The List, cont.

This list could take a while, but I feel like background is important. In a normal situation, you would be learning the details slowly, as part of individual thoughts. But, I tend to ramble and forget the background information sometimes, so the list can be some sort of reference, if nothing else.

4. R was raised by his grandparents. His mother was only 15 when he was born, his father 16. It took a while for them to get custody. R's father is an abusive drunk, he was back then, too. And while they play the heroes for saving R from that life, they constantly turn that against him. R is his father's son in their eyes, and he will never accomplish enough/do enough good/prove himself enough to get out from under that cruel shadow. And they think very little of me for being with him. They told me once that he would never actually love me, that he was incapable of knowing the true emotion, that he would always be indifferent and lie to me. What a welcome to the family. And it has all gone downhill from there.

5. My mom married a Marine (we'll use his nickname from back then: Rat) when she was 8 months pregnant with me. He is not my biological father, but I have never met the one that is. Rat raised me as his own, his name is on my birth certificate. He's an ass. I love him as my father, but cannot respect him as a person. Rat left my mom several times, each to be with another woman. Mom is strong, but would do anything to make her children happy, even allow Rat to come home. Rat was an alcoholic while he was in the corps, something Mom forced him to give up if he really wanted to come back to our family. Now that all us children are grown (me-24, CML-21, BR-19), he has gone back to his old ways. He drinks and drives, he smokes pot with dirty/creepy people he met when he was drunk. Mom is financially dependent on him, she had a mental breakdown several years ago and he drove them to the verge of bankruptcy before could get healthy again, she has spent every penny since trying to get things back on course. If she left him, she would lose the house, car, everything, it would all get taken by the bank. My life has been lived with finances always looming overhead and sacrifices being made to save the budget.

6. At age 24, my budget is no longer always breaking. R has a good job, a secure job, one that affords what we need. Every once in a while we even get to spoil ourselves a little. We own our house, R had a newer truck, our bills all get paid. At one point, this would have felt like heaven to me, not having to decide which bills to pay or not pay this month. But actually having the money we need is also a reminder that we don't have much left over for wants. And when you can't have a baby, wants start feeling a lot like needs (RE, IUI, IVF, ICSI).

7. Our infertility is partly caused by my endometriosis. It was bad, my lapa.roscopy took 3 times longer than they had planned. One ovary was out of position, but still functioning, and there was no affect on my ute or tubes. So, a very bad case of endo, but no real reason behind my IF because it wasn't affecting vital reproductive tissue. The rest is unexplained. Not diagnosed as unexplained, they just haven't given me any information to explain why the lap didn't help or why I still can't get pregnant. All I know is that endo is way too painful for me to live with. Almost exactly 1 year after my lap, I returned to the comforting arms of birth control pills. I don't have to give up one week a month to lie writhing in pain on the couch, taking the maximum dose of every medication I can find, painkiller or not. It also guarantees I won't be getting pregnant (HA, like that was ever a possibility anyway).

8. I was pregnant, once, for about 10 days. I actually started spotting 2 days after I found out, the spotting lasted about a week, then I had my first prenatal visit with my primary doctor (we'll call this one Elvis). I had a positive urine test at the beginning of my appointment, although it was faint. A few hours later I got the call about my beta number: 4, not pregnant. Still no explanation why the positive urine test, my slightly educated guess is that my beta had been dropping for days, the hcg was properly filtered out of my blood, but had yet to be completely passed in my urine. No matter how I ended up with conflicting results, there was no baby coming in 8 months.

9. We had already named that baby. Not fully, but we knew for sure the middle name would be Dean, no matter the gender. With a father in the military, I was moved around a lot as a kid. To base for a while to live with him, back to my grandparents for a while when he got sent overseas, to another base, and back to my grandparents. My uncle (here we use his favorite nickname to use on all children: Goofball) lived 1/4 mile down the road from my grandparents. He was diabetic, unable to work his entire life, unwilling to marry or have children because he refused to be the cause of somebody else suffering because of his diabetes (whether that be passing it on to children, or his wife mourning because he knew he would pass away long before her). He was a second father to me, his middle name was Dean. He passed away 2 days before father's day last year. The funeral was on father's day, which happened to also be his father's birthday. He didn't know that R and I plan to name our child after him, whenever it is we have one. He didn't know that his memory will forever live in a baby that I bring into this world. He didn't know he had so much effect on my life that I refused to marry R if he didn't agree whole-heartedly to having our child be my uncle's namesake. I had begged him to stay alive long enough to hold my babies, instead of begging I should have told him my plan, at least he would have known.

Part 3 of the list to come, first I have to recover from writing part 2. The wounds from losing my uncle are still very deep, they effect my life more than even I realize. The worst knowledge I have is that even if I do have children they will never know him. Infertility has stolen him from my children, it caused them to not be born soon enough to know his love. We will touch much more on Goofball in the future, he is part of my heart.