Love, Grace, and Heartbreak

Things are still no better. In fact they may be worse. We agreed to a trial separation. I am now staying with very dear friends of ours that offered their home to me as long as I need it. They have a two year old whom I am very close to and love dearly. Her laughs and playtime have been such a great distraction to what is going on. I am so incredibly grateful for such wonderful friends for what they have done. When this first happened I felt so alone. I felt like I had nobody. J is very close to her family. Their homes and love surround her. My family lives about an hour and a half away. While I love them dearly and know that they love me, I am not very close to them. My friends however have shown their love abundantly. Most of the friends that J and I have are shared friends. I was really worried about this. I shouldn't have worried at all. Our friends have wrapped their love and friendship around me. Tightly. They have housed me, fed me, listened, talked. Mostly though, they have shown unconditional love. I am sure they are doing the same for J, as it should be.


I don't really know what the future brings. I have a couple of plans just in case. I guess you would call them plan b, c, d, and e. Actually I don't have that many plans in mind. Probably just a couple. As far as I know, J still feels the same. That she is not in love with me. To say that looking at my 7 month old wedding pictures, from what was supposed to be the best day in my life is devastating is an understatement. It is a crushing, terrifying, disbelieving ache. I never in my wildest dreams saw this coming. I never believed there would ever be anything that we couldn't work through. We had what I thought was the happiest, unbelievable wedding. People couldn't stop talking about it. We cried throughout the whole thing and tenderly wiped each others tears. We danced the night away on mango martinis and all our friends and family. It was truly the most wonderful day ever. Seven days later, on our honeymoon, we met with an officiant in Washington DC and made our marriage legal. 


That I sit here in a home that is not my own is a nightmare to me. While I am so, so thankful for my friends for sharing their home with me, I want MY home. I want to share this rainy Sunday with MY wife, in OUR home. The one we bought and renovated this summer. I pinch myself at times because this whole situation is like one of this horrible dreams you have where you dream that your spouse leaves you and you lose everything kind of dreams. We used to love days like this. Laying on the couch snuggling together, reading, watching bad TV, snacking. Instead I am here and she is there. And there may never be that again. That is the reality. 


As it stands, not many people know about this. My family does not know and only a handful of friends know. Nobody I work with knows. That is why this blog is so important to me. I am free to write. (not exactly what I thought I'd be writing about on a TTC blog...) Nobody really "knows" me here. This is where I can say I'm scared. I'm hurt. I'm angry. I'm frustrated" I'm afraid of the unknown. I'm terrified. I'm heartbroken. I can also say here how incredibly grateful I am. I have very nice, comfortable room and bathroom. A quiet place to read, write, think, do yoga, sleep, heal. It is just what I need right now. And I am not alone. I am here with people that love me. They give me lots of space but surround me with support when I need it.


So, I thought I'd be writing about how heartbroken I am today. Make no mistake about it, I am. I feel the grace in my life that I have though. Through my friends. What my small family of friends have done is love me. They have kept me going when I didn't think I could, they have fed me numerous times, they have let me cry, they are housing me, telling me I can stay however long I need to. Who has that?? I didn't think that I did. I never thought my friends loved me this much. They do. I know it now.


So, I remain in limbo. With my marriage. With my living situation. I'm not living at home and my wife is still not in love with me. I will make it though. Today through love, I truly believe that.

Never Saw It Coming

So.......


I wasn't going to write this post. I just thought it was too private here. However, only a few friends know of this blog and they also know what's going on. The rest of you are my private little community. It is wonderful to be able write without worries of judgement.


As I have shared on our blog, we were married 6 months ago. 10/01/11. It was the best day of my life. Our entire family were there as long as our closest friends. We worked so hard on our day. Planning it for two years. We came up with our vows together as well as the service. We truly wanted for it to be meaningful. We both cried throughout the entire ceremony. Then we celebrated the night away. We ate, drank, danced, and celebrated our love. Everyone continued to talk throughout the night about how it was the most perfect, beautiful wedding. It was purely the most magical night of my life. I had a fairy book life. I had everything i ever wanted.


 I am embarrassed, and heartbroken to write what I am writing now. On Sunday, my wife informed me that she was no longer in love with me.  I am devastated. She says that she is still committed to our relationship. But we are miserably living together. Surviving. Making small talk about the weather, TV shows, household needs. We will be seeing our therapist that we just started with tomorrow. I am not sure once your spouse tells you something like that, that you can recover.


I have cried all day the last two days. I can't eat, I feel like I am going to throw up all the time.I have been in bed all day today. Having a mini breakdown/ pity party! I just could not do TODAY, it was too much. It hit me. I may lose everything we have here  together as well as my wife. Today I cancelled all my plans and cried and slept. I needed that. At some point, I will pull myself up by my bootstraps and do what I need to do. Just not today.


