is gestational diabetes a good enough reason to rush the wedding?

[Stung]

here's a link to my 2nd thread on this matter...the 2nd thread contains link to first...all very meta: http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t160467/

 

so, it's a long story. also, i tend to be long-winded, which doesn't help. trying to make it short: i'm 33, he's 38 in a couple of weeks, we've been living together as domestic partners (joint bank accounts, same insurance, etc.) for almost 2 years, together about 3 years, he has a daughter who lives with us 1/2 of every week and whom i love dearly and get along spectacularly with, and our baby son is due in mid-november, which is pretty much right around the corner.

 

there's been talk of marriage since before the incoming baby was a gleam in his daddy's eye, there were some debates, they were resolved, we decided to get married, everyone was happy, yay. we started looking at rings maybe a couple of months ago, finally found what we like, having it custom made, will probably take 6-8 weeks to complete (i.e. right before baby is born, unless he's early).

 

in my mind, i was halfway planning an elopement before the baby came, basically jeans, bare feet, a romantic B&B on the coast, nobody there but the 9-year-old and the officiant. i was hoping for this scenario...to me it's romantic, easy, low-stress, low-budget, beautiful...perfect. we could be married with the stepdaughter present as my only attendant, and then drop her at her mom's after the weekend and take off for a honeymoon just the two of us, before the new arrival makes that kind of romantic getaway thing pretty much impossible for the next couple of years. i mentioned that to my partner (i don't know, i've been calling him that for a while now so it feels weird to call him my fiance), more than once. he wanted to pick the ring, though, and plan a proposal, which was nice. then he took his time, and he took his time, and now it's too late. i'm too huge and uncomfortable to sit in a car for very long, and i'm not allowed to fly at this point; the honeymoon ain't happening before this baby comes out.

 

okay. that was kind of disappointing to me, but i adusted. when we finally settled on a ring the other day, i was just happy that it would be ready around the time of our anniversary and (probably) before the baby gets here. i liked the idea of at least being officially engaged before actually giving birth, for various, non-religious reasons, and readjusted my thinking: we'd have a small and still fairly casual but slightly more traditional wedding, just close family and best friends, in a unique meditation chapel up the coast which has some significance for both of us as a couple. it's about a 5-hour drive to get there, but it's gorgeous and worth it and we spent our first weekend trip together as a couple in that area and stumbled across it by chance while hiking on the coast. i mentioned this to him and he really liked the idea...he was the one who kind of wanted a more traditional ceremony all along, btw.

 

but see, now that it's too late to have a honeymoon or do much of any kind of getaway before our son arrives, i was planning on having this ceremony a year from now, maybe two. making our kid part of the ceremony along with his big sister.

HERE'S THE THING: my partner dropped a little bomb on me last night. even though the engagement ring won't even be ready for 6-8 weeks, and he has been asking me not to even tell people we're officially engaged until he has a chance to propose with the ring in hand (his idea, not mine), and our son is due in 9 weeks, he wants us to get married before the baby gets here.

 

wha?

 

i asked him why; he said he feels it would be nice to be married for the baby's sake, before he is born. i pointed out that he never married the live-in girlfriend who is the mother of his daughter, and it's never seemed to bother him that she is 'illegitimate'; he counters simply that he didn't want to marry her mother. okay, hard to argue with that. i point out how severely truncated our options are at this point, and how busy and stressed out we already are with everything else going on, and he hangs his head and feels bad and like a doof for waiting so long to get his sh*t together but is still stubborn as a mule about doing it in a huge rush. he thought we could still somehow book the significant-to-us meditation chapel, which is five hours away and also a unique architectural landmark, for a couple of weeks from now . i tell him i just don't think it will work, you have to book those places months in advance, and i have been willing to bend a lot of things around but i just don't want to have my wedding in a last minute rush at city hall, with no honeymoon at all, no element of anything special and romantic or personal to us as a couple, etc., while we're in the middle of frantically rushing to prepare for the baby (which we haven't had much chance to do because we've also been house hunting and packing).

 

that's when he says that he has another reason to want to get married before the birth. i failed my first gestational diabetes test and just took the second one; i'm pretty sure i failed that one too, as it made me really sick. i was pale and sweaty and my eyes were going all unfocused and i felt like i was going to throw up or pass out. my partner was there and i think it scared him. even though the final diagnosis is not back yet, he is convinced that i have gestational diabetes (i have been sick a LOT during this pregnancy) and that would automatically put me into a high-risk category for the rest of this pregnancy, and for labor. he told me he is afraid that if something happens to me and i'm not well, the hospital will keep him from me, if we are not legally married. after all, it does happen to gay couples all the time.

