After Charlie died I thought I was jinxed. I thought that I’d didn’t deserve love or to be happy. I dated a lot, but nothing stuck. It was always the same old boring date with no follow up calls. Some nights I’d just go on a date to get out of the house with the intention of not calling them back. I was lonely. I was beautifully broken and for most I was to much to handle.

They say love finds you when you least expect it. For me it came in the form of an email. An email that lead to a date at Pizza Luce that lead to my happy ever after. On our third date Jay said to me “you don’t know it yet, but I am going to marry you.” I was a little taken back by this comment and wondered “WTF!” Jay was right, eight months later he asked me to marry him in a Wisconsin Dells pool. I said yes and gave up my uptown life for two cats in the suburbs.

Our first year wasn’t easy. On Mother’s Day I took a test and called Jay to utter the words “I’m pregnant.” I was scared out of my mind and Jay was excited. My fears were realized during our first ultrasound when only an empty sac appeared on the screen. Our baby wasn’t meant to be. We experienced our first loss together and some how managed to make it through to the other side. We found out that our little one had to many chromosomes. Two sperm fertilized one egg, hence why we call him two sperm. A child that I like to believe is half human, half velociraptor that chews on red legos and now purple crayons too.

Jay says that my ability to find the good in every situation and my ability to use humor is what he loves most about me. It’s true, even in darkness I look for the light. Some days my imagination is what gets us through. Our cats have secret lives in which I relay to Jay on the daily. Laughter is plentiful in our house. Jay will tell you “she can crack her own self up in an instant.” Jay also makes me laugh, like full on belly I can’t breathe type of laughter. I always tell my friends “find someone who will make you laugh until it hurts.”

Hurt is what I can see in Jay’s eyes when I am in pain. He tries to do everything in his power to make me feel better, even if it means trying to make me laugh in the ER. Yes, the ER we end up there a few times a year, my body isn’t what it used to be. A part of me wishes that Jay got to experience AJ before she was broken. The AJ that had lung capacity and the one who could actually do things without begging for air. Then again Jay tells me that he is glad that he got the broken version of me, he thinks it’s the best one.

IVF proved to be a lesson in strength for the both of us. Jay had to be strong when he gave me the shots. I think the shots hurt him more than they did me and I’m the one who got stuck. I could see the anger in his eyes when we walked out of our botched transfer attempt. He didn’t want me to do it at CCRM. But I persisted and so we did. He kept me strong when I was ready to break. He held my hand and rubbed my head as I was wheeled off to surgery and held on tight when the embryos finally made it back to me. He spoke to my belly when we found out it worked, this baby that we prayed for was finally ours.

Snow pea is what he named our baby. The ultrasound photos brought tears to his eyes because the baby that we had struggled for was finally ours. He squeezed me tight as I ugly cried into his shoulder on the day we found out that snow pea wasn’t meant to be ours. He helped me fulfill a bucket list of things I wanted to do with snow pea before we said our final goodbyes. Stone turtles were thrown into the mighty lake as we held each other tight. We would learn that our snow pea was a boy, a boy that we named Emmett James. Our son he will always be.

When the sadness fades joy takes shape. Joy is something our home is full of. Our hearts they are broken yet they are joyful because we are the parents of two children in heaven and Lucia too. We make this life worth living because our son’s never got the chance too. Weekend travel and day trips fill our weekends, adventure is always just around the bend. It’s funny no matter where we go I always find something that reminds me of our sons. They are always with us and they will always be ours.

Four years is a long time in today’s world. Four years ago I walked into Pizza Luce and never looked back. If you would have asked me then I wouldn’t have imagined this life. This life that we live is better than any fairy tail. In quiet moments I realize that I have what people spend their lives searching for. I have a man who loves every fiber of my being and never gives up on me. Even in my stubborn moments, he never gives up. He tells me “you are like a little bull dog, you just keep smashing yourself against walls until you get through.” He’s right, I do, I never give up and I never look back. With this man that I love at my side anything is possible.