Parent.1

When I was little, I knew when I grew up that all I wanted to be was a Mom.  Maybe a teacher too, but defiantly a Mom.

Then I got pregnant in collage.  The guy I was dating had turned our 'love' into a very abusive relationship.  He 'guessed' he could marry me, since I was knocked up.  I embraced what I thought could be my happy little future.  But then it crashed.  Somewhere between 11-12 weeks, we lost the baby.  He was elated.  I was devastated.  For us, it was the beginning of the end... but that ending drug on for 6 months, taking most of my mental sanity with it.  The relationship ended when I the abuse went from verbal/emotional to physical.  He backhanded me.  I still have the picture in some digital file somewhere on my computer.  The bruises and swelling were all I had left of my love story.  I dropped all but one of my college classes, got put on academic probation, and tried to come up with a good way to explain it all to my parents.  They had no idea that any of it had happened.

When I married my husband, we talked quite a bit about having a family, but it would be a blended family. I never thought I would be a step mom.  I had never dated anyone with children before.  In our very short courtship (7 months), we drove out twice to spend time with his family, and I was able to meet his daughter. 

Six months after we got married, we moved 14 hours from the only place that I had ever known as home.  This got us within 3 hours of his daughter, which was the goal.  We started getting her on long weekends, and then over breaks.  She helped pick out a bed spread for her room, and started to get used to our house and our rules.  She called me Mom, which was weird, but I went with it.

Whenever the topic of kids did come up, we always ended up with another puppy.  That worked for us.  I had been ready to start trying as soon as we said "I Do", but Trav wanted to wait a while.  I respected that, even though I knew several women around me planning 'oops' babies... (is that a real world thing, or just a military wife thing).  After my experience in collage, I knew that no matter how bad I wanted a child, I wouldn't force that onto him if he wasn't ready. 

Don't get me wrong, there were the occasional whines about "I want a baby", and I did throw each of our dogs birthday party's, complete with goodie bags for the other dogs that came, and our friends kids.

On Mother's Day of 2007, I got a card from him (which I always did once I was a step mom), but this one was different.  The outside said "There are two types of families in this world, the type you are born into, and the one you create".  The inside had a simple typed "Happy Mothers Day", and below it, in my husband's handwriting, some of the sweetest word's I've ever read.

"I think we should try for our own family"

I was blissfully happy.

We were going to be parents in no time!