Mac and Andy, Andy and Mac

If you are not new to this blog you will already know that my wife Tracy and I made our son Mac with the help of his dad Andy. If you ARE new here then you can check out a bit of our story here or here or here. 

Making a child in this queer context brings up some contradictory thoughts on biology. On the one hand, biology matters. My wife and I spent countless hours debating on how we should best grow our family. And we chose Andy to be a part of our child's life (and ours) very carefully. We wanted our child to know that part of himself. And we wanted him to have access to the extended family created by virtue of his biology. 

But, at the same time, biology doesn't matter at all. Legally, Mac is as much my wife's son as he is mine (his biological mother). And in the ways that matter more than legal paperwork, he is entirely hers. She is the one he wants first when he is hurt. She is the one who comforts him in the middle of the night. When we play Go Fish it is always them (the "cool guys") against me. 

And so we marvel at how much our son looks like his dad because it's fun to see those similarities. But we know that while the biological connection between them matters, the love they share matters so much more. 

I see so much of Andy in Mac. And I think Andy sees it too. When Mac looks up at his dad and comments on how he's "missing some hair up there" Andy laughs and warns Mac that he will be next. 

They have the same ears. And they share that smile that is so big that their eyes need to close to make room on their faces. But we chose Andy not for his charming smile or bright eyes. We chose him because he was kind and funny and generally just a really good guy. And as Mac grows I can see those qualities in him too. And that's why biology matters. And doesn't at all. 

Want to see more photos from Mac and Andy's shoot? You are in luck! They are below. What do you think? Does Mac look like his Dad? 

All photos are from Mondays with Mac Photography. We happily serve Ottawa, The Ottawa Valley, and Sudbury.

The banner behind them is from GenWoo. 

Always a Privilege

I wasn't sure what to write about today. It's the first day of April and we are finally getting some  nearly-spring-like weather. It's still cold. I mean, if Mac's American dad was visiting he'd be in long johns and a parka. But, relatively speaking, it was quite warm today. And that's good because at this point winter is a houseguest who has long overstayed her welcome. There is a Disney movie that is popular this winter called Frozen. About a girl who turns her kingdom into eternal winter. And in a strange case of life imitating art it has felt like our city was transplanted to that magical kingdom.

My eyes no longer see the beauty in freshly fallen snow. We've long since passed the sweetness of tiny bodies bundled in puffy snowsuits. We are firmly in that part of winter where boots never seem to be dry and we each own six mittens that have lost their mates. Somehow over these cold winter months my son has transitioned from a baby to a boy. Magic beans and fairytales. His legs, like beanstalks, grow towards the sun. And his snow pants fit like capris. But winter is almost, almost, almost over and there's no point in buying new winter gear that may not fit next season.

And my lack of patience for mother nature and her unwelcome shenanigans have been creeping over to Mac. Because he's tired of his Mama's tiredness but he's too new to really understand seasons and I'm not sure he gets that there will ever come a day without snow again anyway.

So in my winter-weary state I decide to read some old blog posts to see if one will spark an idea for a new post. And I start at the beginning. When everything was new. The springtime of parenting. My little baby born in trauma and his magical voice that reached into my chest and pulled out my heart. The marvel of baby legs that fold into bodies not yet aware of the vastness of space on the outside. And the humbling reality that this ridiculous knock-you-on-your-ass love that I feel for this tiny human is a feeling shared by two people towards me.

And that's when it hits me that the cold and the snow and the infinity of toddler snot and winter illnesses have tricked me into glossing over what an immense privilege this whole parenting gig is. With spring eyes I look to that boy who not too long ago fit neatly in my belly. I smell his head. It smells more like peanut butter than newborn but it is just as sweet. I brush my fingers against his soft cheeks and I whisper secrets in his ear. I tell him that of all the blessings I've had in this life, and there are many, being his Mama is the very best one. Because even in the last days of a long winter, when his snow pants are wet and dirty and too short, and there are no matching mittens, and there is kleenex in every pocket, loving this little human is still always, always, such a privilege.

One

It took three attempts to make our Mac. Three awkward airport pick-ups of Mac's dad. "How was security?" I would ask him and he would laugh. Officials start to become a bit suspicious when you cross borders, leaving the city that never sleeps to come to the city that's never warm every 28 days. There's no declaring sperm at the border.

