He's not pregnant.

So, when you start a new blog, the way to get followers is to post regularly and predictably, so I've been told.  I guess it's a good thing I wasn't banking on growing a huge following.  I've been gone for a while, and I'd like to fill you in.

To "make a long story short" I'll summarize the back story by just saying that Snuggs had been having some minor, but curious and concerning health issues that were sort of stacking up over our five years together.  We tried to get answers from our general care provider, but were pretty much shut down.  Our main concerns began with inexplicable weight gain and inability to lose any weight at all, despite significant lifestyle changes.  When he asked for a blood workup to check thyroid and metabolic hormones, our former care provider suggested he download a fitness app onto his smartphone.  Notice, I said former care provider.

After the first visit with our new care provider, Snuggs was sent for blood work.  The results that came back were concerning to our doctor, and she needed some follow up information from additional blood work before she could be certain what was going on.  A few days later she called Snuggs in to go over the results.  Due to some scheduling conflicts, it just didn't work for me to go with him.

When he came home, he set the lab results on the counter and told me that he had to run to the restroom, but would be right back to talk to me about what the doctor had said.  I picked up the papers and started reading through them.  I have absolutely zero medical background, but I have birthed two babies and worked as a birth doula for nearly a dozen families.  So, I was shocked to see lab results that made it look like my husband was pregnant, I'm talking third trimester hormone levels.  The more I read, the more I laughed.  I was puzzled, and half expecting him to come around the corner and tell me when he was due.  I had several really bizarre thoughts running through my head regarding the pending adoption, my "pregnant" husband, and just how strange God's sense of humor is.

When he came back in the room I was chuckling.  It wasn't full on laughter, because I was nervous, but mostly I was expecting him to say something relatively insignificant and strange enough to be a bit comical.  I asked him, "Are you going to tell me you're pregnant?" and he looked at me like I was seventy-five types of stupid.

"No.  I'm not pregnant.  But I'm glad you seem to be taking this well so far.  Come here."

And he stood me in front of him around the corner of our kitchen where Cricket, watching a show on the tablet around the corner wouldn't see me.  (Thankfully Buttercup was napping.)

He put his hands on my shoulders.  And I held my breath, because I could just barely sense something "off" in my steady as stone cop.

"Babe, the doctor is pretty sure I have a brain tumor."

And then

 I

couldn't

breathe.








Well, I could breathe in, but not out.

So I inhaled these short, stuck feeling breaths,

and I buried my head in his chest, and I held on for dear life.

I squeaked the tiniest squeaks as I wrestled to keep the pain contained enough that I wouldn't terrify my son.

And this repeated in my mind over and over:

"GOD, I LOVE HIM.  I NEED HIM.  I NEEEEEEED HIM"

Snuggs said, "Do you want me to finish?"

I shook my head no, and he let me stay buried in his chest a while longer.  Then he pulled me back enough to be able to see my face, looked at me, and said, "She says it's probably benign."

...like that was supposed to bring me some big relief...

I walked out the door to the garage and vomited.

He told me he didn't know what to do.

"You ask the God who made every cell in your body to heal you completely.  You beg Him.  And after you are done with that, you do it again, and again, and again, with everything you have." I said.

Then Snuggs went to the back yard and started "raking leaves," which was really just moving around some stray foliage at the back end of our yard because he had absolutely no idea what to do with himself.

I got on the phone, immediately.  I called my Christian Momma Mentor and cried, and she prayed with me right there on the phone.  I called my girlfriends.  I told them, through tears, that I had no idea what we were dealing with, but that I knew that every minute without people praying for him was time wasted.  I snorted, and sobbed, and I'm sure I said stupid things that I don't even begin to remember.

And after I had called every single believing friend I have, I went to find my husband, still "raking leaves." And I held him, and I told him it was going to be alright.  I didn't know how, but that it would all be okay, because it just HAD to be okay.

We decided we had to "do something" to get our minds off of the tumor as much as possible.  We knew that otherwise we would just sit around staring at each other and crying while trying to take care of our kids.  We went to the local bounce house fun zone thingy, and had a lot of laughs with our kids.  We were there for a couple of hours, and it was good.

My dad was already scheduled to come that evening because of a meeting we had scheduled regarding the adoption.  Except, instead we went for an MRI of Snuggs' head.

