I'm on a mission.

Last night, I gave the fiancé an ultimatum without really intending to give him an ultimatum, but nonetheless that's what it was: I told him that this time next year, I want to stop taking my birth control.

I'll be 28 on September 1st, and the previous arrangement was that he'd promised to get me pregnant before I turn 30. But, every time I approach him about having kids lately he's pushed back. "I don't want to talk about this right now," yet there's never a good time. "Kids are expensive, and we have a lot of debt," we own our car, and our combined debt is maybe 23k not counting the affordable mortgage we have. "I'm not sure I'm ready to be a father," who really is ready? Plus just shutting me down or redirecting in general.

I needed to put pressure on this situation to get a result. I hated doing it, but if I hadn't then we wouldn't have ever found a way to resolve this. I even went as far as telling him that if he's not on board with me about having children anymore then we need to end it. As much as I love him, I was ready to leave him if expectations had changed since he agreed he wanted kids before we even got together. I'm that serious.

I hate to push him, but I feel like the clock is ticking, and it doesn't help that I am constantly surrounded by babies. My coworkers are all having babies, my extended family is having all kinds of babies, and I bumped into my awesome aunt & uncle on Monday, and they have two new grandsons they showed me pictures of. It's driving me up the wall. I've wanted my own kids since well before I knew how babies were made. My best years for it are already gone, and I'm so sick of waiting.

My argument is, we're stable. Sure we have debt, who doesn't in this day and age? But we own a house, and we both make good money from jobs that aren't going to let us go any time soon. I figure that this time next year, we'll be in this same state working the same jobs, only a little bit financially better off. And I'll be turning 29 then, so the time is nearly up.

He was upset because he said it feels like I'm taking the decision away from him. Well yes, that's exactly what I was doing, because from my perspective he wasn't making one. He also said that I've cut a year off his timeline. While also technically true, I rebutted with does he really expect I'll be able to easily conceive a couple weeks before my 30th birthday? And is he seriously wanting to put this off until the very last fscking minute? You bet I'm going to put pressure on him to baby me sooner than that.

Anyways, after it was heated, we sat down and finally had a real discussion about kids. He told me he wants them - Not just one, two! - and I can't express how happy/relieved I was to hear that. He told me he wants to fix up the house first, and we discussed renovation plans - Mostly floors and the upstairs bathroom. He wants to clear out the spare bedroom and paint it mint green or yellow. I told him we still have purple paint from when we did the master bedroom, but he said one purple room is all I'm getting :P

He told me he wants to get better habits before a baby crawls around on our dirty floors, and I told him that habits realistically take years to develop, and won't magically happen before I'm pregnant, but we will be forced to improve regardless once a baby is in the picture. He told me that he's worried about money. His family was extremely poor when he was a kid, and he didn't clue in until much later how bad it was. He doesn't ever want to be in that situation. I reassured him that neither of our jobs are going anywhere, and that once I finish my MCSE I could potentially make 20k more/year over what I'm making now (Ballpark estimate I pulled out of my head, it's been a long time since I actually looked at numbers).

That was what finally sold it for him. We now have a new deal. We will start having kids once I finish all my exams and get my MCSE. Realistically once I get certified I probably won't get a salary bump like that from my current company, but if I applied elsewhere I could ask for more because of it. In any case, I'm on a mission now. I have my textbook at work with me today, and will have it with me every minute of every day from here on, and I will write the first exam before his 28th birthday, on Sept. 11th. I told him that I will have my MCSE even earlier than my original August 2016 deadline, and he said he's fine with that so long as I get it.

I know this is also a test of how serious I am about my work and career. I have a lot of textbooks I've bought over the years for getting this certification or learning that web scripting language, and I haven't finished them. But this time, I will. My progeny are on the line >:D