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.

I felt like a complete idiot. All that time I was hoping for a baby and starting my own family with a man who never intended to have children with me. Yeah, he was great with other people’s kids. But it hit me: I never once asked him before getting married do you want to have kids? I am certain I mentioned wanting kids. Or things I wanted to do with my future kid. I mean I built a mini bmx bike for my future child and had it in my bmx bike collection in our home. I never hid wanting kids.

By this time, we were struggling in our marriage. We would fight and never make up. Just not talk to each other for days and then eventually some how start having conversations again without ever acknowledging the fight or apologies or anything. I was drinking very heavily. I quit 911 thinking that was the problem. But I was not happy. I was very distant as a coach. My artwork wasn’t really all that successful unless it was dog related. And Buckner was in the middle of DM. I spent a ton of money on treatments and therapies, a custom wheelchair, harnesses, acupuncture, lasers, rehab, etc. But nothing I did was slowing down the disease. And by the middle of the 2018 lacrosse season, I was just praying he would make it till the end of year tournament so I wouldn’t have to tell the girls he had passed. Or grieve in front of them.

I slept with Buckner in the master bedroom and my husband slept on the couch. He said he didn’t like being woken up by the dog every couple hours (Buck would whine when he needed to be adjusted or shifted at night. Sometimes he had to be carried outside to potty). I had to wheel him in a wagon during the lacrosse season. I would put the equipment in the wagon and have the girls walk alongside it because most of the fields didn’t allow a dog on the sidelines.

I was caught during the playoffs and told by a league official to get rid of the dog. I wheeled him to the parent side line and coached from there. It was Mother’s Day. It was a team tradition for the players to write ‘mom’ on their arm with a heart (or another female that had a huge impact on their lives) before the Mothers day game. They all wrote ‘Coach Amber’ on their arms that day.

We lost the championship game that year. I got stupid drunk at the end of the year team party. Apparently said a whole lot of bad things to my husband on the drive home. And passed out. We were going through the motions.

Buckner passed away in July peacefully at home. My vet actually left his honeymoon early to come to my house and do it (I will be his client for life because of this). I was a complete wreck.

My husband continued to sleep on the couch. He said it was more comfortable than the bed. I continued to drink. At this point, during the day while I was home alone. The only time I went out was for walks with Mookie. I had no desire to live. It felt like I lost my heart when Buck died. Like it literally felt las it I just had this empty hole in my chest.

At some point, it hits my husband that things are not going well with us. And we have a huge fight. I mean HUGE. Somehow, we end up having what I kinda figure is good bye sex. It wasn’t loving. It wasn’t passionate or meaningful. It was just happening and then done.

I don’t know why right after it, I just suddenly felt like, oh shit, I think I just got pregnant. Nothing about it was different. I was on the pill still. I was 38. My gynecologist had told me a year before that I would have to be off the pill a while if I was going to start trying. But something in my gut told me immediately.

It was confirmed a month later.

I remember the doctor telling me and I cried. She recognized it wasn’t happy tears and said, ‘I am guessing this isn’t good news?”

I told my parents first.

I was scared. I was very sure my marriage was over and all I could think was, how can I support my baby as an artist? I will have to sell the house. I will have to move in with my folks. God I don’t want to move in with my folks. Can I go back to dispatching?

I told my husband and he did not have a happy reaction. He even acted like he wasn’t the father. Which I tell ya, didn’t make for an awesome moment. To this day, I hate in movies or television or even commercials when people are finding out they are pregnant and the dude is all happy. Absolutely hate it.

Some how, we did not divorce. I fell in love with my son the minute I heard his heartbeat for the first time. It took my husband till Ax was about three years old to bond with him.

When Axton was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at three in a half, I thought again, well this will end the marriage for sure. I would be raising an autistic son alone just as I worked on the nursery alone….

But I misjudged my husband. He embraced the diagnosis. And we are all making our way the best we can. Axton turned six years old a few weeks ago. And here we are on another Mother’s Day.

Now I am sure, you’re thinking at this point, what does this have to do with the movie Arrival again? The take away I have from that movie is simply, if you knew the future or if you knew how things would end would you still do it? Amy Adams learns that she will have a daughter and that daughter will end up getting a rare terminal illness and die around age 14 ish. The father of that child played by Jeremy Renner is mad when Amy Adams tells him. He says you chose wrong.

When I first saw the movie it was me with Buckner paralyzed beside me. And I am balling thinking, would I have still taken Buckner home that day when he was 6 months old if I could see ahead the DM? The struggles. The carrying him outside first when he’s about 80lbs and in the end when he’s only 60ish lbs. Helping him poop with a q-tip at times. Helping him eat. Watching him deteriorate physically but mentally he was all there. Wondering if I was being selfish 24/7 keeping him alive…

Would I do it all again? And the answer then was yes. No question.

And I did in a sense. I adopted Kona knowing full well why she would knuckle drag and walk like a drunk during that vacation foster for ten days in July.

So here I am six years later with a son who is autistic. I am stressed out all the time worried about his future. Worried about bullying. At first worried if he would even talk. Worried about money I don’t have for therapies that he needs. Worried because RFK jr is talking about a ‘registry of autistic people’ (because lists have always been historically a good thing right). I don’t sleep most nights because my mind is racing about all the things I feel like I did wrong during the day, or the things I still have to do or just waking him up in the morning for school and he begs me not to take him. That is how my days start.

There are days I think I have autism life figured out. And there are days I have no patience left. My doctor tells me all the things I need to do to help my own health. And while I gave up drinking, there are still days I doordash and binge taco bell.

All I know is I have to live long enough to make sure my son can take care of himself.

I sell some of my personal collectibles and valuables because I can’t get a job that requires me to be there normal hours. And I can’t take a night job because my son cannot sleep without being right next to me. I have very few friends in my life. The least stressful thing I do all day is walk Betsey.

Most people will not understand what it is like being a special needs parent.

But last Wednesday when I watched Arrival for only the second time in my life, I knew without a doubt that I would do it all again to have my boy. No matter how many hard moments there are, I still have plenty of wonderful days with him. Including the other day, when we played hooky from school and went to the beach.

If I had known during my pregnancy that my son was going to be autistic, it wouldn’t have changed a thing (except I would have read different books).

My son is the best thing that ever happened to me. And along with that, having known the love of dogs is the only other thing that comes close to it.

Happy Mother’s day to all the moms of children and dogs. Special shout out to my special needs moms. To top it off, today marks 500 days of sobriety.