Happy St. Patrick's Day!

For the longest time my mom would wake us up on this very day, every year, and give her best Irish accent and say “Top of the morning to ya!” I would find it hilarious because she would love it so much, although I’m not sure what she loved more; talking with the Irish accent or having an excuse to wake us up in such an obnoxious but cute manner. See, for the longest time we thought we had Irish ancestors, then we didn’t and we were Scottish. Then we were a little Irish and Scottish. So, I think that’s where we ended up. Honestly I lost track of how many times we thought we might have been Irish. But on March 17th, aren’t we all Irish? Sure, you can look at that as go out and get plastered and have a whale of time. Or you can look at it as I’m choosing to and consider yourself lucky. When it comes to lottery tickets, raffles, casinos, or even Go Fish, I definitely don’t have the luck of the Irish on my side. But when I look back on my life and where I am now, I can confidently say I hit the jackpot when it comes to my family, without having to chase a little leprechaun.

I know everyone says they have the best parents in the world and chances are they might. However, my parents….I don’t even know how to describe. They were and are the perfect combination of best friends/parents. They didn’t smother us, but yet we always knew they were there. They pushed us to do our best in everything, but were behind us if we decided it wasn’t for us. What my dad lacked in “book smarts”, my mom made sure she had it covered. What my mom didn’t know about the mean streets of Struthers, my dad let us know about. When I thought I was big and bad and packed the black plastic bags and was ready to leave home because they took my pager from me, they always let me do what I had to do, and then they always let me back. Honestly I never got more than the front door. But I was trying to make a dramatic point. But I was the one that was missing the point. They were and are always going to be there for us. My parents made sure we always had a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs. I know I have said things to the both of them in my childhood days that have hurt their feelings and all I can say now is that I am sorry and thank you for loving me, for loving us, unconditionally.

When I say us, I mean myself and of course my older sister and my younger brother. Let’s be honest, who are the real lucky ones to have such an amazing sister like myself. Without them though, I don’t know where I would be. Cathy paved the way for me. Not only with my parents and in high school, but in life. While she was in high school and I was in about 8th grade there was a divide. I wasn’t allowed at parties she threw at our house when our parents were away and I wasn’t allowed to be with her and her friends basically doing anything. I remember thinking I have the meanest sister in the world, the universe. Why couldn’t I hang out with her? But, as the years went on and we grew up and grew closer, the more I learned and the more I caught on. She wasn’t telling me no because she was mean and because she didn’t love me. She told me no and kicked me out of her parties BECAUSE she loved me. She was protecting me. She was being the big sister. Now we are both grown up, even though I think she hates to admit her little sister isn’t so little. I have to make my own choices and do what is best for me, even if she doesn’t agree. We are two different people and that’s okay. She is more cautious and I’m more carefree. I’m sure we can both learn a lot from each other. Some days I just want her to relax and I’m sure there are days she wishes I would just grow up. But I will always need her, no matter the day, no matter the circumstance. Now Mark, my little brother is something else. I have never been more proud of someone then him. Growing up, he was terrible. I mean I have heard of terrible two’s but this lasted till he was about 12. He gave my parents a run for their money and many babysitters. I would have never imagined he grow up to be the man he is today. He left home for Columbus with his girlfriend at the time, now his wife, shortly after high school and has been making this family proud ever since. He is the smartest man I know, I just want to know why those genes skipped me?! He has lived in different places and taken on so many different jobs that I can’t keep up. He has never settled for less than what he deserves and he deserves the world and so much more. He is always chasing bigger and better things and I have always admired that about him. When I lived in Texas, I can say he and I got a lot closer and I learned a lot about him and the man he has become and I know I don’t tell him all the time, but I truly adore him. It is an honor to be his big sister.

So, maybe tomorrow when you aren’t getting plastered and doing numerous Irish Car Bombs, take a minute and think about the things or people in your life that you are lucky to have or had. I say tomorrow because I have gotten emotional while drinking and I don’t recommend that for anyone. I have a lot of other people that I am lucky for, but I think this was enough reading for the day.

Be lucky. Be blessed. Be careful.

My Addiction & Regret

Regret. We all have it. At some point in our lives and in some form, we all have some regret. Whether it be saying something to someone, wearing something, cutting your hair a certain way, dating someone, doing something, or even eating way too much. It comes in many shapes and in many sizes. Sometimes we learn from what we did that filed us with that regret and sometimes we are just addicted to the way it makes us feel in the moment that we don’t feel the regret till after, which makes us do it all over again. It’s a vicious cycle. Damn vicious.

