A dream is a wish your heart makes.

It was a day I would never forget in 2012 March 31st. I was at work and all of a sudden I was so nauseous that I grabbed a package King’s Hawaiian rolls and began shoving them into my mouth, one of my coworkers commented that maybe I might be pregnant. Before I went home that day I took a pregnancy test home and sure enough after nearly a decade of being married we were pregnant. Living in Dragoon, Az a place I love from my childhood more then anyone could know. Maybe everything would actually work out for us. Maybe I was not a cosmic joke to the world, maybe I was allowed to be like everyone else and participate in life conversations. Without the fear of sounding like I am forcing myself into a conversation.

But once again, life decided on its own that it would leave my husband and I childless. I always felt like I had a lifetime to be a mother. My father’s parents had 11 children only one of them died. That is ten live births. Seven daughters and three sons. Only one of their daughters was unable to have children. The rest of them have multiple children. My mother’s parents had four children together three sons one daughter that was my mother. My grandfather went on to getting married a second time and had five children with his second wife three sons and two daughters the daughters being twins. I have a lot of fertile family members. There should have been no reason why I couldn’t have children. But for some reason I just couldn’t. Everyone around me would wonder what was wrong with us why was it so easy for everyone else but so difficult for us.

I did get rather depressed thinking that my husband wouldn’t want to be with me anymore because I couldn’t provide him with a child. The one biological function that my body is supposed to do and I was unable to do it. I would find myself wishing just aimlessly wishing that something will just come together and we would finally get pregnant. Then one day sitting on the edge of a bathtub looking at a little plastic stick that was going to either devastate me or change my life forever and there it was a positive result.

In less than 2 weeks from reading these results Wesley and I we’re on our way to Tucson to go to the emergency room because I had starting spotting and frankly I was pretty scared. It was April 13th 2012 of course a Friday a small petite woman walked into the room where we were waiting for results from a ultrasound that was taken internally with a camera on the inside. She walked in with an enormous smile and gave us the most terrible news our lives. Apparently I had a atopic pregnancy I had an embiotic sack that was forming and no child inside of it instead my kidney bean was stuck in my fallopian tube. I had to have surgery immediately to have not only my only biological child removed as well as the tube he was stuck in. My husband lost it he watched that doctor walk in with her gigantic smile and couldn’t understand how she could tell us the worst thing she could possibly tell us with a smile on face and then look like we hurt her feelings when I started crying.

Even after I had my surgery. I was supposed to be out of work for 3 weeks I ended up going back that same week because first I couldn’t be out of work I needed money. And second it was more terrible than anything in the world to be alone with my thoughts. My job sent me a plant to show their condolences and all I had to do was sit it in front of a window to get a little bit of light and in only a few days I killed the plant. Which that sent me into an anxious state because not only can’t I carry a child, keep it alive like a woman supposed to do but now I can’t even keep a plant alive. I was feeling completely useless. My husband having mental health issues was unaware how to handle the situation. He was afraid to talk to me about emotional things. His family are very disconnected from emotions. In the same sense my family is as well. Both of us were not sure how to handle what we were going through and how to speak to each other about it. So I just went back to work however it is a 27 mile ride to work and then a 27 mile ride home from work to get to where we lived so that was 27 miles of me alone with my thoughts again luckily my mom would call me to make sure I was getting home okay and she would speak to me the entire ride home. Honestly if it was not for my mother I am may have fell asleep driving or run off the road because I was crying just every little thing reminded me of my inability to be a mother.

So fast forward a few years and my sister and I had a conversation about surrogacy. It was actually rather random. She had decided that she was only going to have two children my niece Mercadi and Tiana. However her OBGYN gynecologist lady doctor whatever you want to call her advised her that she should not try to get her tubes tied or go through having any kind of surgery to enable her from having children. She told her that her body was still able to carry children. She reminded her that if she chose to have her tubes tied or a hysterectomy it would cause her body to go into early menopause. At this point I think she kind of realized that she was talking to me about not wanting to have any more children when I couldn’t even have one. So she turned to me and said in jest, “if I was to get pregnant again it would only be if I carry a baby for you” of course I laughed this off because I never in a million years thought that this situation was even possible.

