That's how I know

Round 30: July 2032 (Winter)

last update/wedding/next update

Rob Ashton is 31 and Patience is 30.
(Cara is 43, Josie is 30, Jude is 2 weeks old)

Narrated by Rob Ashton

After losing my job a couple of years ago, it's been a struggle to build up my reputation again.

I'm currently a paralegal and I'm confident that I'll be able to start practising again soon.

I'm making contacts, so I think things may finally be progressing for me. It's been such a long road though. At the moment though, I spend most of my time doing research and writing legal documents. I'm better acquainted with the clerks and interns than I am with the lawyers.

It's a bit emasculating that Patience earns three times as much as I do but I've been trying not to let it get to me too much. Other than that, things are going pretty well.

It's been about a year and a half since our wedding and married life is treating us nicely. We were already living together, so it doesn't feel very different but it's nice to be husband and wife.

Eventually, we'd like to buy a house but for now we'll probably stay put. We don't need the extra space just yet and this is such a central location. We're close to everything you could possibly need.

Proximity to Josie is always going to be a factor for Patience. I think she'd been home from the hospital for approximately 10 minutes before Patience dragged me over to visit. I felt like we'd be intruding but Josie seemed happy enough to have us over.

Troy works Sundays though, which meant I was feeling a little out of place. I've known Josie for years now but when those two get together, there's a lot of in-jokes and history and it's hard to keep up.

I usually just end up drinking a lot of coffee and leaving them to it.

Patience has been so excited about Josie's baby and I think she would have exploded if she'd had to wait any longer to meet him.

It was nice to finally meet Jude though. I probably wouldn't have cared much at all a year or so ago but I've been picturing Patience and myself with our own kids lately.

Suddenly babies are a little more interesting than they have been before.

Patience and I didn't start trying for a baby right after we got married but a few months ago, we talked about and decided to go for it. It seemed like a good time for us.

After four months of trying, Patience got a positive on a home pregnancy test! I don't think either of us have ever been so excited about anything in our lives.

Every day since then, we've hardly talked about anything not related to the baby.

We've talked about moving versus just converting our office to a nursery. We've talked names. We've discussed when to start telling people.

Our happiness didn't last long. Early one morning, I woke up and heard Patience crying in the bathroom.

I rushed downstairs to find out what was wrong and she told me she thought she was miscarrying. My heart sank but I tried not to freak out.

I'd heard of pregnant women having bleeding early on and everything turned out okay, so I guess I was holding onto that. I tried to calm Patience down but she was so sure we'd lost the baby. She just knew.

We went to the hospital anyway, and saw the first doctor available. That ended up being Dr. Moretti, who confirmed what Patience had already assumed.

Dr. Moretti was really wonderful and sympathetic. She told us early miscarriages are more common than most people realise and that it doesn't mean Patience will never carry a baby to term. Small comfort at the moment but I appreciated it anyway.

We asked her when it would be safe for us to try again. Some doctors recommend waiting up to three months but Dr. Moretti told us she didn't believe there was any reason we can't start trying again whenever we're ready.

We've talked about it though and we think it's a better idea to wait a couple of months anyway. Patience thinks she needs some time to grieve this baby before she can move on.

We're definitely on the same page with that. I'm nervous about trying again, as is Patience, but at the same time, we don't want to wait too long either. I just hope we get a happier ending next time.

Notes:

• Title is from That's How I Know by Darren Hanlon. I couldn't find a link, which is a shame because it's a really lovely song.
• Cara had an early miscarriage herself, a couple of years before she and Caleb got married, so she would be particularly sympathetic to patients in the same situation, which is why I picked her over David (Josie is on maternity leave).
• Patience's miscarriage was not in any way planned by me. After all these years of playing this game, I apparently still suck at taking care of pregnant Sims. It probably would have helped if I'd remembered to pause before tabbing out to check my Gmail. I was away from the game for less than 30 seconds but it was enough for tragedy to strike, unfortunately. I was so sad about it!
• I haven't decided yet if I'll let Rob and Patience wait until next round to try or if I'll duck in a couple of times before then and let them try. I'm leaning towards the latter but we'll see.