Hopes and Dreams

7 years ago George and I were engaged and finishing details of wedding planning.  Our wedding would be in 4 months and we were putting the final details on the plans.  More importantly we were disucssing our future.  Afterall, planning a wedding is one thing but planning a lifetime is something else.

We were discussing how big or small we wanted our family to be.  We discussed things like how to parent our hypothetical children.  We were not in agreement with when to start adding to our family.  I wanted to have children right away and George wanted to wait until we were married a year.

We had dreams of a small family.  I remember when George and I were trying to figure out how many children to have he told me he had a dream where we had one more child than what he wanted and that child had special needs.  His dream lead to us divorcing over the stress over having a special needs child.

Not long after we got married we decided to have children sooner than we initially planned.  After we found out we would have difficulty concieving our hopes were dashed.  Our dreams of getting married and making babies the old fashioned way were gone.  We had issues on both our ends with infertility.  Even if it were just one of the other it still was an us thing.  It affected both of us.  We hoped to have A child instead of a large family.

6 years ago we were hoping that our twins would make it and I would be able to have a complication free pregnancy with them.  Instead our dreams were dashed with a pregnancy that had complication after complication.  I had hyperamisis, lost a lot of weight, had incompentant cervix and a cerclage only to go into preterm labor upon the stitch being put it.  After months of bedrest my water broke early. 

Our hope turned into dreams of our children developing typically.  We worried about the boys developmentment and it turned into reality as both boys got a bit older.   Both Jon and Matthew have learning difficulties and motor delays.  Jon has been showing signs of a possibility of dyslexia.  Matthew has a bunch of things going on and I'm becoming more frustrated with not any answers.

We were told we had a 1 percent chance of having a child on our own.  That dream seemed to be dashed until 16 months after Jon and Matthew were born.  Chris became a reality for us not just a dream!  Again, we hoped to have a healthy child.  Chris may not be super healthy but he has given us so much love. 

Chris, Matthew, and Jon have given us the initial dream that George had about having special needs children.  Our hopes and dreams have changed since that conversation 7 years ago.  Now I think that our marriage has become much more solid as a result of having our boys.  It may not be the best marriage; we have our problems in other areas but I think we have come together to provide the best we can for the boys.  I think that's all that I could ask for.

Now that I've shared my hopes and dreams I'm asking that you share yours.

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