My Mother's Day Story

aka This Would Make a Horrible Movie

I watched the movie Arrival earlier this week. The only other time I saw it was probably a year or so after it came out. My dog Buckner was at the tail end of degenerative myelopathy. And while I thought the movie was very good and enjoyable, I kinda also thought that because of what I was going through at the time that it struck me particularly hard. I avoided it any time I saw it on tv after that…..

Before I go on, if you haven’t watched that movie, I am going to mention a spoiler and I really think you should stop reading this right now. Go watch the movie and come back to my post….

So since it is Mother’s Day, I am going to share my mom story. The story of me becoming a mom.

(Don’t worry. I don’t mean I am going to graphically share how I got pregnant)

I got married to my husband in 2007. Actually, let me back it up…

We had been together since march of 2000, my sophomore year of college (he had already graduated). By the time he had proposed to me, I was on the verge of calling it and moving on. It seemed like marriage wasn’t something he was in to and I was at that time in my mid twenties where I felt the urge to be more settled (married, house, future, etc). So I was actually about to break up with him when my mom got us tickets to do like a tour/play baseball on the San Francisco Giants baseball field. I knew they were not easy to come by so I’m thinking, ok, well go this event together since I already told him about it. But then after, I am breaking up with him.

So we go to this event. Take a tour of the field. Hit some balls. Run the bases. The usual baseball things but here we were on a major league baseball field. Also, this field has a huge significance to me personally. My childhood best friend was a huge Giants fan. And when he died during a surgery at age 16 for a heart condition, the field was in the process of being built. His dad took his ashes to the construction site, broke in and spread some of his ashes where he thought first base would be (because Jacob loved Will Clark). It ended up being left field.

I would go to Giants games after that like I was visiting a gravesite or memorial. I grew up an A’s fan up until the strike. And after dating my husband got back into baseball and fell for the New York Mets. So I hadn’t been to a Giants game in a while prior to this event we were attending. But I did share the story of Jacob with my boyfriend/future husband.

And on that night just as I was certain we would no longer be a couple, he proposed right there in left field, by hitting me a baseball that said “Will You Marry Me?”

I said yes. We got married on the beach. It was a costume wedding. I walked out to the Jaws theme song while tourists visiting Monterey were freaking out on the wharf because of that music choice. It was the perfect wedding and just a magical start to our lives.

That first year was all stress. We bought a house. I started my 911 dispatcher training. I ended my year of probation getting locked onto a midnight shift working 1am to 11am. And we got a dog named Buckner, my first ever Boxer. By the second year, we added another dog Mookie. And things were a lot less stressful publicly. I say publicly because I was a mental wreck of no sleep and a ton of lost weight from not eating and stress. I was still on midnights and it was clear from my seniority or lack there of that I would be on midnights for a while. Especially if I wanted to continue coaching girls high school lacrosse which I had been doing since 2004.

I’m like 27/28 around this time when I start mentioning kids. Having a kid of our own. My husband was really, really good with kids. It was something that I always found very attractive. He helped with his niece and nephews. He was always the favorite around our friends with kids. He helped me coach and the girls loved him. Their parents loved him. I thought he was a natural/

My husband said he didn’t think it was a good time.

So ok, we wait longer.

Again I start asking about having kids. This time he tells me he doesn’t think I am ready. I’m about 30 at this time and I believe him. He is the man that knows pretty much every thing about me. The man I love. The man I chose to spend the rest of my life with. So I listened to his bullshit opinion.

More time goes by and anytime I bring it up, he tells me how perfect things are now. We have the dogs. We have disposable income. We can travel (we don’t ever travel btw). We have the kids we coach. And I start to realize that I either have to divorce him, start all over, and try to have a kid with someone new. Relatively quickly as I am approaching my mid thirties at this point. Or, I have to choose to stay and be happy, not resentful, of the life I was going to have. And I chose to stay. Because I got plenty of love from coaching and being a dog mom. I truly felt fulfilled.

And then one day my husband has a falling out with his best friend at the time. It’s over his reaction to his best friend telling him that his wife was pregnant. My husband was not happy by the news and his friend saw that immediately and got pissed. Stop talking to him. Cut him off. This would be the story I would know for quite some time.

Until one day, I am driving in the car with my husband and his best friend comes up. I think it was what would have been the kids first birthday or something like that. And my husband reveals, accidentally while venting, that he and the best friend had made a pact. An agreement as ‘bros’ to not ever have kids. Because it would cramp their lives and their ability to go to heavy metal shows and drink and party etc. But his best friend broke that pact.