If you've never had or sat in on an MRI, whoa.  They are LOUD.  Even with high intensity earplugs they are LOUD.  We went through the motions and the stuffed my hulking husband into this tiny tube and started looking at his brain.  He was nervous about the procedure, physically uncomfortable, and scared out of his mind about what they would find.  I had no idea that he could see me.  I bowed my head low and prayed.  I asked God for a miracle.  I asked Him to remove the tumor from Snuggs' brain such that when they reviewed the images from the beginning of the MRI compared to the end of the MRI that they would be in disbelief because the tumor had vanished.  I cried.  I looked around at all of the random stupid crap in the room.  I squirmed in my uncomfortable chair.  I cried again.  I prayed some more.  I had NO IDEA he could see me.

He told me afterwards that the only thing that kept him from panicking was that there was a teeny mirror inside and he could just see me from the shoulders up.  I told him, jokingly, that it was a good thing I hadn't been picking my nose.  But I felt regret.  Had I known he could see me I would've been performing for him, sort of.  I would've been doing what I thought he needed.  I would've been looking in his direction consistently, faking a look of peace and confidence, I don't know...NOT doing what I had been doing.  But, I guess the reality of the matter is that in seeing what he did see instead of what I would've performed for him, he got the truth.  The raw, deep love, unmasked emotion, pleading for God to change this for us, and I guess there's got to be beauty in that...somewhere.

We were told that we would hear from our doctor the next morning.

We went home and waited.

We waited.  The minutes ticked by at an agonizingly slow pace.  We prayed.  We called more friends and begged for them to join us in prayer.  Noon came and passed.  We called the office several times and got no answer.  Snuggs WENT TO FREAKING WORK.  He couldn't stand waiting and just sitting around thinking about it, so he left me to do that on my own.  What a butthead.

As office hours approached an end, I called again several times, and again received no answer.

I could've punched the doctor in the face.  I was livid, scared, hurt, protective, out of my ever loving mind.

The next day they called with the report that it was, in fact, just what they thought it would be.

Lots of reading, several appointments, and one neurologist later, we have this to say:

Somehow, having a brain tumor can really be "not that big of a deal."

Of all of the brain tumors to have, this is the one you want.  It's not even an *actual* BRAIN tumor, but rather a pituitary tumor.  Chances are that IF we even need to treat the tumor itself, that will be done with medication.

In the mean time, we are treating the hormone imbalances caused by the tumor, and slowing down the pace of life quite a bit.

The slowing down is partially to compensate for Snuggs' lethargy, but mostly because this sort of thing really makes you re-evaluate and spend time on what actually matters.


For us, right now, Dave Ramsey doesn't actually matter.  What matters is tickle fights, and family walks, and date night, and building awesome train tracks, and reading books with laps full of babies and lots of funny voices, and prayers, and hugs, and lots of goodnight kisses.

Courting

Feeling mushy.  You've been warned.

Two nights ago we had our first real Valentine's Day date ever.  As in, he wasn't on duty, no children were in attendance, and we were at an actual restaurant on the actual day of the actual holiday.  AMAZING.

That date has caused a series of flashbacks of our story, of how we came to be.  So, here it is:

By many standards we appeared to play a game of "fools rush in," when we met March 28th and married October 24th, but outward appearances can be awfully deceiving, no?

We had both been through several relationships of various "seriousness" in our college years, and learned exactly what we did not want. Snuggs came to our relationship with the notion that he might be a really good partner for a lady who already had a kid or two.  (He's right, he would've been awesome at that.)  I came to our relationship feeling completely "over" relationships and determined to "date like a guy" and not get emotionally involved.  So much so, that I actually had a lunch date with another man on the same day that I met Snuggs for the first time on a dinner date.

Many people are surprised to learn that we met through match.com.  We were living about two hours away from each other, and though we would learn later that we had some common contacts that could've eventually landed us in the same room, it was doubtful that we ever would've ended up together if not for internet dating.  That said, I'm not endorsing, or even encouraging the use of match.com.  I had somewhere in the range of 150 dates through that site before I met the love of my life.  I don't think match.com has anything to do with why we've "lasted."

I don't remember much of the first emails we sent back and forth, but I can recall every detail of our early phone conversations like they were just yesterday.  Those handful of calls before our first date are treasures in my heart.  I'll never forget imagining him in my mind, trying to draw conclusions from every note of his voice, but even more than that I remember the constant laughter.  Talking to Snuggs was easy from the beginning, like talking to someone I'd always known, and he knew exactly how to make me smile and laugh countless times in any conversation.

