicopter is landing in our back yard, well when I say back yard, we were on 10 acres but most of it was bush so there was not a whole lot of open space for it.
I wasn’t really fazed because we were moving in some pretty interesting circles at the time and limos, private planes and helicopters happened quite a bit. Now I understood why I really needed to put the dogs away 🙂 lest they be squashed by a Bell Long Range Helicopter.
I hopped in, put the headphones on, asked some questions like where were the others, where were we going etc. The King said they were meeting us there. Then he handed me a contract saying I should read this to get up to speed for the dinner. I started reading but it wasn’t making sense. I think I reread the first page 3 times…… just as it dawned on me what the contract was saying the opened box came out. It was a marriage proposal and the box contained a ring! Wow…… I didn’t see that coming. Of course I cried, I put the ring on but forgot to say ‘yes!’ The pilot actually said ‘Well?’
Then I asked the questions again. Where were we really going and what were we really doing. After the helicopter landed we took a few minutes to go somewhere for a quick drink and make some phone calls, this is when he broke the news that he had arranged for us to get married on 9th October, in 3 weeks time. This date held significance because it was right in the middle of our birthdays, so it was always a good way to remember the anniversary. Such a schemer.
Then he told me we were going out for dinner but we had to call in to see someone first, again I believed it…… so dumb 🙂 We walked into a room full of our friends who also had no idea why they were there. As we arrived the King announced we just got engaged. Surprises all around and this was our engagement party, we weren’t going out to dinner at all. We had an awesome night.
I had been convinced it would never happen, yet there we were right in the middle of it all. It was a crazy 3 weeks organising everything but we managed it and had a great wedding and honeymoon.
We even had to go before a judge to explain why we needed to get married without giving the standard 1 month notice. The King wrote a convincing argument which included, Brides don’t like to look fat in their dresses, Oh yes he did!
During the interview the judge asked us how long we’d been together, we answered 9 years, his reply was ‘What, are ya shy mate?’ It was pretty funny.
A couple of weeks after we came home I wasn’t feeling right and unfortunately that little soul didn’t make it. These things happen, nature knows when something’s not right. Luckily for us a year later, to the day, Grand Master D was born. Later, another soul followed the first one but then Miss Gremlin arrived in a similar fashion almost a year to the day…….
Sometimes it takes a couple of goes to get the good ones.
I think the King just saw it as a challenge to see if he could convince me that we were never getting married or having children. Once he had, the conquest was over and he was happy to do both. These days I just agree with most things, that way there’s no sport in it for him and we don’t do super crazy things…………….Ha, yeah right! It’s a theory, ok, it’s not perfect.
Just remember you can NEVER SAY NEVER 🙂