The Story of US!!

Andrew's always wanted me to 'publish' the story of us. . .So here we go!! I typed this up for another person, but figured I could copy it here too! This is a very condensed version (but still long!!)

I was divorced from my 1st husband on 5/17/96. I was in a relationship (a rebound I guess) and got pg unexpectedly! When he found out he threatened to burn down my house, blow up my car if I didn’t give the baby up for adoption. The papers were started. We were just getting to the process of finding an adoptive family when I had a nervous breakdown. I moved in with my brother and his family (also to go into hiding from the crazy man!).

A man was renting a room from them (above their garage) who has been a friend of theirs for years. . . In fact I met him when I dropped off my oldest DS to have my DD in 1993 and never saw him again till Thanksgiving 1996. After much discussion and soul searching, he decided he wanted to be a father for the baby I was carrying and the adoption process ended there. We have been together ever since! The baby was born on the one year anniversary of my divorce (5/17/97).

We were planning to be married on New Years Eve 1996 but I was put on bedrest. So we decided the following year would be good for us. Well, things didn’t go as planned then either. . . between custody battles with my 1st DH, moving, having the new baby, etc.

He was an electrician and had an on the job injury, so in October 1997 he became a stay at home dad for my 3 kids. We moved into this wonderful house where my baby got lead poisoning! So we moved AND took the landlord to court (we won on getting all our rent reimbursed, but not on the lead poisoning issue). Our son became very ill.

My mom passed away on Christmas eve 1999, so we had to go to Florida for 2 weeks.

After many, many hours of driving, medical tests and therapies, Harley was diagnosed as severely autistic on 3/20/00. With all this going on, we still hadn’t made the time to get married!

A few months later, my 1st DH dragged us back to court for a custody hearing and although we were together for nearly 4 years, the fact we weren’t officially married kept coming up. . . Four weeks later – on 3/31/01 -- we were married in a small ceremony with just my kids and his mom and dad present.

Four months later, my son’s bio father found me and tried to take the baby away (he had always thought we had adopted him out). After finding out Harley was autistic, he wanted nothing to do with him and signed all parental rights over to my husband, freeing Harley to be adopted and my DH to be his daddy ‘officially’!!

I am so in love with my husband!! He has done so much for me over the years we’ve been together!! We just bought our first single family home in February 2007 and are loving being new homeowners!