In high school I had an eating disorder. It started off by me not eating or eating very little. Then I would eat more and throw it up. Things in my outside world at that point were out of control, I felt like I could control my weight. It is so cliché when people say that I know, but it’s true. I needed that control because I felt like I couldn’t handle what was going on around me. Maybe it wasn’t about the control that I needed but more about the attention looking back at it now. Either way, for a short while, I was addicted to that feeling. It was a rush, a high, knowing that I could eat whatever I wanted to because I could get rid of it. Did I regret it immediately afterwards? Absolutely. But that only made me crave it more. Everything around me was so chaotic I blended in the background so maybe I just wanted someone to notice that I was there. In no way was it anyone fault but my own. I knew what I was doing. I knew if I just spoke up the right way, things would change. But I handled it wrong because I didn’t know what to do at that time. I told my boyfriend who then either told my parents or made me tell them, I can’t remember, but I did end up going to see a doctor. I felt like I disappointed my parents which made it worse. What was I doing? My parents loved me and I was hurting myself when I had their attention all along. I stopped after one session.

My addiction to that rush, that high, was nothing. I thought I wanted control at the time but now I know I just wanted the attention and I’m mature enough to admit that. I regret going about it the way that I did because I feel like I hurt my parents in the process. The thing I learned about regret is that you can never go back in time and change what you said, what you wore, how you cut your hair, or change your actions. Instead, you can learn from it, grow from it, and become better from it.

1995.

I'm going to bring you back to a certain point in my life, although I didn’t fully comprehend what had happened then, looking back at it now, it was the first time my family, the family I thought was untouchable, broke.

My grandfather passed away on February 15th, 1995. I was young. I knew what happened & I understood what happened. I remember walking in the door from school and my mom and dad sitting at the table. Anyway, I walked in and my dad had me sit on his lap and he told me. I cried and then we went to my Nona’s. I will never forget when I went there that day. I sat on her lap and she was hugging me so tightly. I can remember feeling as if her arms were just swallowing me as she held me against her chest. She was screaming in my ear and rocking back and forth, “He’s gone, He’s gone.” See, the thing about my grandparents is that they were absolute soulmates. My Nona literally had a broken heart and on June 20th 1995, just 3 short months and 5 days after my Grandpa passed, that broken heart took her from us. Unfortunately, I was so young, I don’t remember much of my grandparents besides the stories and pictures that people share.

Did you ever see the movie “Soul Food”? When I first watched that, Big Mama reminded me of my Nona. She was the glue. She was the foundation. We would go over there all the time for dinner. Holidays were unreal. Christmas Eve & Christmas day, I couldn’t wait to go over there. Santa would come and I would get so excited when I would hear the clanking from him, or her, walking down the steps; not ever noticing that my dad, Grandpa or Grandma would take turns being Santa. My Nona is who started my addiction to chocolate milk. I can remember one time I was running in their house and I ran into the doorknob of my Grandpa’s TV room. My eye was gushing blood and my dad put me on top of their counter in the bathroom and the counter was really long and I can remember looking at my Grandpa and feeling bad for him because he was all the way at the end and couldn’t see what was going on. My Grandpa would chase my brother around with a yellow yard stick that he hid next to the refrigerator and my Nona would ALWAYS have Juicy Fruit gum to give us that she kept in a jar in the cabinet right by the door to the garage. I can remember running in their front yard because it was really big and throwing rocks in the pond that they had in the backyard. I can remember how red my Nona’s face would get when she would laugh and the hair that grew out of my Grandpa’s nose. I can’t remember their voices. I can’t remember anything they told me. I can’t remember the last time I saw their faces other than in pictures, but the memories I do have of them will hopefully last a lifetime.

Regardless if I knew them as much as I would have hoped, they helped shape who I am today. Their blood is running in my veins. I learn more and more about them each and every day. By having those family dinners, they made me understand how important family is and how lucky I am to be a part of the one I am. Some of us may fight, some of us may not agree with one another, and some of us may not talk to each other on a regular basis, but at the end of the day, we are family, and that is something my grandparents taught me that I will never forget.

Mistakes & Judgement

How fair is it that people still get judged on their past? Sure, some people are incapable of changing. But, how fair is it to judge people that HAVE changed based on things they did 20, 15, or 10 years ago? I know that I have done some pretty messed up things in the past that I would never even think about doing now. I know people that have cheated and are in committed relationships now. I know people that have had several run ins with the police that are now police officers. I know people that have had trouble with drugs and alcohol and are amazing people, friends, and parents. People grow and people learn through their mistakes so how fair is it for us to judge them on things that they did when they were younger? We don’t always know the circumstances or the situations or what was going on in their heads when they did what they did. They probably don’t even know. The point is that they learn from it and they grow from it and they become better people. We can’t sit on our high horses and point fingers at anyone because the truth is, I bet we all did some things we aren’t proud of.

