mindless woman, mindless ramblings

The day of Terry’s birthday just happened to be the first day I made contact with Stephanie and Terry. It was late January 2006, and at the time, we had no way of knowing that that those first emails would lead to the creation of the Meatball.

We spent a couple of weeks getting to know each other, and because Stephanie is an open book (as she says), it didn’t take very long for me to get a fairly comprehensive view of who they were and the nature of their relationship. In fact, it took only one phone call.

Stephanie was 36 and had been a teen mom. At the time, her son was 17 and her daughter was 14. Without going into too much detail, her young marriage wasn’t the most comfortable of situations. The fact that Stephanie was able to overcome that at such a young age spoke volumes of her and I knew that she was not one to be defeated life’s challenges.

As told by Stephanie during that first phone call, I learned that Terry was 34, had never been married, and had no children. They met through work; Terry is a property manager for several high-end apartment/condo communities and his firm hired Stephanie’s self-made maid business to handle cleaning matters. Terry is Stephanie’s boss by virtue of the fact that he’s in charge of anything that falls under the maintenance umbrella.  

Through the months, I’ve come to know that Terry is more of the quiet, teddy bear type. So when Stephanie says that her first words to him were, “I’m into whips and chains; wanna go out for a date?” I can just envision his face blossoming into his characteristic shade of embarrasment-induced crimson. Of course, Stephanie was just joking; it’s in her nature to be very open and introduce herself with a “shock and awe” strategy, but she’d determined that Terry seemed to be enough of a nice guy (read – complete opposite of her ex-husband) to make him worth her pursuit.

It didn’t take long for her to win him over. On their first date, they discussed their common desire of not wanting to waste time on frivilous relationships. They discussed Stephanie’s inability to carry children due to the emergency hysterectomy that followed her last delivery but of her desire to have more. They discussed Terry’s desire to someday settle down and have children of his own. Before too long, they were in love.

Eventually, Terry wanted to marry and Stephanie did too, but she was too scared to make the plunge official. They wore rings and lived together for three years, but Stephanie still had to overcome the last of the emotional scarring that remained from her first marriage. Terry never prodded, never urged, never pressured. He only wanted to make her happy and was beyond willing to give her as much time as she needed.

What impressed me from what I’d heard about Terry during that first phone call was his obvious love for and nurturing of Stephanie. His patience and quiet support of her was apparent. He wanted children, and at the time thinking that the only way he’d be able to have them with Stephanie was via adoption, he still chose to dedicate his life to her. One can easily translate that into his love for her being so great that he was willing to forego having genetic children. They later learned that gestational surrogacy was an attainable option for them to have genetic children together and spent about a year waiting for their lives to be in the right place before actively beginning their  journey. He knew that they would have to move mountains to have children together and that it would be a long road. He could have chosen anyone to wed and make that road easier, but Terry was willing to move those mountains to be with Stephanie.

Yes, I think that it is fair to say that I adored Terry before I had even spoken a word with him.

Stephanie and Terry were married on Valentine’s Day 2006. Too fitting.

Now that we’re just two weeks shy of delivery, it’s hard for me to believe that a year ago, Stephanie, Terry, Frank and I were just beginning to go through the testing phase. It was in early March when we had our first meetings with Dr. Blohm as a team and our psych consult.

I remember very clearly that at the psych consult, the one question Terry asked of the psychologist while all four of us were in session together was, “Once it works, how do IPs deal with the anticipation of waiting for all that time?” He asked it in an expectant, slightly coy tone that a young child might use to ask if Santa is really real.

I’ve seen that same innocent, childlike anticipation each and every time we’ve been together through the past year.

In the days leading up to the transfer, Stephanie swung through emotional highs and lows as she teetered somewhere between crazed excitement and nail-biting nerves, depending on the nature of the appointment. Through it all, Terry remained very level-headed with his expectations and hopes set high but his feet still planted firmly on the ground.

Santa might be real, but just in case, Terry seemed to be steeling himself for the possibility that a jovial fat man in a red suit was really just a bunch of fairy tale hoopla.

When we were leaving the clinic after the transfer, the weight of concern over the past few weeks had almost visibly been lifted from his shoulders. But even with that, I could tell that Terry had traded that burden in for the one of holding his breath while waiting to see if the transfer worked.

I called Stephanie and Terry the afternoon of 5dp5dt while they were in New York for their wedding reception/family reunion to let them know that we were pregnant. While I could hear Stephanie and her mom screaming with joy (in the middle of a store, no less), Terry’s level-headedness lead him to say, “We still have to hear it from the doctor.”  Surprise – I’d been to the doctor that morning to sneak an early beta so I had the clinical proof that I was, indeed, pregnant with his baby.

I could hear a smile in his voice. Yes, Terry dear, there is a Santa Claus. He was starting to believe because someone said it, but it wasn’t until the first few times he saw Baby Ducky on the screen with his little heartbeat flickering away before he really began to let it sink in. I could see his eyes become glassy with tears the first few times he saw his baby, his son, on the screen.

The past few appointments have been lots of fun, because now Terry can feel his baby stirring within me. While the three of us wait in the exam room for Dr. Edwards to come in, I lie back, bare my mountainous belly, and let Steph and Terry prod and poke at baby Tony so that they can feel and watch him kick and poke back. It’s not hard to miss the “That’s my boy” prideful look on Terry’s face when he sees how much more my tummy has grown or when he feels Tony respond to him from inside of me.

I talk to Stephanie once a day and if I happen to call while she’s with Terry she’ll put me on speakerphone so that I can talk to the two of them at once. Usually Steph gives Terry “the daily Kym and Ducky” report when they both make it home from work. The next day, Steph will tell me about some cute comment that Terry has made or some adorable “expectant daddy” thing he’s done.

Like when he learned that the carseat faces the rear, he was appalled because he wouldn’t be able to see Tony easily.

Or earlier this week when Stephanie told him that I’d had seven or eight fairly strong Braxton-Hicks contractions that day. Not understanding that BH ctx are just “practice” and that they don’t really mean much when they’re spaced out and not very strong,  Terry nearly had a heart attack with excitement and thought that I might need to call Dr. Edwards in the morning to be checked, as if a few contractions had Tony on the brink of getting ready to fall out or something.

Or how now that the bassinette is set up in their room, Terry spends time each day just looking at it trying to picture Tony in it while expressing how much he can’t wait for him to get here. The same goes for the Pack-n-Play, three car seats, swings, bouncers, and various other “place baby here” items that are scattered throughout the house.

Or how when he told Stephanie she’d better be lucky that she’s going to breastfeed (more on that later) because otherwise, she’d probably never get the chance to hold Tony because he was never going to put him down.

Now, the reserved Terry has transformed into that anxious child who on the days before Christmas finally believes that Santa is real, and that his Christmas wish list mailed off long ago will be answered with a stack of well-deserved presents under the tree because he has been a good boy.

Little Tony, as I cherish these last few days that I’ll spend with you nestled beneath my heart, I spend a lot of time imagining the day ahead when I’ll get to see your mommy and daddy have all their prayers answered. Your daddy…he’s definitely one of the good guys. He’s been waiting a long time for you and with arms wide open, I know he’ll always be there for you. You’re a lucky little ducky, Baby Tony.