A Birth Mother Voice: My Man Made The Difference

Today is a great day. It always is.

I do not write much about Bruce, but I should. He is a very private person and he believes in me 100%, supports me, knows why I am so passionate about what I do, loves me no matter the mood and always, always makes me feel like a woman. He is a big reason I am the person that I am, the go-getter, ambitious, do what I think is right mom who takes on far too many volunteer duties for her own good. He has been the very best friend that I have ever had, and I am honored to carry his name, to call him my husband. Our story is our story, and I have been asked many times why I do not write more about him, about us. The reason is because as I said, he is a very private person and he reserves the right to keep his private thoughts private. I am the talker in the relationship, and Lord help ya if I've had some Scotch then you will be entertained with the details of my hemorrhoid banding! Know what my nickname is around the house? OE, as in Over Explainer. Bruce takes pleasure in asking me a question that I will get all technical about just to laugh at my babbling...and laughing in a fun way I might add.

So I do like to follow his wishes, because after all he is not the writer in the family, I am. And our perceptions about the adoptions are quite similar and at the same time completely different. He does not have an opinion on being a birth father and I have never heard those words come from his mouth, ever. HE does not see himself as a birth father, but rather a father. Bruce and I are soul mates. There has never been two people who were meant to be together more than the two of us. We have so much in common, and have had such parralles in our lives we really think very much alike in many different areas. He had always been a good friend so he went through the pregnancy with me when I had Bella. He saw the difficulties, the loneliness, the excitement of carrrying a child and the pride I had knowing that my choice for her was the right one for us both. He helped me through it and had knowledge of what was to come.

Backtrack: He was raised primarily by his mother with a big influence from his grandfather. He was a wild one, not really a trouble maker but rather an inquisitive young man with a shining for skateboards, mosh pits, Van shoes and the occasional need to challenge authority. He was a fun guy and his imagination was on the wild side. He also was charming. There are not too many people who meet Bruce who do not like him. He has always been loyal to anyone he cares about. He asks for honesty as a good policy. He is a hard worker who goes out every day to do what he can to help his company and provide for his family. He was raised well and has always been in touch with the ladies. (Seriously, he is unbelievably good about picking jewelry and clothes, I am on VERY lucky woman!)

I find him amazing. I knew him way back when, the days he was flying down hills with no helmet on a thin piece of wood with wheels, when he was a freshman and I was a Junior, when he was just a passing friend and someone whom I would always laugh with. Not until after I had been to college did I begin to spend more time with him. What brought us closer together? Hockey. We both loved hockey, and especially the St. Louis Blues. He began to spend more time at my apartment, hanging with a varied collections of friends that slowly but surely started to put two and two together that perhaps there was something else between the two of us. We would have friends over at at the end of the night, as everyone filed out, Bruce was always staying behind because I could not drive him home and he was not taking rides from others. He was a gentleman, slept on the top of the covers as I slept underneath them ... no contact at all, I swear! But it all started to add up. The time together. The long laughs late into the night just chatting about everything. The wrestling matches...now when those started I knew where it was going. You know, you're young, you're are hanging with a friend, you start to wrestle ... everyone does it. Don't they?

It was that summer that I fell so very hard, so very fast, and so lustfully for him because of the fact that I KNEW him. Had for a very long time, 5 years at that point. He made me laugh harder than any other human being ever has, he was very handsome in a way I had not seen before, he was oh so smooth and sweet about the hunt. He began to make me wonder what that white picket fence looked like. I would wake up thinking about him, then go to sleep talking to him on the phone. It was a secretive courtship because we had so many of the same friends and if it did not work out well we did not want things to be awkward. We touched each other differently, he was driving my car, nothing said by either of us...well at least me...but it was obvious that when we were together we had a gigantic chemistry aura oozing from our pores. We were both realizing that things might just work out between us, that we would finally be able to protest our love for each other. IT was exciting and fun and sneaky and romantic and story like....uh, just what every girl dreams of.

July 28, 1991 was the day. It is my very favorite anniversary, every year. I know when it is coming and in the past Bruce had it great because all the big love days were multiples of 7: my birthday is the 7th, Valentine's Day is the 14th and our anniversary was the 28th. (I messed things up by getting married on the 16th, but I told him that if you add the two it makes 7 so it still counts!) It has been 19 years of love, acceptance, supporting, compromising, laughing, romancing, and listening to each others hearts. He is my man, he is my soul, he is my knight in shining armor who would be wearing some kind of leather somewhere with a goat-tee entertaining the warriors with hilarious stories. He still makes me weak at the knees and I am giddy when he comes home at the end of the day. He is my life support and the greatest fan of our lifes. He lives life to the fullest and makes the best of it as he can, and it is one of my favorite qualities about him. Hell, there's not too much I don't like about him!

To tell you the truth, the best thing we ever did for ourselves was move West. Our lives were in St. Loius, all our friends and immediate family, it was all there. When we came to California we had an intese year of growing up and coming to terms with all that had happened in our lives since falling in love. We talked a lot and relied heavily on each other for comfort, companionship, support and encouragement. We did not have to tell new people that we met and made friends with about the adoptions because it just never really came up in conversation. It was freeing not to have to always talk about our children with others, so the healing was very private, very intimate between just Bruce and I.
We have never thought about giving up on each other. Not once. We have had arguments in our time together but never has there been an argument about the adoptions. We speak of it from time to time, but it is not a focus of our lives. We have two amazingly hilarious and giving boys that we are raising and we kind of look at it as a circle of life thing that the Man Upstairs has blessed our lives with. We believe in each other so much and have learned so much about love with ALL of our children.