I rushed through the unease of it all. Rushing to catch that egg. Wanting so badly for the next part to start. But still, if I had known I'd only do it once I might have savoured it more. I might have taken a moment in the middle of that social discomfort to remember how it all was. What it means to meet a stranger and make him family. To relish in the excitement of what was to come.

Three attempts. Twelve artichoke jars of sperm. And eighteen pregnancy tests. Until the one. The one where the second line emerged. Strong and beautiful. And I knew there was a baby in me. Well, there were cells that would one day, with luck and magic, transform into a baby. Our baby.

And I walked around my city. Proud like a peacock. A secret growing inside me and it took everything in me not to tell every detail to the woman cutting my hair and the man selling me carrots. The happiness of those moments shone like moonlight. Illuminating our blessings. And yet paling in comparison to the brightness of the sun and what was to come. The round belly. The birth. The baby. But still, if I had known - if I had known it would be the last time I peed on a stick and cried with gratitude I might have held that stick a little longer. I always thought there would be a next time.

Nine months of throwing up. In public and in private. On the side of the road and in a garbage can in the middle of the shopping mall. Nine months of people offering me crackers like I was part parrot. That's what I think of when I remember being pregnant. The damn crackers. The memories of curling up in a rocking chair so that my legs wrapped around my belly and rubbing the bundle of countless possible dreams yet to be lived are harder to hold onto. They slip through my fingers even as I write them down. A permanent record can still be forgotten. Next time, maybe I won't be so sick I thought to myself. But if I had it to do again I'd know what it's like to love like your heart could explode. And that would be enough to get me through it.

Twenty-something hours of pain so unimaginable to me I shudder when I remember it. His tiny bum crushing my sciatic nerve like an elephant on a peanut shell sending waves of excruciation through my leg and out my toes. Contractions four minutes a part lasting a minute. We should have been much farther along. But instead we stayed at 4 centimetres for an eternity.

I clung to the plan I had for his birth. Laminated pages of ideas already tattooed on my heart. I stared straight ahead at the robot onesie hanging on the wall. I imagined his little body turning the cotton fabric from 2D art to 3D perfection. But he had other plans. And so did the doctors and nurses. I negotiated with them like a child resisting bedtime. Just one more hour. Please. Just let me do this on my own for one more hour. Just leave me in this tub with this jet positioned right here where it can penetrate my flesh and apply pressure right to that nerve doling out pain every four minutes. 

And then his heart rate was dropping and there was no more waiting. There was a vacuum and a team of people ready to take his grey body from me. I didn't get to put him on my chest. I didn't get to let the rest of the world disappear. I just waited an eternity until he cried. And on that first night as I stayed wide awake from the adrenaline rush I imagined all the things I would do differently next time.

Nine months of bliss. He needed constant bouncing and rocking and breastfeeding. He cried a lot and needed a lot. But I loved it. I loved the smell of him. So distinct I'm fairly sure you could blindfold me and put me in a room of babies and I would sniff out mine like a drug trained hound. In those moments I thought I would get to do it again. That it wouldn't be the last three month birthday celebration I toasted.

Six months of Hell. And another six months of aftershock. Postpartum depression was the worst experience of my life. I woke up one day underwater. Unable to move. Unable to decide. On anything. The simple choice of breakfast would leave me in tears. So unaccustomed to these feelings I turned to medication expecting it to make me happy. But instead it just numbed me. And so I kept upping and upping the dosage until there was no where left to go but down. And with each new milligram I became more and more numb. Fifty pounds gained in the span of six months. One perfect marriage nearly destroyed. We work hard to patch those cracks. But the scars remain. We plaster and paint but the weak spots have been identified. They won't withstand another tidal wave.

And I know I can only survive that once.

One baby. One perfect baby. One amazing child. One love of our lives to hold our hearts in his hands and do with what he chooses. There will only be one child in this house. And while it's not how I always imagined it to be, I know how blessed I am.

If I could take my heart out and show it to you

If I could take my heart out of my chest and put it on display it would look like a train table in the middle of my living room. It would look like tears melted away with kisses and a soft hand on a rising and falling chest at 2 AM just to make sure. It would look like slow dances with legs koala-ed around my waist and silly dancing that lives up to the phrase "dance like nobody is watching." 

But my heart and I, we have a long history together. It loved fiercely for three decades on this earth - parents and friends, exes, my wife. It felt loss and heartbreak, joy and abandon. It existed in a world without Mac. And that's one of the weirdest parts about parenthood. The realization that there were moments in time, important ones, in which part of you had yet to exist. 

