This week I am going to celebrate my seventh wedding anniversary. And with it comes the dreaded marital seven year itch. But it is not the kind of itch you think it is. Follow me on this.

My husband and I have produced three lovely wonderful children in these seven years of marriage. (I know, we’ve been busy). But in the last two weeks, several ailments that my children are suffering have come to light.

My eldest (Jordan, 5) went to the dentist for a routine check up and was promptly informed within 2 minutes of the examination that her bite was wrong and this would have to be fixed with surgery otherwise she would suffer long term problems with her teeth.

My second child (Alex, 3) has eczema. Poor bugger has his own itch. Dermatologist informed me that if I don’t to turn my house upside down, studiously get rid of every dustmite within a 100 metre radius of my son (and keep it that way) this will turn into a life long allergy.

My youngest (Christian, 1) is tongue tied. He has trouble swallowing chunky food. Early Childhood Centre nurse informed me that if he doesn’t learn to swallow chunky food then he won’t be giving his tongue the workout required to help him with this speech later on. Double wammy for my son, because as I mentioned, he is tongue tied and that alone threatens speech development.

I, (me,Maria, 32), have developed an itch. It is located on the right side of my head just above my ear. Left hand rest on left hip as a look of confusion takes over my face. And this question escapes my lips, “Where did all these ailments come from?”

I turn to my husband and it suddenly dawns on me. It’s him and his dodgy genes. He looks up at me and notices me intently staring at him, studying him. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“You have dodgy genes” I tell him.

“Excuse me?” he asks incredulously.

“You heard. You have allergies, and you’ve passed them onto Alex. You’re teeth aren’t perfectly straight and you’ve passed that onto Jordan. And you can’t even stick your tongue out properly. You’re tongue tied and you’ve passed that onto Christian. Seven years we’ve been married and I didn’t have a clue”, I state with an accusatory tone.

At this point my husband tells me that he may not be able to stick out his tongue properly but he can certainly raise his middle finger just fine.

You see my gripe isn’t really with my husband. It’s the fact that I had no idea of the risk I was taking having children with this man.

Just before we took those vows of forever and ever, whatever and what have you, my husband and I attended a premarital counselling course. The purpose of the course was to disclose as much information about ourselves and what we wanted from each other and our married life. There was even a test at the end of the course just to make sure we didn’t miss anything.

Well guess what?!? The course missed something. It was never disclosed to me what potential health problems my children might have. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t married my husband. Not at all, I loved him then and I love him now.

Perhaps I just would have had children with somebody else. Oops…, there’s that middle finger again. Just kidding. I love my children and I love my husband. I wouldn’t swap them for anybody.

I just feel like a fool when I’m asked “is there any family history of dental issues/allergies/speech problems?” and all I can come up with is “I don’t think so”, trying to sound convincing.

On this account, that premarital counselling test failed me. But in every other respect, it was fantastic.

As my seventh wedding anniversary rolls on by, if I feel the slightest tingling of an itch, I’ll make an appointment with my doctor. Because there is one thing I’m certain of, that dreaded marital seven year itch is no where to be found here.

This post was originally posted on my other Mum’s Word Blog “Seven Year Itch”

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