If you would have told me 3 years ago that I would be heading to Iowa to make a baby, I would have called you bluff. Yet here I am clocking the miles on the Prius driving back and forth between Des Moines and Minneapolis. It’s a three and a half hour drive that I’ve actually come to love. Most of the time I am solo on the drive. So I’ve come up with a system to make the miles of corn fields go by faster, audio books and multiple stops. My 1st stop is Clear Lake; 2nd stop is the “Flying J” outside of Ames; and before I know it I’m in Des Moines eating Tasty Tacos (I might be addicted).

I should point out that Iowa was my Hail Mary. Before going to Mid-Iowa I was turned down by 11 clinics (yes you read that right 11 clinics) and had little hope left. Dr. Y had done what no one else did, not even Dr. B did this, he actually read my medical records and formulated a plan. A plan that would lead us to transferring our final CCRM embryo in December. A transfer that would result in a negative beta that sent us back to the drawing board.

In early January we had the hard conversation of discussing whether or not another retrieval cycle was in the cards. Dr. Y is blunt and kind, he explained that yes I could do another retrieval but this would be my last. In that moment as those words settled in the air I became angry, not at him, but at the Nuvaring. Each time I go through a cycle my clotting risk goes up and I am reminded that Lovenox is not a guarantee. To add salt to my already wounded soul he brought up a surrogate.

I knew what that word meant and where he was headed, yet it hurt. Hurt in away I never thought it could. I explained “I am type A, I could never use a surrogate. I’d have to chain her to me so I knew exactly what she was doing and when.” He understood and we moved on to discussing genetic testing of the embryos. This time around we are spending the money and testing our embryos before transferring them back to me. This will some how give us a leg up and reduce our chances of loss.

Of course the first step in this process is eggs. Just like before I have to break it down in steps: Step 1 eggs; Step 2 embryos; Step 3 genetic testing; Step 4 transfer. If I do not break it down it becomes to overwhelming and I am pretty sure I’d talk myself out of it. This round is truly our last chance at a bio baby and that is something I do not take lightly. Even in the moment of loss I am filled with hope.

Hope that we will get a few genetically normal embryos that will grow into our take home baby.

My dad has asked me over and over again “why did this have to happen to me?” I looked up form our puzzle and said “a wise man once told me we don’t ask why; instead we ask why not me!?” He just stared at me and then smiled. I myself have looked up towards the sky and asked the question; “why my Dad?” In my heart I know we are incredibly lucky, the accident could have been so much worse. Yet my heart wants to ask the lady from Alma “why the fuck weren’t you paying attention? You were in a busy grocery store parking lot. How the fuck didn’t you see Santa Clause walking in front of you. Like how the fuck didn’t you see him!?” These questions will go unanswered. To her my dad is just the “thump” she heard that day.

She got to drive home that day. She got to spend Thanksgiving in her home with her family while my dad spent it in a care center. She gets to Christmas shop and walk this earth freely. She has freedom of movement. She gets to be an active 78 year old woman who goes about her day; while my dad sits and wonders “why did she hit me.” A question he will never get an answer to. Because of the lady from Alma, I heard my dad scream in pain. I had to witness seeing my dad unable to stand and unable to walk. She took my active 66 year old father away from me. She took a piece of my father away that he is fighting tooth and nail to get back.

Every time I go home and turn right on to West Avenue I am reminded of my father. We have to drive by the grocery store in order to get to my parent’s house. The last day my Dad drove was on November 9, 2018. The last time my dad walked freely was on November 9, 2018. Since then he has been wheelchair bound and is struggling to walk. He is struggling to get a piece of his self back, but ya know what, he’s not giving up. No matter how painful it gets he still keeps on trying to walk and for that I am thankful. I am thankful that he refuses to give up. He may be down but he is not out and I have faith that one day I will have my Dad back. That one day we will be hitting the road and exploring new places just like we have done many times before.

Part of me hopes that the lady from Alma thinks about my dad and wonders how he’s doing. I wonder if she feels sorry for running him over. I wonder if she pays more attention in parking lots now or maybe just maybe her family took her keys away. Red Wing is 46 miles from Alma WI and I pray with every fiber of my being that she took those 46 miles to think about what she did.

The lady from Alma changed his life forever and for that I can never forgive her. I can show her grace, but I will never forgive her for the pain she caused.

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.