Don’t let the title fool you! WE ARE NOT PREGNANT!!!

We decided to discuss this topic with each other while the camera was rolling because we get asked this question often. Actually A LOT. It’s not just fans that ask, but family and friends as well. We were home this summer and got asked this by just about everyone. We remember fielding this question while home visiting everyone this summer more than any other.

There are quite a few things that come to mind for us when we think about starting a family in Korea. One are the opportunities. If we were to have a child while living in Korea, our baby would (most likely) grow up learning two languages simultaneously as long as we supported this approach. There are schools everywhere here that teach in Korean language, that a child could easily attend, and because English is spoken here at home that’s a recipe for a dual language child. This would be much more difficult to accomplish if we lived in the U.S. Another big positive is the multicultural atmosphere our child would be exposed to daily. This is something that neither Richard nor I had on a large scale growing up. There are other positives, like dual citizenship and other interesting factors to take into consideration in a situation like this that we have not seriously looked into yet.

There are also some obvious downsides to having a baby while abroad here in Korea. The largest obstacle that comes to mind is the regular absence of our families in this child’s life. We live far from both our families. In fact, my family in Pennsylvania is about 10 times closer to Richard’s family in New York than we are to either of them. Weird. Nevertheless our child would grow up with grandparents always being far away except when we traveled to see them, and that doesn’t seem so attractive to us. We also got to see firsthand this summer the foundation and support our siblings (who both have children) receive from our parents. We would be lacking this support here in Korea for the most part. This would put a strain on us we believe. We know it would. We all know raising a child is not easy, and the help of family and friends can be a life saver at times when raising a child in the early years.

For those of you reading this who have children, what are the biggest challenges you face in your situation?

Addressing this type of questions itself is difficult for us. Actually, for all the times anyone has ever inquired about if we plan to start a family or not, answering this question as a childless couple never seems to get easier for us. Not sure why that is.

We’ve noticed that some people like to phrase the question like this: “Are you thinking about having kids?” Now don’t get us wrong, we know what they mean. They intend to convey whether or not we have plans to actually get pregnant. The answer to that is no, we have not made plans to get pregnant yet. But its peoples wording that we stumble over, mostly because we both like trying to be as honest as possible in our lives. The answer to whether we’ve been ‘thinking about’ having a child is yes, we’ve thought about it. Doesn’t mean we have plans to do it, it just means we’ve been thinking about it. This has caused us more confusion amongst many who have asked us that it’s laughable.

Has anyone else in a situation like us (recently married without children) ever experienced anything like this?

Which is why we liked the Nicholas’s questions so much! We asked if we were to start a family in Korea. This is also something we’ve thought about, and often. I’ve always thought I’d eventually become a mother after getting married.

Soooooo.. we made this video. A little crazy? Yes! But whoever said we were normal. Certainly not either of our mothers. ☺