 

i have no real response to that. i don't think anything horrible is going to happen to me in childbirth, but obviously it could: childbirth is still dangerous. it's a pretty sweet reason to want to marry me right away, all things considered. but i still feel like i'm about to be totally gypped out of not only my honeymoon but also my wedding day, so i'm torn. i'm touched, but i still resent being pushed into a wedding of a style i don't like because he dragged his feet so long about the rings and the proposal-style. all of the places that had personal significance to us that we had talked about as wedding sites are too far away for me to travel to right now. still, i don't want him to be afraid that he'll be pushed aside if something does go wrong.

 

i guess we could go do a quickie meaningless legal ceremony anywhere in the next couple of months, even before the engagement ring is finished, and then have the real ceremony later, after the baby's born...my partner suggested this, but i think having the legal aspect already done months or a year before the ceremony would just suck a lot of the meaning and joy out of it, it would feel like i was acting in a play or something, you know? not to mention that i suspect that when it comes down to it, my partner would feel the same way and would start to question whether we had to have a ceremony at all, since the papers would already be signed.

 

i don't know, maybe i'm just rambling or venting. i'm upset by this though and i would love anyone's advice. anyone here who had a secret legal marriage and held the ceremony later? anyone who's had gestational diabetes? anyone who's had to change their wedding plans multiple times in a few months and got fed up?

[Ronni_W]

Sorry...I didn't read every word so may suggest something you've already covered.

 

I can't see how gestational diabetes enters into it. You're already practically engaged and definitely pregnant. (Again, may have missed how you guys are linking your health condition to the timing of the wedding ceremony.)

 

Can you go ahead and book/pay deposits on the church, reception hall, etc., for the time that you both originally decided on (so that you both know there is a can't-change-our-minds commitment to that) ...and THEN do a meaningful civil ceremony to ensure that your baby has the, er, "legal standing" (I guess?), that his Dad seems keen on giving him?

having the legal aspect already done months or a year before the ceremony would just suck a lot of the meaning and joy out of it, it would feel like i was acting in a play or something, you know?

Actually, no, I don't know. I mean...yes, if you tell yourself that the fact of the civil ceremony will suck out much of the (future) meaning and joy of expressing your vows in front of your loved ones, and sharing your love with them in 'public' as it were, then...yeah, I can see that it will do exactly that. But it doesn't HAVE to be like that.

 

Both the private and the 'family' ceremonies and celebrations can be equally meaningful and significant...just for different reasons. They would both be "real" and you would OWN the roles of bride and groom on both occasions (not just be 'acting' the second)...but again, of course only if you choose that for a desire, a thought and a feeling.

 

I do know two couples who had both. One, the ceremonies were only a month apart, and the other, just over a year. Neither of the couples felt that the second was any less significant ~ it just is part of their mutual history and who they are as a couple.

[lonelyandfrustrated]

I think if you want to be married to him, you should do it now, before the baby is born. In my state, it saves on a lot of paperwork.

 

I failed my first diabetes test with my fourth child; passed on the second test. (note to others: do not consume large bowls of Frosted Flakes before test no matter how much you want them!)

 

I think it's sweet he wants to go ahead with the official stuff. Go for it. He sounds like a committed man. Waiting for a ceremony is just that: waiting for a ceremony that, in the real purpose of it, means nothing. It's a party. You can party anytime but you only have one chance to avoid all that paperwork.

[Stung]

thanks for your replies. ronni, i was hoping you'd make an appearance; you gave me sage advice in my other threads.

 

re: how the gestational diabetes affects the timeline, I don't think it should, but:

 

"even though the final diagnosis is not back yet, he is convinced that i have gestational diabetes (i have been sick a LOT during this pregnancy) and that would automatically put me into a high-risk category for the rest of this pregnancy, and for labor. he told me he is afraid that if something happens to me and i'm not well, the hospital will keep him from me, if we are not legally married."

 

he's afraid of getting booted from the room if something goes wrong for me during the delivery, essentially. i understand his concern, as i've been having trouble with my blood sugar and fainting spells for a while now. it's very sweet, but i'm not sure it's really an issue, as our hospital has women sign paperwork re: who should be present at birth, who has rights to what, etc., and while power-of-attorney would go to my parents in the unlikely event of my becoming a vegetable or whatever, my parents would never cut my partner out of the situation.