While I liked talking to him on the phone, I'll admit I was awfully doubtful going in to our first date.  I'd had some less than desirable experiences with police officers who thought that their badges entitled them to rule the world.  I honestly thought, "THIS will never work.  He's a cop.  He's going to be a hypocritical self absorbed jerk."  It's a good thing I was only in it for the purpose of "dating like a guy," otherwise I likely wouldn't have shown up.

I pulled up to Red Lobster and saw him waiting at the door.  "Wow, he really IS bald!"  I don't know why I was shocked, I had seen a picture or two.  I guess you just don't expect a man who is barely twenty to actually be THAT bald.  He started the conversation by telling me that he had bought me roses, which his dog had eaten, and that because he was upset with his dog and put the dog on the porch, someone came by his house and stole his beloved dog.  I didn't know whether to run, laugh, or cry.  I don't even like roses-AT ALL.  At that point I was pretty much holding my breath and hoping things would get better.  We sat down and within moments he ordered nearly every simple carbohydrate on the menu.  No salad?  No side of veggies?  TWO varieties of potatoes on the same plate?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  I can't do this.  Just as I was beginning to enter fight or flight mode he busts out the following phrase, "Yeah, I'm a pretty confident kind of guy."  STICK A FORK IN ME, I WAS DOOOOOONE.  SO DONE.

Except, somehow I stayed.  Somehow I knew there was good in him, and I don't mean that as in...way down in a deep little corner there's a sliver of hope.  I mean, I could see the heart of pure gold shining through this man in front of me.  I had hope, enough hope to get me through dinner, and so I stayed.  By the end of dinner my hope had grown to interest, and I agreed to extend the date to catch a band at a bar nearby.  By the time he took me back to my car my interest had grown to the tiniest little flutter, and I wasn't ready to give up.  (He reportedly called his sister at this point and informed her that I was "the one." ...WHAT?)

We spent the next three days talking A LOT on the phone, and I began to fall.  By the time he came to my town three days later, I had decided that I was busting out the big guns, and took him to a sweet, quaint, perfect little winery.  He hates wine.  Fortunately the conversation was enough. We were walking the grounds of the winery when I felt it.  It made me panic.  The urge to kiss him.  I felt like I could throw up all over the place.  Evidently that's when you know you've got a winner.  I didn't do it.  I couldn't do it.  So I just kept on, feeling ill as a result of the attraction churning around inside of me.  We went to the mall, of all places, because the guy supposedly needed some new pants.  He danced and sang in the dressing room and I was hooked.  When I look back, that was the moment I knew I didn't want to let him go.  Not that all it took to catch me was a little song and dance, but rather, that was the moment that I knew that all of the other stuff I had learned about him already was genuine, and I was in.  He drove me to my car and as we were saying goodbye, I did it.  I leaned in and puckered up and closed my eyes.  And...and...and...nothing.  Those two seconds seemed like forever, and then he said, "Can I kiss you?" (DUH!)  I didn't know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or bust out in laughter, but I did neither, and instead got my kiss!

Three days after our second date we had a third date, a REAL kiss, and I went home and wrote him a letter that I would give him on our wedding day telling him that I knew without a doubt that he would be my husband.  I was right.  I'm always right ;)

And he is...my husband.  We've been together for almost five years.  And I was completely shocked while we were on our Valentine's Day date.  The man is hilarious, and I had somehow forgotten that, or rather, lost track of it.  It's hard to crack jokes when you're juggling children, and budgets, and night shifts that turn in to day shifts that were supposed to be afternoon shifts that end up being canceled, rescheduled, overtime with "schedule adjust" for pay.  It's hard to catch jokes when you're sorting laundry, and cleaning spitup, and wiping poopy bottoms, and such.

But two days ago it felt like we were courting.  It wasn't a fancy date, we actually went to a local pizzaria.  But we weren't in a rush, we had up to three and a half hours of childcare lined up, and after dinner we didn't get up.  We sat.  We talked.  And he reminded me of just how witty he is, how silly he is, and how much he loves me for just me.  Not because I'm his wife, or the mother of his children, or the chef, laundress, or housekeeper.  He just loves ME.  He loved me before I was any of those things, and he loves me still, and he loves me more.

Marriage is hard.  Even our really good marriage is hard.  But it is good, so, so good.  Though we both love each other for just the people we are, the people we met on that blind date at Red Lobster, our love has grown, developed, strengthened, and matured as we've moved through these last five years.

It still amazes me every time I think about how wise he was when he chose the song for our first dance.

Brad Paisley's "Then" has been the truest representation of our marriage I could ever have asked for.

"We've come so far since that day, and I thought I loved you then."