Fairytales DO come true!

My mother died in 2010 and I realised how desperately short life is. My parents had been faithfully, and from what I can gather, mostly happy for 40 years. Her death, although somewhat expected, shook me rigid. She was my mother, my mum, my friend and my confidant. What was I going to do without her? 

How would I cope not ever having that experience? I put that thought out of my mind.

The only thing I could do, was to straighten my life out. And I needed to do it NOW!

Whilst I was very good at my job (I was a senior PA), I was becoming frustrated by the politics in the office and had virtually reached the top of the financial ladder for that career. What did I want to do? I had been thinking of a change in career for a while, but never had the guts (for that, read money!) to do it. "Well", I decided, "TO HELL WITH IT!" 

I applied to, and was accepted, De Montfort University in Leicester to do the BA Hons Human Communication course, which would result in me (if I completed & passed) being a qualified Speech & Language Therapist. I had worked briefly as a Speech & Language Therapy Assistant in Edinburgh and thoroughly loved it - it was also a way of being able to be close to/work with children.

I had no idea how I was going to support myself, after all, I had been scraping by on my, relatively, decent wage while I was working. It wasn't as if I received any inheritance from my mum (I had been given a deposit for my house the year previous, so understood that was my inheritance) on which to live. The one saving grace was that the NHS paid my tuition fees, so I just had to find money to pay the mortgage and live on.

I just knew that things would work themselves out somehow. 

PMA = Positive Mental Attitude (or insanity in some cases!)

Obviously there was still one very major desire that no matter how hard I tried, I was going to be unable to fulfil - having children.

A few years before I used to go kickboxing, but gave it up when I bought my own place and couldn't afford it. I had no social life. THAT needed to change. I sat down and worked out exactly what I wanted to do and how/where and then set about thinking of ways to afford it. Swimming, Kickboxing, Walks, etc. At some points (eg; walks), I would get depressed and wonder why I would bother going for a walk by myself * and how I would love to have someone to share experiences with, but I had to pull myself out of it and get on. This was not as straight forward as it may seem; I had been off work with stress for 6 weeks earlier in the year, but had lost the anti-depressants, so made the decision to move on without them. It was the right decision for me at the time, but what I would say is, if you get to that stage, take all the help you can because the sooner you get help, the sooner you get well. 

I was just beginning my 'new' life when a man came in to it. We hit it off right away. I admit I was very reluctant to let anyone close, after all, I had just formed my 'new' life, I was happy with the way that things were going. Anyway, this guy had a good job and a social life that went along with that, even if I hadn't have quit my job, there was no way that I would be able to maintain his lifestyle - he wore £150 jeans for goodness sake! I enjoyed spending time with him and eventually relented, going on a date with him. A few days later, he cooked me dinner and we haven't been apart since!

John is everything I could ever want in a man; he is caring, compassionate, understanding, intelligent, inquisitive, strong, sexy...you name it, to me he is, virtually, perfection personified. 

I know that sounds mushy, but we have been together for 18 months and are STILL be as happy as we were when we first met. No. Sorry. HAPPIER than when we first met :-)

This will sound very clichéd, however, it is almost although my mum met his mum 'up there' and they conspired for us to get together. Haha!

After two failed marriages and several rotten relationships, I had lost my way and given up on Fairytales. It was only when I had my life back on track and wasn't looking for a man to share it with, that I was swept off my feet by my knight in shining armour.

He didn't even run away when I told him about my 'desire' to have children! A few of my friends have abandoned us because John's intelligence intimidates them, or they have misread his confidence for arrogance, or just that they are jealous of my happiness, but we have made new friends and John's friends have welcomed me with open arms. Some people have even questioned John's sexuality because of his fashion sense (yes, he has more clothes and shoes than I do!) and his ability to perceive others so well.

At this point in my life, I realise that I had only ever loved and been in love, with one person before; my first true love. Don't get me wrong, I loved my husbands, but not like this. This is even different to how I felt about my first true love. This is something so strong, so all consuming, so...... indescribable. 

So if I had loved my first true love like this, why hadn't it worked? Because I was not his true love. We rebounded to each other year upon year, and there is no denying that there was certainly something between us and I don't doubt that he loved me, but he was not in love with me and never had been. It is only with this relationship that I realise very few couples share what John & I have. That is not to sound arrogant, I really wish everybody could experience this but sadly, most settle for what they have or spend their whole lives 'looking' when actually that person might be right there.