I am in no means innocent. I have done things I am not proud of when I was younger. I didn’t know any better. I wish I could go back in time and change it. I was lost and searching for any kind of relief and I was selfish. I will have to live with the choices that I made during that period for the rest of my life and that is no one’s fault but my own. I was wrong and I am sorry. But, I did learn from it. I learned about the person I never want to be. I learned that I am better then who I was pretending to be. I learned that I am going to mess up from time to time and it’s okay and that I can’t bottle up my emotions from the past because they will literally suffocate me. Most importantly, I acknowledge that I made mistakes in the past and that I am not a bad person. So, how can I sit there and judge someone based on something they did light-years ago? I can’t. I can acknowledge that they made mistakes, yes, but I should also acknowledge that they aren’t that same person now and chances are, they are pretty amazing.

Our experiences are what make us who we are today and so do our mistakes, without them, how would we learn and become better?

Beautiful You MRKH

As some of you could see, I have an opportunity to be part of a research project for women with MRKH. The researchers would take some blood samples from me and any of my immediate family members that would like to participate to study our DNA. They want to try to find the cause of MRKH and IF it could be prevented. I wasn’t specially selected, I volunteered. I am part of a wonderful “Sisterhood of Warriors”, if you would, of women from literally all across the world that have been blessed with this. I honestly didn’t know it existed until I was looking up more on the syndrome myself and I saw all these women. I couldn’t tell you how excited I was to FINALLY have a group of people that understood. I know I have my friends and family that I could talk to here and they have been more than supportive, but it’s just different when there are people that are actually going through the same feelings and emotions.

I am part of the Beautiful You MRKH Foundation. It is a wonderful organization that encourages us lucky ladies to be proud of ourselves and to remind us how beautiful we are even with MRKH. The one thing I really love and feel like I should also be doing, is the foundation encourages us to talk about the syndrome and bring awareness to it. I would LOVE to tell someone I have MRKH and not have to explain it. I want them just to say, “Oh, so you were born without the proper parts of the reproductive system?” Hell yea I was and I rock it! I wouldn’t actually say that, but I would be screaming it in my head. Every doctor appointment and trip to the ER, “Is there any chance that you may be pregnant?” Of course I could just say no and leave it at that. However, these are medical professionals. Why shouldn’t I tell them I have MRKH? Because then they question me as to what it is and I tell them. “Oh, I have never heard of that before,” is what they usually respond with. Who knows what happens after that conversation. Maybe they forget about it. But, maybe they don’t. Maybe they tell another co-worker who has never heard of it and so on. Maybe they both go home and research it. Then, maybe 2 years from my visit, another 17 year old girl comes in and has never had a period because she also has MRKH. Imagine how that little girl will feel when that doctor or nurse doesn’t have to question her about it because he or she already knows what it is.

That’s why I’m doing this. That’s what the Beautiful You MRKH Foundation is about. I encourage you all just to look at their page and see what they do. They have helped me be proud of myself. The foundation has proved to me that I am not alone in my feelings and that other women all across the world are affected by this. Maybe, one day, MRKH won’t be something women are afraid to talk about but instead, are proud to have been blessed with.

www.beautifulyoumrkh.org

Jealousy.

I have had a lot of people private message me since I started this blog. Many told me how awesome they think it is that I can talk about this, which I appreciate more then you ever know. For the longest time I thought I had to keep this private and only share with those that I wanted to share with. Well, screw that. Writing has been so much fun for me and it feels so incredibly amazing to talk about the fact that I have MRKH. One of my reasons for wanting to share was to hopefully be able to speak to someone else struggling. Maybe not with the fact that they don’t have a uterus or a vaginal canal, but just anyone feeling like they don’t belong or were alone. Recently, I received a private message and she asked me a question that I think about every day because I am literally surrounded by it. Sadly, this woman lost her baby a few years ago and although I don’t know how that feels, I can relate.

“How do you keep from getting jealous when you find out your friends are pregnant?”

I laughed a little when I read that. My sister is currently pregnant. My best friend, who I consider my sister, is pregnant. Her sister-in-law and cousin-in-law are both pregnant, both who I know and love. The mailman’s cousin’s boyfriend’s little sister is pregnant. I swear, it’s like in the water. Maybe it’s the 50 Shades of Baby Boom era. Everywhere I go, someone I know is pregnant, had a baby, currently trying to have a baby, etc. So, when I got that message, all I could do was laugh.

