A New Year, A New Me!

As I may have mentioned in my previous posts, Kris and I have been trying for a baby. Thus far, we have been met with little success.

When we are with friends who have children, I often see a fatherly longing in Kris' eyes, much like the same ache and longing I feel to have my own child.

After we were married, Kris and I started trying for a baby. However, after six months of trying with no success, I eventually sought advice from a doctor. As my menstruation cycle was highly irregular, she suggested that I lose weight to assist with regulating my menstruation cycle. Scornfully eyeing my "jiggly bits", I resolved to lose as much weight as I could.

Although I had good intentions to lose weight, I never actually did anything about it. Sure, for the first week I ate lots more salad than I normally did, but after that week I just fell back into my normal eating regime of quick, fast and unhealthy food.

Before I knew it, 2011 had whirled past and 2012 was upon me.

Waking up this morning, I realized that I wasn't getting any younger, and if I wanted to get pregnant, I needed to take drastic action to lose all my "jiggly bits" and give my body the best chance possible in order to conceive.

So this afternoon, I signed up to a local gym with Kris. I even managed to convince dad to sign up too.

Together, we will keep each other motivated to lose weight. That's the plan, anyway. Fingers crossed.

The first date

My first date with Kris was awkward, to put it gently.

After meeting Kris at the nightclub that fateful night, we arranged to meet in the city a few days later. It didn't occur to me that 1 July was a bad time to have a date. Turns out that one should never plan to go out on 30 June OR 1 July when working in the commercial sector. This is because every single client wants some last minute legal transaction completed just prior to the end of the financial year. Extremely uncool.

Anyway, we'd planned to watch a movie and have dinner, and agreed to meet at 6.00pm in front of Starbucks in the semi-quiet end of the city after work.

Waking up on the morning of "the date", I immediately felt anxious, excited, scared and happy all at the same time.

I had already decided on an outfit to wear so I quickly showered and changed into my clothes. As I had no time to go home before "the date", I had to dress appropriately for work as well as "the date". So I had chosen a "conservative" mini-skirt with a bright watermelon-coloured top. I also had special "instant suck-me-in" shiny stockings, to complement my outfit.

Staring at myself in the mirror, fully dressed in my outfit, I smiled.

I look awesome, I thought.

I headed off to work.

I had almost reached my office building when I noticed that my "instant suck-me-in" shiny-stockinged legs were a tad bit cold on one side. Looking down whilst briskly walking in my shiny high heels and juggling a massive file I had taken home with me the night before, I stifled a cry of dismay as I noticed a ladder on my shiny new stockings.

$#!%, I thought.

Checking my watch, I decided I had enough time to quickly duck into the nearest pharmacy to buy a new pair of (not-quite-as-nice) stockings.

I chose the nicest and shiniest pair of stockings that I could find in the pharmacy. Hard stuff to do, especially when the pharmacy stocked only a handful of them.

I quickly paid at the counter and rushed into my office building. I dumped my file I had been carrying earlier and made a beeline to the ladies' room to put on the newly-purchased stockings.

By lunchtime I had almost forgotten about "the date". Almost. I was kept on my toes the whole morning, trying to complete last minute jobs that our clients required before the end of the financial year, and I was too busy to think about anything else.

At around 1.00pm, my stomach started making angry grumbling noises, so I figured it was a good time to take my lunch break. I purchased a sandwich from a coffee shop downstairs and proceeded to eat my lunch at my desk.

I was happily munching away on the sandwich when I dropped some lettuce on the floor. Bending down to pick it up, I happened to glance at my legs and noticed that my second pair of stockings had a ladder on them.

$#!%, $#!%, $#!%!!!! I thought.

Dropping my sandwich, I made a quick dash to the nearest grocery store and bought my third pair of shiny stockings.

Kris better be worth it, I thought, as I shimmied out of the laddered stockings and put on my new ones.

At 4.30pm that day, Delia casually sauntered into my office and asked me (not-so-politely) to commence drafting a lease for one of our major clients. She told me that the client was expecting the lease by tomorrow morning.

Glancing at the clock on my computer, I groaned. I was due to meet Kris at 6.00pm, but with the lease to draft up, it looked like I was going to be late for "the date".

I started work on the lease straight away.

At 5.45pm, I decided I had better call Kris and let him know that I was going to be late. I winced as I picked up my cellphone and dialled Kris' number.

"Oh hi Tia," said a feminine voice on the other line.

I was confused - did I dial the wrong number?

The feminine voice continued, "It's me! Leilani! Where are you? Kris is waiting for you right now. You should see his face - he's all red and sweaty. I think he's nervous to meet up with you."

WHAT? Leilani? What's she doing answering Kris' phone?! I thought.

"Ummm. Leilani? What are you doing on Kris' phone? I'm so confused", I managed to blurt out.

Leilani laughed. She said, "Oh, I was just walking past Starbucks after jujitsu training, and I ran into Kris. He said he's meeting up with you tonight. Then his phone rang and we saw it was you calling, so I told him I wanted to talk to you".

Still confused, I asked to speak with Kris. When he got on the phone, I told him that I was running late by fifteen minutes and that I'd see him soon. He was OK with it, and said that he would wait for me at the designated meeting spot.

After I got off the phone, I hurriedly put the finishing touches on the lease and scrambled out the door. Half-running and half-walking, dodging slow-walkers and trying to keep my stockings in check (phew! no ladders!), I managed to arrive in front of Starbucks at 6.15pm. I spotted Leilani talking with Kris and I approached them whilst trying to catch my breath.

Leilani wasn't joking when she said that Kris was nervous. His face was red, both of his hands were in his jeans pockets and beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

As I greeted the both of them, I glanced over at Leilani thinking: geez, this moment is awkward enough without having my ex-boyfriend's sister witnessing it all!

Sensing her cue, Leilani gave me a sly wink and a knowing look as if to say "first dates are fun, aren't they?!", as she said her goodbyes and left me alone with Kris.

With a bit of shy chit-chat here and there, sprinkled with panicked silence, Kris and I managed to get through our first date disaster-free. We ended up watching a scary movie and then had dinner at a popular Chinese noodle restaurant.

After dinner, we awkwardly said our goodbyes and parted ways. Kris offered me a lift home, but I refused and told him I would find my own way home. After all, even though he seemed nice enough, I didn't want him to know where I lived until I knew he wasn't an axe-murderer or something worse.

As it turned out, it took five dates before I became comfortable around Kris and on the sixth date, I knew he was someone special.

The rest, as they say, is history.