And I don't mean that in the "what did we do before kids?" kind of way. We did plenty of things before kids. Our hearts were full and sometimes empty. We had relationships. And we continue to nourish those and build new ones. We are whole people outside of our children. But there's this really strange moment that comes when you realize that you've only known your child for one minute, or one day, or one year, or one decade, and yet it's hard to fathom a world in which he doesn't exist. 

Or maybe he did. Maybe I always knew him. Maybe long before growing him in my belly he was growing in my heart. And long before meeting me, my wife was growing him in her heart, and his father was as well. Maybe he was just waiting for the exact right moment to come into our world and make it complete. 

This is the tangled part of parenthood that nobody can explain to you. The shifting of timelines into wavy paths and roundabout circles. The lack of distinction of life before and life after because hearts don't follow sensibly marked routes. 

 Parenting this child has made me love in ways I never imagined possible. It has turned my world upside down and back again. But there is one thing I know for sure - if I could take my heart out of my chest and put it on display for you to see, it would look like this: 

"My Dad"

This new acquisition of language is the coolest thing to watch. The nouns are the easy part. He learned them quickly and only needs to hear a new person, place, or thing once before it is committed to memory. The verbs and the adjectives are following quickly behind.  It's not the kind of thing you teach, really. You just talk and hope that some of it sinks in but you never really know when it will. Until it has. And that's such a cool moment.

Mac lives in Ottawa with my wife and me but his dad lives in New York City. At two and half years old he has seen his Dad a dozen times or so. For the last year he has understood Dad as a noun. That guy who comes to visit every few months, the one with the scruffy face and the phone filled with videos of cats and horses on demand, his name is Dad. And to my toddler he's a pretty stellar guy. His visits produce donuts. And he lies on the floor to play. He looks for opportunities to wear matching outfits and Ma (that's me) takes a lot of photos when he's around.

It's early on Saturday morning and Mac is perched on his knees at the kitchen table. My wife and I, bleary-eyed, are curled into the couch drinking luke warm coffee. Andy is at the table with Mac, alternating between bites of fruit and crackers and moving trains and horses back and forth.

Andy holds Mac's attention with the proficiency of a six foot tall purple dinosaur. My wife and I take those moments to let our son's other parent do the parenting. My head rests on her shoulder as the boys chatter across the room.

Unaccustomed to our cold Canadian winters, Andy excuses himself from toddler play and heads to his room for a sweatshirt. Mac looks up from what he's doing and scans the room.

"Where my dad go Ma?" His squeaky little voice registers genuine concern.

"What did you say Mac?"

"Where my dad go?"

"Is that your dad Mac?"

He smiles a proud smile. He's figured out the possessive pronoun. That guy in the other room, the one with the scruffy face and the phone filled with videos of cats and horses on demand, he is not just any old dad, he is Mac's Dad.

Just two little letters that fall out of his mouth but they imply so much more.

My dad.

And he is.

Counting for Dads

There are a lot of things that Dads need to count.

Grey hairs

Wrinkles

College tuition payments

Diapers

And sometimes, when all of those things need to be counted, it can be easy to forget... 

...that toes need counting too. 

A Sailboat Built for Two: Happy Anniversary my Love

Four years ago today Tracy and I stood in front of our friends and family and were pronounced wife and wife. Bathed in the shiny light of newlywed bliss we soaked up the advice that others had to offer.

One of our guests pulled me aside and described marriage as a two person sailboat. It is designed, he said, to glide effortlessly through still waters when both people are committed to their task. But sometimes one person will slack off.  At those times the other person needs to pick up the slack and know that her turn to pass off the responsibility will come in time. Other times the water gets rocky. When that happens both sailers need to buckle down and work together. He finished by reminding us that marriage is hard work. I wondered if he was right? Would my marriage be hard work? In that moment it seemed hard to imagine.

This last year was certainly the hardest of our 4 year marriage and 8 years together. Postpartum Depression rocked me to my core and impacted every aspect of my life. And my marriage was amongst the hardest hit. During this trip on rocky water we didn't turn to each other to work harder and better in order to sail through. At times we imagined jumping ship. And at other times we worried that the other person was ready to throw us overboard.

