Today my husband and I celebrate four years of marriage together.
Four years filled with laughter and tears; trying and triumphs; challenges and successes.
In those four years we made our girl. I turned thirty. We said goodbye to our first fur baby. We welcomed a crazy black lab to the family. We've become better friends. And better versions of ourselves.
And today, as I wrote my obligatory Instagram homage to our marriage, I thought about the caption, and saying something flowery like- Happy Anniversary, I love you more and more every day. As the vast majority of our peers do.
But its really not my style.
And we don't live in a fairytale. This love is not made of fantasy and fairy dust.
It is real. It is alive. It goes through changes and strife; amazing days, and some not so pretty.
And storybook lovers don't pay bills, or pull all-nighters with sick kids. They don't give their wife injections to create their family. They don't make decisions to say good bye to loved ones- canine or otherwise. They don't pick up the pieces after miscarriages or endure stressed out-exhaustion-fueled arguments.
But we do. We do all of these things and more. And it's our real-life, grounded love that gets us through those times. And its tough as shit.
It fights for us, and our family. It challenges us- to be better. Every day.
And it's gotten us through the past four years; and it will do its damnedest to get us through the next 40. Because that's what real love does.
And I'll take that kind of love over fairy dust any day.
It’s no secret {or surprise} that over the last six plus years my body has changed quite a bit. I was 29 when I began fertility treatments for our first baby, and it didn’t take long before the hormone injections, pills and the immense amount of stress began to make some unwanted alterations to my body.
I gained a significant amount of weight with Maddie- several pounds before she was even conceived- and it took roughly seventeen months after she was born before I felt truly comfortable in my body again.
Just in time for us to begin fertility treatments for baby number two.
Dear Lila Lee.
You, my love, turn 18 months old tomorrow. How? Since entering motherhood some five years ago I’ve become all too familiar with the fact that time is a thief. But this past year she’s been especially artful in her craft- the start of the pandemic feeling both like yesterday and a lifetime away; creating a cruel time warp that still has us reeling.
By far the most frequently asked question I get these days is, “Why the move to South Carolina?”
It’s taken me a while to sit down and put our story into words- the last several months depleting me of the energy and emotional bandwidth to put such a huge decision into a post.
But we’re unpacked. We’re settled. We have a routine and the few fears I did have are now assuaged. We feel truly at home.
And I’ve had some time to reflect on the last seven months.
So here it is:
Ah, it's the magical mystery kind
Ah, must be a lie
Bye bye to the too good to be true kind of love
Oh, I could die
Oh now I can die
We chose this as our wedding song after a fast and furious love affair. It felt fitting and I adored the beat. We didn’t realize at the time it was about tripping, but I guess the whirlwind we were in sort of felt that way, too.
The last week has been strange.
I’ve intentionally avoided writing about it- I’m not a medical professional, or an expert in public health or policy. Or, anything, really.
I’ve been confused by the incredible discrepancy between how our friends and neighbors have interpreted the best course of action: some have vowed to only leave home when absolutely necessary while others are sharing pictures on airplanes to vacations with their children.
You guys: this sweet little cherub is six months old today, and I honestly cannot believe it.
It’s such a strange dichotomy: to feel so strongly that this tiny person was always meant for us, while formerly having succumbed to the notion that she may never come. As a result, there were moments, at first, where I couldn’t believe she was here. That she was ours. That after everything, after she decided to grow in my belly; that she came so effortlessly.
I’ve spent most of my life trying to be a smaller size. Thankfully, it never really got out of hand- aside from a few absurd crash diets in my high school and college years. But shrinking was always on my mind. I didn’t run to release endorphins. I didn’t spin to gain muscle. I didn’t eat greens or fruits or vegetables for nutrients. Being skinnier was always the goal.
Lila Lee turned five months old yesterday, and I can honestly say that I think we’ve officially found our stride as a family of four.
It was no easy feat; much more difficult than I had imagined. Maybe because there are four-plus years between our girls; maybe because I had resigned myself to the idea that we would have only one; maybe because she was a very, very welcome surprise.
I think one of the questions I’m most commonly asked is what advice I would give to those facing infertility.
I discuss my own journey with infertility, as well as my advice, and what NOT to say here; but this only gives one side of the story- my perspective, as a woman trying to conceive.
Almost a year ago my family and I left home in Connecticut to quarantine in California.
It was a polarizing choice; one that we struggled to make. Some disagreed. Others applauded it. But ultimately it was a legal one, and we travelled in the safest way possible; for the sake of our family.
It didn’t take long before a NYT reporter, and former classmate of mine, blasted me and my choices all over her page.