  You know what? I believed and meant every word of my vows. I have every intention of sticking to them. I believed in everything we dreamed of doing. I believed that the best was yet to be. I have been blinsided. I never saw this coming.


The hard thing is that I have so much to lose. We have a beautiful little bungalow, filled with natural sun light that spills onto the hardwood floors, that we bought together last year. We have two dogs that are like our children, I have a daughter that has a very special relationship with J. We have accounts together. Property together. I am just not ready to demantle what we have.  As strong of a person I am, I just feel that I can't do this. Not right now.


She is not my wife that I married, the woman I have know for four years. She treats me like a stranger now. Regardless of how she feels about me though, I am still madly in love with her. I told her I meant our vows. I am holding on tight to them and praying like crazy. I look at our wedding pictures and special things we have from that day around the house and it suffocates me with pain.


I never thought we'd be here. Sure we had issues to work through but we had a fight about a month ago and things have snowballed from there. I have tried to reach out to her. Extend the olive branch but she remains cold and distant. I don't know her right now though. She is not my wife that I married and have known for four years.


So, I decided to go and stay with some friends for awhile. They offered their guest room as soon as this happened. I just can't live like this anymore. Maybe being apart will help us to heal. Help us to mend some wrongs and things that has festered. We both say we want it to work and are willing to go to therapy. It's a little glimmer of hope. I am trying to stay positive, take care of myself. Somedays are better than others.


We shall see what happens. I have however, realized who my friends are. They have been amazing and got me through some days that I was surviving minute by minute. Hour by hour.


I will survive this. I don't want to though. This is OUR home, our dreams, our forever. I won't walk away unless she does. I will stand firm in my commitment.

All That Really Matters

I have a confession to make. I LOVE reading blogs. I read them like I would read a book. Sometimes I read them all the way through from finish to start. It's not so much a nosiness. I just find other people's lives fascinating! Especially when they are so similar to mine. I don't have hundreds of same sex newlyweds/families in my neighborhood. I can pretty much say there are none where we live now. I can get online though and there are HUNDREDS of families like ours. Of course most of them are scattered all around the country and Canada! It is so nice to turn on the computer and all of a sudden I am surrounded by people like me. Most of you are engaged in the homosexual agenda pointed out by politicians and evangelical organizations, as am I. I am sure that your homosexual agenda is somewhat like mine: paying the mortgage, doing homework with kids, housework, doing the laundry, cooking dinner, paying bills.....really deviant stuff. and the worst of all, settling down, getting married, and *gasp* having children!


 Most of the blogs I read these days are family and children oriented. It seems that now there are more GLBT families having children. And writing about it. Since I have started reading these blogs and we have started the very early process of TTC, I've noticed some anxiety. I seem to go right for the TTC timeline when I find a new blog. This is usually, for those of you not familiar with this term the "Trying To Conceive Timeline" These usually read as pretty depressing and discouraging. To me anyway. They start with dates at the beginning and it usually goes through all the dates, in order, of all procedures, IUI and IVF attempts. It also includes surgeries, procedures that have been needed to increase fertility. I have recently started becoming really discouraged by these and all the years of posts. It seems that there is a long road ahead of us! I don't want to stop reading these because I love the community that is developed. But sometimes when I look at the start to when a couple actually has a baby, it is a two-three year span. When I factor in J's PCOS and the fact that she has to take medication just to have a period it seems like this may be really hard. She says she only wants to do six IUI's. Then reevaluate. I just wonder if we are setting ourselves up for a lot of heartache and financial strain.


Don't get me wrong, I was really thrilled that J changed her mind and decided that she really did want to try to get pregnant. I am so proud of her for really digging down to see that fear was really keeping her from becoming a mother. Fear and anxiety have been issues that she had for a long time. So for her to decide that she really did want children was amazing. Part of my problem is that I read to much. I read all about everything against us. In print and online. I read about the years and years of heartache, procedures, stress. Even the foster parents, adoption stories are heartbreaking. It makes me nervous, and anxious about the whole process. Most of you know I have two children already. I am forty two. J is thirty four. She has never had the joy of becoming a mother. I worry for her that she may be heartbroken. I worry that we may both get our hopes up and it won't happen. 


So for now, I try not to read anymore timelines. I try to stay positive. I truly believe if we are meant to be parents of more children it will happen. I believe that the power of positive thinking is important. It is something I struggle with. I tend to be a worrier. I am working on that. I am working on believing that if we stay positive, believing that we can do this. It will happen.