The water has since calmed. And as we come out of the fog we can look back and realize that we didn't always handle those choppy waters with grace. We didn't always turn towards one another and work together to keep the boat on track. In fact, we sometimes made every effort to see the sailboat move in opposite directions.

But we did hold on. We didn't run that sailboat. We didn't read the map or plan the journey. We just held on. And that boat, our marriage, kept us afloat. In the roughest waters our marriage didn't require hard work or communication. It did the work for us and just asked us to hold on.

And hold on we did.

And now here we are. Sailing effortlessly once again. We have lost the innocense that comes with the expectation of endless sun. But now we are able to appreciate it's warmth like never before.

Four years ago I couldn't have imagined what was to unfold. Mac was just a semi-secret dream held deep in my heart. And Andy was still living his life in NYC having yet to hear from a couple of Canadian lesbians requesting his sperm. PPD was beyond my comprehension. But I loved my wife fiercely. I was certain that I was the lucky one. And I was beyond grateful that I had somehow convinced her to spend the rest of her life with me. Four years later I feel the exact same way.

Four years ago I didn't understand how difficult, or how important, the seemingly simple act of holding on could be. But I am still not the person who will describe marriage as hard work. Because in the most difficult times it wasn't us who did the hard work. It was our marriage that worked hard for us. It was our marriage that kept our heads above water. And all we had to do was hold on.

Happy 4th anniversary my love. Marrying you will always be the smartest decision I ever made.

Bobo, Ba, and Mac

The drive between Ottawa and Sudbury is a long one. If you aren't familiar with Northern Ontario geography it is approximately 1 bajillion hours. To put it in perspective it is slightly farther than New York City to Pittsburgh, slightly less than Chicago to Kansas City, and nearly exactly the distance between Tuscan and Las Vegas. However, during each of those drives there are a number of interesting places to visit. The drive between Ottawa and Sudbury is mostly trees with Tim Horton's coffee shops strategically placed every few hours to accommodate addicts like myself.

When Mac's Dad, NYC resident Andy Hall, visits he regularly comments on how nice it is to be surrounded by grass and trees. "You live in such a park like setting" he has said. So he might really enjoy the long drive between Ottawa and Sudbury. I, on the other hand, hate it.

It has been a year since I was home last. It shocked me to realize that. But my parents have an inability to be away from Mac for more than four weeks at a time so I guess that their continued visits have offset my usual homesickness.

Mac is well into the Toddler stage so it's a roller coaster of highs and lows these days. Of course, our trip to Sudbury was met with a few meltdowns. Like the time we wouldn't let him fall down the stairs and break his neck.

But Sudbury is a wonderland of sorts for Mac. There is the sprawling green space for him to run without any nagging from his city-dwelling moms who can usually be heard saying "not too far Mac" "stay close Mac" "This way" "Stay away from the road." And there are big trucks everywhere he looks. People in the city drive far too few trucks for his liking. But the highlight of Sudbury is absolutely Bobo and Ba. 

Approximately every 30 minutes during our entire visit my son can be heard squealing "Yay Bobo! Yay Ba!" 

And if they manage to get out of his line of sight and then return he will run with his arms held wide excited for their embrace.

It's easy to understand why he's so happy there. The word "no" is used very selectively. Yes, you may eat peanut butter straight from the jar. Yes, you may make phone calls to China. Yes, you may insist on going to the park at 6 AM. No, you cannot play in the stove. See how that works?

I'm not sure where Mac got the idea to call my dad Ba and my mom Bobo. At first it sounded a bit ridiculous. But, the more he says it the more fitting it becomes. In Mac's presence my mother is as excited and animated as any Bobo The Clown impostor could be.  And Mac feeds off her energy. She is the sun and he's a solar powered battery. And after a week with Bobo he could likely power a big Sudbury truck all the way to Ottawa.

In Sudbury my son rarely stops smiling. And that is why I drive the one bajillion hours to get there.

________________________________________
Update! The buy now button has been removed as these are all sold out!! Thank-you for your interest. If you would like to arrange a special shoot for grandparents/grandchildren please message me at kristin@mondayswithmac.com for details. 

Do you want to celebrate the love between your child(ren) and parents? In honour of my son's love for his Bobo an Ba, I am offering FIVE Grandparent(s) and me shoots for only $75. Each session will take approximately an hour and you will receive 10 edited photos with print release as well as one 8x10 print (something I almost never do!). 

