This is my first post to what I hope will be the shortest running infertility blog ever! I have decided that it may be good therapy to get some of my internal dialogue out into the world. Bare with me as this first post will be the long version of a love story I have rarely told.
Also...fair warning: I am many things but what this blog will mostly be about (though I will include other things) is the medical fact that I am half of an infertile couple. First time I have ever typed those words and no tears yet so...so far so good.
Him and Me
I met my husband when I was eight years old at a church function. I have been hooked ever since :) Unfortunately, not romantically hooked...just hooked. We became fast buds, two peas in a pod, Dick and Jane, Forrest and Jenny, whatever way you say best friends...we were it. It's not something I can describe well but I would say it seemed then (and now) to be a connection outside of my control. I have always been a loner. I am an only child and I've always been quiet...thoughtful even. In school, my only friends had been teachers up to that point. Then Bam! Here is this long dark quiet fellow with the most beautiful smile I had ever seen helping me get a bowling ball down the lane. He made a joke about my nonexistent bowling skills and I made one back about his pronouncing of my name. Like I said...hooked from then on.
We were church kids. Church kids are the group of kids who are there every time the church doors open. The group usually gets to no one another and becomes its own kind of "school". You have cliques, popular folks, and nerds just like at school. I began to live a double life here. In school, I ate lunch alone. I was not at all popular and had been bullied. The bullying didn't last long because I was also a fighter but I mostly fought to be left alone with my thoughts. At church...at church I was popular...one of the elite. Everyone liked me and no one called me names (to my face at least). You can see which of these two worlds housed my social life and with the entrance of my new best bud (we'll call him payday) my world brightened significantly.
My church was big in the community and even in comparison to other churches in our district so we got to do a lot of great things. My mom and dad both instilled in me a love of service and with the church I found a great love in God way before I found my husband. Anyway, we remained best friends through my middle school years. I won't go into to many details (lest I be discovered ;) ) but suffice it to say we saw each other through some real tough times and some of the most joyous occasions. He was just...the best. Fast forward to High School...my school life miraculously caught up with my church life.
I was already prepared for this because I was surrounded by men I loved who had been grooming me for the inevitable change that was about to happen going from a small town school to a big city high school. My daddy...who I believe is best dad in all the universe...my step brother who was the best teenager in the world in my opinion...and my payday. Payday had been telling me for some time that I was going to be all the rage in high school, he did NOT mean this in a nice way. He wanted me to know I was "what most guys call hot" BEFORE I got there...so no one else telling me would seem like candy on Christmas. And with all three of them saying it in the same vein...I got it.
So here we are...I am in high school...payday two grades above (at a different school) and I assume life will go on as normal. I am getting invited to everything from the best parties to senior prom...to these things I am only mildly amused. Mostly, I read ,study...and go to church. I assume payday and I will go to my prom whenever the time comes because guys are just way to much hassle. I assume that payday will be helping me with my scholarship applications...helping me pass calculus...watching my praise dance practice, I'll continue writing poetry with him, watching I love lucy over the phone with him...and on and on. I assume wrong. We'll call this chapter...payday gets a girlfriend.
In about his 10th grade year, payday enters into a relationship that changes our friendship for a very long time. He is completely in love and this girl (like all the other girlfriends before her) does not care for me. Girlfriends are not new news for payday at this point. He's handsome, he's charming, and a little bit of dangerous is in there too...yeah girls were all over him. This one was different and in attempt to make a very long story medium long...I'll just say she told him all interaction with me had to stop and he complied. She was not evil and neither was he...she was in love with him so even before I knew it...she knew I was in love with him too. None of this is known to me at the time ( I am also the queen of denial for sanity purposes) and I am just a very hurt/angry teenager.
Later that year...cue HSS/EH (for High School Sweetheart or Ex Husband from here on out). HSS is the polar opposite to payday. We are in a relationship for three years until graduation.
HSS decides he is going to the military, I am going into college and shortly after basic, he asks me to marry him (with a long engagement) and I accept. Little did we know that proposal night we made more than a promise. I found out I was pregnant, the wedding was moved up and I delivered fraternal twins (boy and girl) about 4 months after our wedding. We lived the military life style in a couple of states and one other country for three years before the stress of being married so young and giving up so much caught up with both of us. We were divorced and I found myself back on US soil with toddler twins, no degree, no work experience and a mountain of bills. All of my allusions were gone and I was a statistic...me with the full scholarship, me who skipped two grades, me who was in love with the lord, me who was NEVER supposed to be one of THOSE girls. Me...divorced, broke, mother of two and a failure in my own eyes.
I spent two months at my mom's house in despair before I showed my face at my home church. I spent most of the service huddled against my mom or in tears. I was a wreck. After the service I was turning to get my jacket from the bench and when I looked to the way out of my pew...there he was. Payday...with a twin's hand in each of his "We're going to get a soda...you coming?". There had been moments in our six year hiatus as friends that he has reached out in various ways...each time I told him where to go and how to get there. Aside from this sappy tale of payday and I, I was coldly logical, unforgiving, and quietly shrewd. Fool me once shame on you...fool me twice...Don't worry about the consequences because I won't let you fool me more than once. However today, in my broken state (and by the grace of God)...I just said "yes". We were together from that day forward.
We were married two years later and three years after that we began trying to conceive.
Stay tuned for Trying to Conceive: The Timeline
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