The most important thing I believe is that I love J with all my heart. I know that whatever happens we will be happy together. That we are a family.  We have such a wonderful extended family all around us. It gets us through. We are literally surrounded by family. My in laws are across the street (they have an amazing pool and we pretty much live outside around it all summer.) and J's sister and family are two doors down. Her great aunt is another two doors away.  My family lives about and hour and a half away. We get our two nephews (one is mine and one is hers, they are literally city mouse and country mouse, so getting them together is hilarious!) together to spend weekends with us quite often.  We frequently get both of our families together for meals, cookouts, swimming, holidays and birthdays. We are so blessed that both of our families support us and get along really well. Our moms actually get together on their own and go to lunch! As someone who has never lived near family before and moved around a lot as a child, it is awesome to have this family and community that surrounds us. 


I have come to realize, this is all that really matters.

Having It All

As I sit and write this it is 2:25am. I sit in this recliner. The one that has been my home for the past few weeks. I am surrounded by little tables with everything I need. Books, magazines, journals, lip gloss, back scratcher, reacher- grabby thingy, pill bottles, hand lotion, iPhone, pillows, heating pad, a book of devotionals, a mason jar full of pens and pencils, a coaster that rests my drink, a pair of slipper socks in case my feet get cold. I have my favorite blanket, a quilt that my mom made, totally by hand twenty four years ago. I really feel the warmth from it....so much so that it is falling apart at the seams. I have everything I need. I really do. It just doesn't feel like it. I'm struggling. Having a really hard time.


 My sweet baby girl who isn't a baby anymore sleeps in her room as I write this. She finished her senior project this week. Presented and done. She graduates in THREE months. But I swear to you now, as I write this, that I still remember, nights like these, sitting in another chair nursing that same little girl. The one with the feathery, wispy, blond hair. Dressed in jammies with feet,her little hand holding on so tight to my skin, to make sure I was still there. Not so long ago, I would sneak her quietly into her room, placing her in her crib, her body limp from the milk coma she was in. And then sneaking back out. Strategically zig-zagging across her floor to miss the creaks in the spots that I knew by heart were there. Hoping and praying that she would sleep two hours this time. She only believed in sleeping 2-3 hours at a time those first six months. Then she would wake again. And would always stay at the breast for an hour at a time, until we did it all again.


 I. can't. believe. she. is. all. grown. up. Where did the time with her go? Where do those hours and minutes dissolve into? People tell you that "they grow up so fast." I would nod at them, in a sleep deprived, zombie dazed kind of way. In that haze that most mothers with two small children have. I would tell you that I knew they grew up so fast. That I would surely savor every minute with my babies. That I would remember every minute. But I don't think I did. Because now its here....that moment that *they* tell you about. I'm just not ready yet. 


This baby girl of mine? The one who called me from school the other day....or actually it was a text and asked "do you REALLY want the cap and gown package?" YES!!!! I replied. I could literally see her rolling her eyes at her phone.


I hear her now from my chair, stirring in her sleep, moving around amongst the covers. She doesn't awake anymore like she used to. This girl can really sleep now.....10, 11, 12 hours sometimes. Then she gets up and moves through the world. I'm not needed anymore. She's got this.


And then moments like this happen....her best friend E asked her to spend the night the other night. " Call your mom," E told her.  Little C said no, that she needed to get home. She confided to me later, " I wanted to see you. I wanted to hang out with you tonight." REALLY? ME? YOUR UNCOOL MOM? I have to tell you that was really something! This girl of mine loves her friends, loves to be busy, loves to be where the action and fun is. I am so lucky though, she has never caused me an moment of trouble. Has never been in trouble at school or otherwise. She is a blessing. This was last week when my back had just gone out. After we sat and talked for a bit, as she was telling me goodnight and gathering her things from the day, she told me, "I'm going to leave my door cracked just in case you need anything tonight. Just call me. I will be able to hear you." WOW. Those of you with teenagers know how powerful that is. Because even though my wife was just in the next room, she wanted me to know that SHE was there too. This very small gesture meant the world to me.


So, I really DO have everything I need. Because right down the hall from that love is my wife. The one that married me just about five months ago. The one that I truly believe in my heart will do anything for me. For our family.


This post tonight was going to be about my sadness about my back. About how not ONE person that I work with has called me to check on me. About how none of the friends that I really thought were my friends, haven't reached out with a card or a phone call. Nothing. But I started writing about how I was sad. I had nothing. No friends from work....blah.blah.blah. Which just isn't true. Right here in this house I have everything. Everything I EVER wanted. Everything I ever dreamed of as I was growing up is here. And none of these things are objects, material possessions. What I have is love. Family. Home (which is much different than a house.)


