I Chose Life and Love Has Grown

I married young.  I wanted to say “That story is for a different time,” but that time is now.  When people have asked me about the secret to being married so long, now 19 years, I always hesitate, but the truth is I renewed, repaired, saved my relationship more than once, but my saving grace has always been to be of service- with one phrase- “Can I get you anything?”

The marriage story- I was 21 years old, as was my soon to be husband.  I had a positive pregnancy test, and confirmed it with the doctors office.  I told him.  We were scared.  We told my mother.  And his mother.  I was so terrified to tell my father. 

Prior to this we, or I, toiled and turned about how I would finish college, how we could financially support the baby, if I should get an abortion.  I remember hoping that someone else would make the choice for me.  Do you want this?  Should I do this?  At the end of it all, I could not abort my baby.  I think I knew that from the beginning, but had hoped that I was not creating ruin.  Looking back, I was just looking for reassurance that I could have this baby, that was entirely unplanned, but that the people in my life would not condemn me for choosing to keep the baby. 

My soon to be husband reassured me that whatever I chose he was fine with.  My mother disclosed her own abortion.  This is the loneliest and best decision I have made.  

When all the telling was said and done, I recall a day that I was with my father in his truck, we were going to Turner’s Outdoorsman, in Riverside, CA.  Dad asked me, ‘will he be a good father?’  And I said, “Yes, I think he will.”  I knew that my not yet husband loved me with all his heart and soul, and although he did not have a fortunate or loving upbringing that he would love me and our children unconditionally. 

My now husband, applied for a job at the police department he was working for at his university, and became a parking officer- which would later lead him to other leadership roles within the department. 

We went to Old Navy and opened a credit card to buy maternity clothes- the credit card was later used fraudulently by someone across the country.

My parents were adamant that we should marry.  I recall sometime earlier in the year saying, ‘I don’t know if I ever want to get married,’ and ‘If I was going to have a kid that doesn’t mean I have to get married.’  Yet, when my father was informed about the pregnancy, his first concern was when we would get married, and I could not abide condemning disappointment from him. 

Some day in May that year, a week or two later, I started spotting.  I went to the ER to see what was wrong, and they could but would not tell me anything.  I was there all night and dropped the class that I had a midterm scheduled for the next day.  Went in two days later to my regular appointment.  All I really remember was the nurse saying “It’s not viable.”  There was no detected heartbeat.  My baby, 9 weeks, the size of a grape, the one that I could not deny, was dead inside my body.  The next thing I remember was a very cold moment where I decided I needed to ‘get it out.’  I felt that I had killed him with my uncertainty, my fear and shame. 

Within the next few days a DNC was scheduled, to evacuate my unliving fetus.  There had already been plans in place to go wedding dress shopping.  After the DNC, I woke and went to my parents home 2 hours away.  When I arrived my sisters were sitting around the family dinner table, and I went on the computer.  They had not been told about the pregnancy but apparently suspected, with great excitement about being aunties.  I could not look at them.  I went on the computer and said, ‘there was a baby.  It was not viable.’  I only remember their non-response, which appeared to be sadness. There were no other words said.

The next day, I got up to wedding dress shopping, as planned.  Days before, when I knew the pregnancy was nonviable, my parents had said ‘well you don’t have to get married.’  And after making the loneliest decision of my life, I decided to honor my commitments, to the man who was willing to devote his life to me.  This man was in love with me, threw away the last years of his college education, devoted his life to me, and applied for a fulltime job without hesitation, to be a husband, father, protector, and provider. 

The hospital had given me some kind of pain medication.  When I went shopping the next day, I remember taking the pain medication on schedule, not because I physically hurt, but because I was in such despair.  I was high picking my wedding dress.  Just the same, it was a good dress. 

We were married at a chapel in Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on June 16, 2006.   It was not a ‘Vegas Wedding’ with Elvis’s; however, I look very good in Elvis wear and would have been happy to have an Elvis wedding, my husband, not so much.  Not a huge Elvis fan. 

We have, now, two teenage children, 5 dogs, and some number of chickens and duck.  We are forever growing and changing together.  We have been through our share of despair, but have come through. If there was ever a better ‘arranged marriage’ I am not sure, this one was made by God.  He knew my heart and my husband’s heart, He knew our lives, love, and passions, our future struggles, our happiest moments of bringing two children into this world, and the mental, emotional and spiritual challenge that we bring to each other to grow together.

 And, I guess for next time, the way I saved this union after coming to points of no return, was to ask “Can I get you anything?”