[*My ex-husband decided that in order to hurt me for hurting him, as he saw it, he would 'dispose' of D'Fur without telling me. It took me two years to track him down, by which time, he was happy and healthy and living with a retired lady on the west coast of Scotland. It would do neither him nor me any good to take him away from that and so, despite being devasted at his loss, I left him to his new life.]

Background

Ok, so a bit of background....


Like most girls, (certainly of my era anyway), I was brought up on the fairy story that was "you will fall in love, buy a house, have a pet or two, have children and live happily ever after"

It came as quite a shock when life didn't exactly work out that way :-(


I loved children and had always imagined myself being a mother.


In 1995, I trained as a Montessori Pre-Primary teacher and worked in a few pre-schools in London, however, after a while I became disillusioned with other people's children and wanted my own. The problem was that I was single, with no potential man on the horizon! I was brought up with, what would today be considered 'old fashioned' morals and therefore the idea of simply 'getting pregnant' without a marriage was not an option.


I had what was presumed* as a suspected miscarriage in 2000 and that is, perhaps, the reason that I ended up marrying a man who was no good for me, but whatever the reason, that was what I did. During the five year period we were together, we tried for a family....but nothing happened. (In hindsight, I like to believe that this was fate). We began investigations, however, just as I was due to go in for an operation to check everything out, the relationship split up very suddenly and violently.


Strangely enough, at the time the emotional turmoil I went through was more about the fact that I was divorced and that my marriage hadn't worked, rather than the fact that my husband had tried to kill me.

By 2003 I was single and living in Scotland, my concerns about my fertility growing daily - life was moving quickly don't you know! My new doctor was fantastic, despite the obvious concerns regarding the outcome of any investigations done now could be different by the time I came to try for a family again, he agreed to put me forward for a Lap & Dye examination. The results of this were not fully explained to me as I was still somewhat drowsy and intent of getting home. I heard what I wanted to hear - that everything was fine and that there was no reason for me not to conceive.


Soon after, I found myself a new boyfriend, whom I made jump through hoops to prove that he was genuine. Despite the morals that I was brought up with, my recent experience of marriage had made me realise that it wasn't the be all and end all and so we started trying for a family within a short time of getting together.  Two years down the line, we got married and started seeking investigations - the result of which was unexplained infertility. The idea of not having children terrified me - what was the point to life if I couldn't raise a family?? I became one of those obsessive women, only wanting sex because I was ovulating - sex wasn't a pleasure, it was a necessity to my goal. I began thinking that there must be a reason why I was not conceiving; maybe it was fate, just like it had been with my last marriage and although I didn't realise it at the time, there was a reason for us not to have children together. (Crazy, I know, but unfortunately these things do go through your mind). 


In 2006, I had an emergency appendectomy, which they did via key hole surgery.


These thoughts became more concrete after we got a boxer puppy, called D'Fur. The idea that my husband was incapable of looking after another being became evident as he forgot to give the helpless puppy his medication and all walking, feeding, training, etc was left to me (I was out of the house from 7am till 7pm at that point, whilst he was only out from 8am till 2pm). 

By the end of 2007, we came to the realisation that our marriage wasn't working and that we were making each other unhappy and by 2008, I was back in my home town of Stamford, Lincolnshire. 


I was aware that the time bomb was ticking, it was growing ever louder. I was nearing 40, I was twice divorced and would probably have to have IVF to conceive. My mother had been diagnosed with cancer a few years before, but it was more than obvious now that it was terminal. Her one wish had been for me to give her grandchildren.  At the time, it annoyed me because I didn't think she understood how desperate I felt to have children. I had a few relationships, one being yet again with my first true love, but they were not right and this time I realised that it had to be right to have children. I could not bring myself just to get pregnant for the sake of it, though it crossed my mind virtually everyday! 


In 2010 I had another laparoscopy, where they lasered some endometriosis away, but told me that, realistically, I had a less than 5% chance of conceiving naturally as my tubes were blocked due to the scar tissue from the appendectomy and endometriosis. I was bereft, realistically, how was I ever going to find a man (not just any man, but the right man) and undergo IVF (for which I was already too old in my county) in two years?? I knew I would have to come to terms with the fact that I would never have children, but right now, I couldn't deal with it.


[*I use the word presumed suspected miscarriage because I was two weeks late for my period and was woke by violent stomach cramps which resulted in me sitting on the toilet for several hours before being able to make it in to Emergency, where I was told that my uterus had collapsed, but there appeared no reasonable explanation for this, other than possibly I had been pregnant, but wasn't now.]