To claim yours, click Buy Now below and an official gift certificate will be emailed to you within 48 hours. 

If you have questions email me at Kristin@mondayswithmac.com 

DOMA Down (a post from Mac's Dad Andy)

Same sex marriage has been federally legal here in Canada for nearly a decade. When I chose to marry my wife we were able to do so with all the legal rights and responsibilities of our heterosexual counterparts. But we knew that was not a universal right. When our son's dad married his husband this past year he did so in a state that recognized his union in a country that did not. But last week that changed. DOMA was struck down by the supreme court and it made a substantial, pragmatic, difference in Andy and Raf's life. The fight isn't over by any means. Most states still don't allow same sex marriage. But it was a victory. And we need to take moments out to celebrate them when they come. So please join me in welcoming our favourite "special guest star" to Mondays with Mac this week! Congratulations boys! We love you so so much! 

Oh, but before I turn the blog over to Andy I just thought I'd mention, you know, in case you were wondering, that today is my birthday. And you have the opportunity to buy me the absolute best present in the world! If you follow me on social media or regularly read this blog you will know that Paige Johnson's story has grabbed ahold of my heart and held on tight. As a mother, as a lesbian, and as a human being it has rarely been out of my mind for more than a few minutes. Paige has 58 days of incarceration left. We are doing pretty well at collecting enough money for her to make a phone call home to her mother every day from now until then. Each phone call costs $6. So, if you can swing it, sending her mother Jackie a $6 donation would make THE BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT TO ME EVER. The donation can be sent via paypal or snail mail (message me for addresses at kristin@mondayswithmac.com). Generous people have been making donations already and we now only have 42 days left to collect money for [UPDATE: Since posting 4 more people have donated. We are now down to 38!]. Can we get to zero before my birthday ends?

If a cash donation isn't possible you can also send Paige a letter. These connections to the outside have meant so much to her these last few weeks! 

OK, back to Andy now... 

How does the striking down of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act from the 90s) affect me?

The short answer: Goosebumps. What a wonderful feeling when the world goes your way!

I ran into my boss in the elevator that morning, a long-time New Yorker who came of age in the gay era just ahead of mine. (In Diva Terms, his diva is Donna Summer, while mine is Madonna. Rafael's are the ones still on the radio: Rihanna and Britney).

"Tell me something good," he said, obviously meaning something about the account I work on.

"I'm so happy," I replied, work being the furthest thing from my mind. It took a moment, but then, oh yeah, he realized what I meant.

"I saw it break on the news and I got kind of choked up," he said, a little surprised at the emotion of his own reaction.

And I totally knew what he meant.

At face value, the decisions make an immediate and concrete difference for couples like Raff and me. New York is now a viable option – I can sponsor Rafael for a visa, and he can pursue his career and studies in New York, if he wants to. (I love my husband for innumerable reasons, one of them being that he feels no need to jump when the US Supreme Court says jump.)

But in that quick chat with my boss, I realized that something else was going on here, something bigger and more mysterious than Neil Patrick Harris' wedding plans. This was not just a win for couples juggling the logistics of "settling down." This is a big, emotional win for us all.

Thinking back to those Madonna years – I'm talking Paleolithic Madonna, like "Like a Prayer" and "Vogue" – there wasn't a whole lot about being gay to feel "so happy" about.

There were big depressing things, like the AIDS epidemic. There were little annoying things, like the police showing up to tow cars from the Pride Celebration. And there was this forlorn, prevailing sentiment – one shared by British indie bands and Midwestern moms alike – that being gay meant, at best, a life destined for loneliness and alcoholism.

Things changed, of course. Little by little. And yesterday, in a wave of goose bumps, they changed a lot.

So to hear my young friends at dinner ­last night – ready to propose now that marriage is "a real thing," looking forward to being on the Old Navy float at the Pride March this Sunday, tweeting about their celebrity boyfriends' latest successes – to feel the world going our way – it just makes me so happy.

A Quick Update - Back from Cincinnati

We have just arrived home from a fantastic weekend (horrendous travel stories aside) with Andy's family in Cincinnati Ohio.  A better post will come later in the week but I thought maybe you'd like a little preview of the cuteness.

Mac had so much fun puttering in the back yard with Andy's Dad Tom. Or, as Mac calls him, Bopa.

Uh, Dad? This is not how the cool kids wear their jeans. You are totally embarrassing me. 