Few years later we realized that my sister carrying a child for me through surrogacy was actually a possibility. I had insurance through my job and while she was actually carrying my child she was able to have all of her medical needs covered by Medicaid. The actual birth and most of the prenatal care and of course the actual in vitro process was covered by my insurance. The initial plan was to use one of my eggs and my husband’s sperm to actually have inserted into my sister. However my eggs would not attach and our plan B was to use my sisters eggs. Hers were still healthy, and her reproductive system was still in excellent shape she was in her thirties so they advised her that this particular pregnancy was considered at risk, mainly because she was in her thirties and with both her previous pregnancies she had gestational diabetes. On top of that by this point she was also having high blood pressure. What this meant was that they were going to be monitoring her more closely than they did with her other pregnancies. Which technically meant for me that I got to have a gazillion sonograms and 3D sonograms. My sister tried to make my husband and I more involved then she was. When they did the ultrasound to find out the sex of my daughter she refused to let them tell her the sex of the baby she was caring. Any test that they had to do she ran it by me before she even let them make an appointment for her to have any kind of test done. She carried my baby, made sure my daughter was safe, and she did everything that she possibly could to make sure that this pregnancy was about us and not about her. My baby sister did for me what no one can ever imagine. My baby sister brought my child into this world and made me a mother. She never even questioned anything she did it selflessly and Out of Love.

So my daughter’s due date was in August. At first they said it was August 20th then August 16th then August 5th. But lo and behold my child decided she was coming into this world on her own terms. On July 29th my sister called me to let me know that she lost her mucus plug. So a few weeks before we were ready we got in our vehicle with my sister’s daughters who had been spending the summer with us and our oldest daughter who also was spending the summer with us. Our roommate had decided he was moving to Texas and catching a ride, when we went to take the girls back at the end of the summer because we were planning to come to Texas anyway for the birth of our child. Instead we were surprised by her earlier arrival. So on July 31st 2014, of course on August Eve at 9:11 p.m. our daughter Neva Soliel Ray came into this world.

My baby sister made my life worth wishing and dreaming for again.

Easter

So I know I have not really touched on the subject of my daughter’s birth very much. But in my psyche it places a really big trigger. Thing is my daughter was born through surrogacy. My husband and I after 10 years of being married found out we couldn’t have children and my sister stepped up and decided to have a child for us. This please do not take this wrong but I everyday thank my sister for this and I appreciate what she did for me but sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever have a true bond with my daughter. I love her I would do anything in the world for her and it has nothing to do with the fact that my sister didn’t fart to her and that I didn’t because the person that she attaches to the most is my husband. If I try to tell her something she gets upset with me she gets angry with me and right away she asks my husband about it feel like I can’t discipline her it feels like when I’m trying to talk to her she half listens to me. Sometimes I feel like I am just tolerated by her and in the family that I grew up in the examples that I have of respect I feel like she’s disrespecting me so much and I feel like I don’t know if I can have the patience to break it down for her you know that I need her to understand what I’m saying in the living need to listen to me. I’m sorry I’m kind of a strange place right now I’m feeling like I’m just kind of here right now and I don’t know I am feeling alone right now so I just needed to say this to somebody and I have a platform where I can actually do that so I’m just kind of venting and ranting a little bit please do not think that I’m trying to hurt myself or anyone else I’m just needing to talk.

-Mom feeling out of place

Working during this pandemic.

Having a job right now during this pandemic is a big deal when the country first began the first self quarantining procedures, we where given a piece of paper stating that our job was essential and if we were to be pulled over we had only to hand the paper over to authorities and they would allow us to get to work.