 I also really do have good friends. (despite what my head likes to tell me sometimes.) Ones that know me and really do love me anyway. They may not be plentiful in numbers. I have just a few really good friends. The ones I have are the kind that I know if I needed to call them at two o'clock in the morning for any reason, I can. That is what matters. Not how many I have, but knowing that the ones I do have love me.



So to go back to the beginning, of this post, I do have it all. I really do.

Never Say Never!

I know a little more about my back situation than I did last week. It scares the shit out of me. Basically, my back is my livelihood. I am a nurse. My back has to withstand 12 hour shifts, pulling people up in bed (which is how I hurt my back) picking people up off the floor if they fall, leaning over patients for dressing changes and other procedures. Believe me, the back of a nurse must be strong. Mine is not. I saw the orthopedic doc on Friday. He looked at the x-rays they did at that visit and my old MRI. He saw arthritis and scar tissue. He also saw a disc that was 80% gone....and that was from an MRI that was two years ago. He went over my medications and was a little stunned. I take a LOT of meds and most of them are for my back! A few are narcotics. I take a long acting morphine that lasts for 12 hours. I take it twice a day. I STILL hurt! He said that I was way too young to be on that much medication and I agree! I either take the meds for a small amount of pain relief or don't take them and walk around in a fog. I am tired of it all. Last weekend I took the medications while J and I ran errands. The result was me looking like a stoner, nodding off during a haircut, and basically not being present in my life. Yesterday I decided was going to be different. I took the bare minimum of pain meds. We had a busy day and it ended with our monthly dinner group with 3 other couples. I wanted to enjoy the day, I wanted to remember the conversation. I wanted to be able to look people in the eyes instead of nodding off in mid sentence. I paid for it. See, I also wanted to sleep in bed next to my wife. I wanted to snuggle up to her, lock my feet into hers as we drift off to sleep. Listening to her breathing and slightly amusing snore. I love waking up together on Sunday mornings. So, instead of sleeping in the recliner where it is less painful to sleep, I slept in bed. With my wife. I woke up in tears. I hurt ALL night long. J said I moaned in my sleep, talked in my sleep and was restless all night. I had taken medication so I didn't wake up. I do however remember being in pain all night. I walked into the living room this morning, sat in the recliner and cried. I am so frustrated. I am tired of hurting. I am tired of being dopey. Forgetful. Sedentary. I am just tired. I know other people are tired of hearing about it too! That is why I love this blog! I have only told a few people about it. Probably only 5-6 people that really know me in real life! If they don't want to read it they can scroll on through! The rest are from the internet. Maybe someone who has been through this too will read this. Maybe someone that understands. 


Anyway, back to the Dr. appointment. He pretty much says I need surgery. A back fusion. It is a pretty serious surgery. But, one that may change things for good. One that could help me finally get off these medications. My mother in law just had the same surgery last week and is doing great. Another close friend had it years ago. She was in physical therapy for six months but she is a very active, sporty person now. Both her and J's mom are not on pain medication. That intrigues me! If I could have a surgery, work my butt off in physical therapy, and get off all this medication, I would be thrilled! I have said for the last few years that I would NEVER have another back surgery. I am starting to rethink that! I go for another MRI soon (since this is workers comp I have no idea of the timing of anything!) then I go back for the results. If they say that surgery will help, I will have it done. I am actually getting to the place where I just want it done. If it could bring me relief, I'm ready to go!


Which leads me to the purpose of this blog.....TTC. I will be out of work for awhile. I don't even know if I will ever be able to do the kind of nursing I have always done. I may not be able to do patient care. Which makes me sad. We would have to see. To be on the safe side I will say that maybe I will be back to work in six months. I am getting workers comp right now but that is only 66% of my salary. It was going to be hard to do the whole TTC thing before this happened. Now it will be really difficult. I still think we should try. J has PCOS, we don't even know if she ovulates. We know this is going to be a long, hard road. We just didn't realize that we would also have my crap to deal with! Even if she got pregnant right away and I am still doing PT I think it would be fine. I just don't want my surgery to derail the growth of our family. Its just not fair to J. Who has by the way, been the best, compassionate, caring spouse ever. She does it in her own way, but she has been my rock. She is always a calm amongst a storm . This one has been no different. I am the overreacting, worrier, who has already decided the sky is falling and we're are all doomed! She is the perfect compliment to my hyper-glass empty-and it also has a crack in it world! She is calming, soothing, quiet, caring, we will get through this, even if we have to buy a new glass because yours is cracked kind of girl! She is awesome. She has not once mentioned my decrease in salary or her increase in responsibilities at home and financially. She just said what she always does. "It's going to be ok. We will get through this. Together."


I love that girl.