 

anyway, the thing is, the wedding would NOT be just a 'party' to me, nor is it really about exchanging vows in front of our families, and it definitely doesn't have anything to do with religion. as long as his daughter is there, i'm not really bothered about having anybody else; our parents and best friends would be nice, okay, and our folks would obviously strongly prefer to be there, but i think the wedding is about US: me, the man, the girl, and the fetus. our history, our future, the family WE are making. also, i'm a writer, i engage in symbolic thinking professionally. i don't really give a sh*t about a reception, we have always planned on a civil ceremony, and i don't care if we get married in the nondenominational chapel we discovered on our hike on our first romantic getaway, or on the public bench in the marina that we carved our nicknames into like lovestruck teenagers, but i DO deeply, deeply want it to be somewhere that is significant to both of us as a couple. the moment when we say 'i do' is the moment when we will be married, when i will begin to feel married, and when we will officially be family. i'm not sure i see a point in trying to recreate that, and i'm reluctant to do it somewhere that has NO meaning to us at all, where fifty thousand other people are getting married that day. i've given up on having a honeymoon, i've sacrificed my dream house to his ex (first thread), and it's hard to think of giving up a personal wedding because of paperwork.

 

i have friends who had two ceremonies, and two of them have said that they did feel like it confused the issue and let some of the air out of the 2nd, 'real' ceremony; another couple said each time was meaningful to them. obviously different people feel differently about this. i'll look back on my wedding day and be glad for who i married, but i'd rather not regret the way it happened. i do think it's sweet that he wants to get it done first, but i'm still torn.

[porter218]

Stung, I am with you on this one. I wouldn't want to try to get married while huge and pregnant. I would be too uncomfortable trying to stand through the whole ceremony while that far along. I think that you should just postpone till the baby is born and maybe a few months old....then it's bigger sister could hold it during the ceremony. I don't think your partner has anything to worry about in the hospital since he is the father of the child..I don't see how they could make him leave the room. Another thing is that since you are a high risk pregnancy making wedding plans is a bad idea...you could go into labor or have to be induced early and ruin any plans you had set up. Due dates are only a rough idea of when your baby may come. So making big plans during late pregnancy is never recomended...I have a family member that works in the NICU and I hear about all those early born babies everyday( so reasuring when I am currently in my last trimester:rolleyes:). Your fiances reaction is cute and commendable but purely an emotional one, he should be OK with waiting just a lttle longer.

[Ronni_W]

the wedding is about US: me, the man, the girl, and the fetus. ... i DO deeply, deeply want it to be somewhere that is significant to both of us as a couple.

Hey, Stung ~ sorry I made you repeat what is his 'real' reason for rushing the wedding. Does that mean that, if someone at the hospital can assure him that he will NOT be kicked out, he will be okay with staying the original course? If so, can your MD/OB-GYN arrange a meeting with hospital admin?

 

I didn't get the importance of the location, either (my brain has obviously declared this a 'Sunday of Rest'.)

It's a lovely idea. I think I get what you mean ~~ you want your "I do" moment to reflect how you and he got 'here' and also to represent where you, he, Daughter and Baby are going...and 'here' is this exact spot on which you've already created a love-filled memory, and from which you will create many, many more...something like that? If so...

 

...NO!!! Do not sacrifice that (except for the most dire of emergencies.) I'd go get the hospital forms to show your Beloved exactly how much he need not worry; or beg and plead for a meet with the 'Head Hospital Honcho', if necessary.

I so feel that you ought to do what you can, for your deep desire about this to become your reality. It just really feels too special and delightful for it to get scuttled by fears that are unfounded, or coming from a 'worst case' scenario, or would be out of anyone's control, anyway. (If, God forbid, they did have to clear the delivery room of non-medical individuals -- which they WON'T have to, btw -- isn't Dad going to have to get out whether or not he is legally married to Mom?)

 

Speaking of which, and if I may be so bold...could I please ask Dad to start focusing on your GOOD health and easy-breezy delivery? No more of his Negative Nelly "what if things go wrong?" Wot the heck is up with that, Dad?

 

Anyway. Wishing you your perfect "I do" moment...and a worry-free, stress-free pregnancy...and an easy-breezy delivery...and LOTS of love and happiness for all of you, for all your days