I’m human. I have natural emotions and I said before I was going to be completely honest with all of you. I do get jealous when I find out someone is pregnant. I can’t help it. It lasts probably for about a minute or two. I get a rush of different emotions: jealously, anger, guilt, happiness, lucky, then thankful. Now, before everyone starts to judge and think I am a terrible person for feeling these emotions, please let me explain.

The first feeling I get is jealously. If you have been following my blog; this is pretty much obvious. I get jealous that they are going to get to experience pregnancy, all the good and bad. I get jealous they have a uterus. Stupid, I know which is then when I get mad. I get mad because I start to feel how unfair it is all over again. Why did I have to be born without that? I want to be a mom too. It’s not fair. Why did God choose me? Why do they get to be happy and I don’t. Which VERY quickly turns into guilt. I feel guilty because why in the world am I thinking these things?! It isn’t their fault that I was born the way I was. It’s no one’s fault. So then, my mini rush of emotions is just happiness/excitement and for the next 9 months I’m on Cloud 11 right along with them.

Like I said in my prior entry, God made me this way for a reason. I’m not ready to know what that reason is yet. One day I will know that reason. So yes, I get jealous and I’m okay with admitting that because I know in my heart I am so beyond happy for my friends and family and even the mailman’s cousin’s boyfriend’s little sister. How lucky am I that I get to share in this amazing experience (the good and the bad) with them? How lucky am I that the mommys to be allow me to be part of their children’s lives? How lucky am I that I know in 9 months, I am going to have another little baby to hug and kiss and spoil the heck out of? I’m really lucky I get to watch the babies grow up to be amazing kids. I feel lucky that I get to load the kids up with sugar and get them all wild because I’m a cool aunt (hopefully they think I am) and then give them back to their parents. When the kids get older, I’m going to be lucky that they know they can turn to me if they have any problems. And yes, I know these kids aren’t mine and no, I don’t pretend that they are. But, knowing that I can’t have kids, I feel a special connection to them.

And for that, I will forever be thankful.

Surrogacy.

If I choose to have a baby and don’t want to adopt, my other option is surrogacy. This is where doctors would take my egg (since I still produce those) and implant the sperm from either my husband or a sperm donor if I choose to go at it alone. They would then take that little bundle of joy and implant it into a woman who will then carry my child to term in her uterus. Essentially it would be my bun but her oven. Now if you remember my entry about adoption and how crazy my mind was all over the place, this is no different. Actually, this may be worse.

I get a baby with my genes. My blood. It would be a part of me and (hopefully) my husband’s. Not only would that baby be a part of me, but I wouldn’t get the stretch marks, I wouldn’t get the kicks, I wouldn’t get the indigestion, and I wouldn’t get the morning sickness. You know when you were younger and your mom or dad told you not to do something and it just made you want to do it that much more? That’s how I feel. Knowing I won’t get to experience any of that stuff that I hear so many women complain about makes me want it that much more. I WANT to experience the kicks and hiccups. I WANT to get the morning sickness and indigestion. I know, call me crazy. But it’s like the girls that have straight hair want curly hair and the curly haired girls always want the straight hair. But it’s not only that stuff that I think about when I think about another woman carrying my child. Who would she be? Would she be someone I know? Who would possibly want to give up 9months of their life to carry my child? What if something happened to her while she was carrying my child or giving birth to my child? I know they go through all sorts of tests, physically and mentally, but I could never live with myself if something happened. I mean, crazy things happen all the time. What if I picked a woman from an agency and the pregnancy made her crazy and she runs off with my baby? I know that’s farfetched but I’ve seen Dateline. Then, once I get over all the crazy thoughts, my emotions start setting in and I start to feel inadequate as a woman because someone else is having to carry MY child. Yes, I know it’s not looked upon like that. But put yourself in my shoes. Imagine trying to bake a cake. You have all the ingredients but you’re missing the most important part of the process, the actual oven to bake it in. So, you have to borrow someone else’s oven and watch YOUR cake bake in an unfamiliar oven where anything can happen and you can’t control it because it’s not yours. Crushing. And now I really want cake. Back on topic, Teri! Like adoption, this can also be pretty expensive. However, I will say this, if I choose to have child, no amount of money will be a roadblock. I’m just saying that finances are something to think about because you have to pay for the actual process, checkups, medical bills, and medicine, anything about that baby and really anything about that woman carrying your child for the next 9months, is you. 

So, as you can tell, I want to be a mom. However, I’m realizing that just because I want to be a mom doesn’t mean I am ready to be one. I’m not going to be selfish and go through the long process of either options. Like I said before, it’s not just about me, it’s about that child. I still have a lot of research and learning to do. I wish I had it easy and I could just decide which road I want to take: adopt or surrogacy. But I have to figure out which one is right for me and it may take me a little bit longer but right now, I’m okay with that.