In the beginning just about every major retail and grocery store, We’re out of everyday items like toilet paper, baby wipes, hand sanitizer, any kind of disinfectant such as bleach,Lysol,peroxide rubbing alcohol. If it was used to kill any kind of germs or to wipe your behind you couldn’t find it anywhere. It became so bad that retailers had to put signs up limiting the amount of products that you could take. People were hoarding multi-packs of toilet paper and sanitizer and selling it on the street marked up of course. Finally Walmart who hasn’t closed their general superstores in over 20 years decided that they would start closing their stores at 8:30 at night, in order for the overnight crew, which is the shift that I work to be able to stock product. Any establishment that was open required all customers and employees to wear face coverings, that covered their mouth and nose. We were also required to keep a social distance of 6 ft from each other as well as having our temperature checked while coming in to the store. Any temperature of 100 degrees for over automatically had to go home.to be able to really discuss what it’s like to live through this endemic we have to actually know exactly what it is from what we can gather it originated in Asia primarily China and it is contracted through saliva and touch. Symptoms are tricky because they are very similar to having a cold or having the flu obviously you have a high temperature of over a hundred, you may also have a sinus blockage or runny nose, I dry cough that that produces primarily blood and not mucus or phlegm, shortness of breath and in some cases nausea. So as you can see we had a hard time pinpointing what exactly we were looking for in this illness. In the beginning people were taking precautions and self quarantining themselves. Restaurants were closed many people were out of work and stuck at home because they had no work to go to. Some people avoided each other some people thought that it was a hoax and that it wasn’t going to happen to them. Our kids went on spring break and March and spring break lasted until the following August. With our children’s education teetering on our ability to teach them. Please let me tell you if you see a teacher today go hug them and let them know that their job is so unappreciated and selfless. Wesley and I found out really fast that we are not teacher material. Honestly Wesley has way more patience than I do but he also has been with Neva since she was a baby so he’s is more accustomed to her learning style.

As I mentioned before my job was considered a essential job as was my mother’s who works for Kroger, my stepfather Derek he works in a warehouse that makes acrylic lenses he’s a graphic designer so he was essential as well. However my sister who is a cook was laid off. She has a family, her off and on again husband, and a thirteen (fourteen now) year old daughter and nine (ten) year old daughter she has a house payment of over 1,000 dollars with of course utilities on top of them. Who this didn’t stop her from going straight to Kroger where my mom works and getting a job. She since had gone back to the restaurant when it reopened it was just fired causing her to take a full-time position at Kroger which thank the Lord above that she was able to get.

However not very many people are that fortunate a lot of people that left Walmart during the self quarantine have not come back and we are actually working at less than a skeleton crew capacity. We’re now closing at 11:00 at night opening at 7:00 in the morning except on Tuesdays when we open at 6:00 for a senior citizen day. Where now going into our very first year anniversary of this global pandemic, all of our children are remote learning. we are all spending less and less time with our extended families I haven’t seen my grandmother in almost a year.

All our emotional baggage is for the most part bottled up and just waiting for the right moment to just explode. We have learned so much about our friends, our family a lot of it not so good. But hey at least for learning the truth. Who knows what tomorrow’s going to bring, we may just come out of this better people but many more toward a crazy, maybe even horrific ending to maybe just too much closeness. We’ll see!!!

Still Learning still loving

Sometimes we have to really just step away from our day to day lives and actually remember what made us who we are today. Wesley and I have been through our share of ups and downs. We can honestly say we have been to the breaking point and we came out the other side differently.

But then there are these days that I look at him and realize how consiterant that he can be. Last night which is actually this morning, since I am a night stocker at Walmart, which during this Covid 19 pandemic, and social distancing, my line of work is now considered essential because we are allowing for our country to continue to run. Most of the time when I get off work I am so tired I feel my family suffers for not having my attention. Like I was explaining, 7am is the end of my work day, so I often refer to it as night. This morning Wesley surprised me by renting a hotel room for us. I mean not just for me and him but for Neva too.

For the past two year we have so little time to be a family, it seem that we are constantly having to explain ourselves to our families. I do realize that at the moment we have no home and are living with my parents but we are also a married couple and parents but we many days spend our time explaining our actions, what we spend our money on, and how we are raising our children. A few weeks ago I was sick and couldn’t go to work for a week and I get credical feedback from everyone like I am being lazy. Like I am not allowed to get sick, I am not allowed to sleep, when I am exausted, If I don’t sleep enough trying to get things done, I must be using again. It does not matter. No matter what I do no one is ever happy. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be able to measure up to my mother. I know that I have disapointed her expectations of what she wanted me to be. My sister who was the “bad kid” while I was living in Arizona. Is now the golden child

We hung out in this hotel that was actually paid for by a friend of ours who consitered us as family just happen to work the front desk that morning. We also had a chance to talk about things in our lives that we don’t get the chance to say because so many people are around and in our business. After 18 years of marriage we are still learning to be husband and wife, as well as parents and we are still in love with our family even through all the stress.

Happiness is different for everyone. I love my family and I am Happy that we together no matter the case.