Galloping Cats

A is amazing. Here are some of the reasons why:

We had only been dating a few months when the vulvodynia reared its ugly head. Only it was years till we had a name for it, and in the meantime I was being (mis)diagnosed with all kinds of scary things like herpes and syphillis. Oh, and it hurt to have sex. He never blinked. He never thought twice. He never got grossed out or disgusted. He just loved me and supported me and stood by me.

For the record, I never wanted to go back to school, but when the economy crashed, I felt I had to if I was ever again going to earn a decent salary at a job I somewhat enjoyed. Talk about support. Not one peep of complaint as A paid the rent (and everything else) for 2 years and I spent huge amounts of money on tuition. He didn’t even complain when I got crappy grades.

When Crazy pees in my closet, it’s actually A that does all the cleanup. And speaking of cleanup, he generally cleans the litterbox, does the dishes, takes out the garbage, and cleans up the clutter I tend to leave all around the house. And he fixes stuff, too! (When you grow up Jewish, you do not expect your spouse to be able to fix stuff– this is a bonus in marrying a gentile. One that my parents tend to take advantage of as well.) Meanwhile I, well, I do the laundry most of the time.

But none of this compares to the support over the past month since we lost the baby. He says I was nervous about telling him about my blog and I was, but I held out about 3 hours (2 of which he was not even home) before telling him. He says he was not as supportive as he could have been, but that’s not how I saw it, though now that I think about it, he did beg me not to talk about him. Huh. Well. This he probably will not mind.

When I called him from the doctor’s office that horrible day, he rushed home to be with me. And stayed there with me over the next two while I waited for the D&C, and then of course was at the hospital with me that Friday and all weekend long after. And since then, as I say the same things over and over and over again, he lets me (most of the time). And when I complained that I felt all the burden of doing the research on our various and sundry medical problems, he offered to take on the research around adoption. I know we’re miles from that right now, but it helps me to be able to understand the options and issues of every potential path.

When I invited A to write a post for the blog, he obliged! This is a big deal because, as he wrote, it goes against his instincts to discuss private topics in a public forum. And also because A is a much more thoughtful writer than I am. And, while I dash off posts in a few minutes (this one excepted), his took well over an hour to compose. (This means creating a whole category for his posts may have been a bit optimistic on my part, but some encouragement in the form of comments on his post might help!)

We had dinner at my sister’s house tonight. I found A in the family room with my two nephews, playing a game. I found myself fighting back tears because, well, my nephews are going through a particularly cute stage (1.5 and 4.5 years old) and because A just looked so great playing with them and because they were so clearly enjoying hanging out with them. I can’t wait to see him with ours someday.