As a little girl, you wouldn’t find me spending my time playing with dolls, or dreaming of being a mother. I never spent my evenings and weekends babysitting, and while I figured children would eventually be a part of my future, it was a for sure thing.
When I met my husband though, things started to change. This was a man born to be a father, and suddenly my vision of myself as a mother started to become a little more clear.
We were married, and we followed the path. We spent a year as newlyweds, getting through all the messy “getting to know you” stuff, and then took the leap and purchased a home. When we were just on cusp of wanting to start a family, medical issues delayed us for 18 months.
In many ways this “delay” gave us some bonus time. Extra months where we could get a few extra projects done, and an additional buffer in the bank account. We had late night reno sessions, enjoyed dinners out, and embraced our “kid free” days.
We did everything we thought was important, so we could be sure we were ready to move ahead, when we got the green light to go.
It is a strange thing deciding to have a baby. While you need to be mentally prepared, you can not control everything the body does, or how it will react.
When we had the medical all clear, I remember sitting down with my husband and the two of us having to consciously “decide” that it was the right time. One month he would be all for, and the next I would be, and for 6 months we didn’t have the luck to have the same feelings at the same time.
Until we did. I can’t remember if it was his idea, or mine, but I do remember the building excitement that we were BOTH on the same page, at the same time. Together we were deciding on this life change, and much like signing the papers to purchase our first home, this was an adult decision we were making together.
We were so confident. We were ready.
And then we were pregnant, and the whole world changed.
I wasn’t a very content pregnant woman. I was tired, nauseous, and irritable. I felt grateful that we had completed so many of the things we wanted to do before getting pregnant, but realized very quickly we still hadn’t done enough.
Even as a tiny blip on the ultrasound this baby was affecting our life in a way we could not have imagined.
In my 6th month we were renovating our basement and kitchen. I was cutting gyprock, and we were refinishing cabinets. We were doing all the things we thought we needed to do to get ready.
In my 8th month, our projects were done, my belly was huge and the nursery was being prepared. I remember sitting with my husband, peering over my mounded gut, trying to piece together our baby crib, and laying our the bedding we had painstakingly chosen.
I don’t know if it suddenly came to us, or perhaps it was the natural progression of our preparations, but we started to worry.
What were we doing? We were having a baby.
A BABY.
We were going to be responsible for another life, even though we still felt like we were struggling through being responsible for ourselves.
We had that moment, surrounded by pastel baby clothes, where we realized that through all our preparations we weren’t prepared at all.
We had the painted rooms, and the diapers and onesies and all the bottles and tubs we needed. Our minds where ready, we had made a conscious decision to do this, and our bodies were healthy and good. We had jobs, a home and a future.
But, we hadn’t thought about if all of that went wrong.
What if the worst was to occur? What if either of us got sick, or injured? What if we could no longer care for our child? What if, what if, what if.
I remember sitting there on the floor as my due date ticked down and feeling the first icy fingers of fear. Finally realizing what our decision to TRY had turned into.
Before our baby girl was born, we had sat with our lawyer and had our wills tucked away in our safety deposit boxes. We had purchased life and disability insurance, and talked to our families about what we wanted to happen if that “worst” ever did occur.
That was the day we became parents, before our daughter was even in our arms. The day we realized what being parents really was. It isn’t about those fuzzy footed pi’s in the drawer, it was about having our feet firmly planted in reality and taking every precaution possible to protect our child from an unknown future.
With every child we had we updated our will, and increased our life insurance. We made changes along the way to ensure that our family would be as secure as possible, if the unimaginable happened. Despite our reluctance to think about it, we forced ourselves to confront the worst, to prepare for the nightmare, if only to allow us to spend the majority of our days in the dream.
Life Insurance can include a lengthy process of medical testing and applications, but right now Manulife has an opportunity for you to apply and instantly get 100K-250K of coverage in minutes.
This coverage can be an affordable way to add the extra on top of other coverage, or to start to give yourself peace of mind. 
On Wednesday Nov 25th we invite you to join the Manulife #BeCovered twitter chat. Join the conversation, ask some hard questions and get inspired by sharing the life changing moments that occurred to help you start thinking about your future coverage.