Just Married-ish

A guest post from Andy (Mac's dad).

Hi, I wanted to take a moment to Special Guest Star on Kristin's blog, because I've been so busy getting married and going on honeymoons lately, this whole Supreme Court: Judgement Day thing kind of snuck up on me. And it's kind of a huge deal. 

Raff and I are married now. Twice. We wanted to be ready for any outcome, so we said our "SIMs" last November in his hometown of Londrina, Brazil. And then we said our "I DOs" again last week at the City Clerk's Office in Manhattan. We have marriage certificates in both Portuguese and English, just so there won't ever be any confusion. 

Married in Brazil 

Married in NYC 

And there isn't. We're finding same-sex marriage to be not confusing at all. It's simple. Here's where we're married now:

And here's where we're married-ish:

Everywhere else, we're Just Friends.

Living in a Married-ish state like New York has its perks. Raff may not get to apply for a green card (like I could if we lived in Brazil), but we do get to do fun things like step out of the country for the weekend to renew his tourist visa for six more months. 

And starting April 1st, we'll have the same health insurance. 

And...well, that's about it. 

If the court doesn't come through, we'll soon have to start planning a move to a country on the Married map, where we both can work and stay indefinitely. We'll still have to fill out separate customs forms and put a zero next to "Number of Family Members Traveling with You," when we come back to visit our family in the Just Friends Zone. How awkward is that?

It's funny, I never imagined I'd be married. Now I can't imagine settling for anything less.

Have you met my Dad? A guest post from Mac.

I have a Ma, a Mo, and an Auntie Tata. They all have their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to caring for me. My Ma is the best at scaring the bad dreams away and my Mo is the best at washing my hair without getting soap in my eyes. I don't know what is wrong with my Ma but she really sucks at that. And my Auntie Tata is the best at never saying no. She'll even lift me up to the magic cupboard and let me pick my own treat.

It takes a lot of work to tire these three out. But, hey, I'm up for the challenge. Sometimes other grown-ups, like my Gramma and Grampa, come to visit and Ma, Mo, and Auntie Tata sit on the couch depressed that they aren't getting all of my attention. Sometimes they can't even open their eyes because they are so sad. 

I also have a Dad but he lives in New York City. I visited him there last year. It's a cool place with lots of bagels. Dad comes to visit us in Canada too. He complains about the cold but not about the donuts. 

The first few times he visited I was just a baby and still a bit shy. My Ma hadn't yet earned my trust and I could never be really sure that she would come back when she left the room. So I kept her in arm's reach just in case. But she's left me 1023 times now and has come back every time so I'm starting to believe her when she says she'll be "right back." 

This visit with Dad was the best one yet. I'm not a baby anymore so I got to do big boy stuff with him. 

Like watch videos of cats on the button machine that my moms never let me touch. 

And staying up really late to watch even more videos of cats.

We had a pretty epic game of hide and seek in our cool no-moms-allowed blanket fort. 

He even showed me all of his cool big boy products - like soap that doesn't smell like flowers and bottles of dark liquid that make you smell rugged when you spray them. Once he forget to let me come in the bathroom with him. But I waited outside the door. 

And he felt so bad that he let me keep his toothbrush. That doesn't even have any cartoon characters on it. 

And when Ma brought us donuts he let me eat the cool one with the little coloured balls over it. 

He was really cool. And I guess he liked me too because he was constantly taking my picture. 

Ma says I'm starting to look just like him. 

Hopefully one day I can be just as cool as he is too. 

The One That Wasn't (Prequel Part 8)

New here? You can catch up on previous parts of the story by clicking HERE. 


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When we were small the bigger ones told us stories about the trips we would take and the things we would see. They gave us our vitamins and helped us to grow big and strong so that we could fulfill our destinies. We knew that most of us would lead relatively normal lives. We would grow and, when we were ready, we would leave the nest on our own. The journey would be unremarkable for the majority of us. Not bad. Just ordinary. 

But they also told tales of the lucky ones.  The few of us who would find our perfect soulmates and grow together to become something entirely different, better, for loving each other. 

Legend said that it was the smartest, the biggest, the strongest of us who would be chosen. I always thought it was more likely just a right place, right time, kinda thing. But on the off chance that the bigger ones were right I always took my vitamins without complaint. 

My time was coming, I could tell. The woman had been feeding us extra vitamins and rubbing and patting our heads regularly. She was making us promises of ponies, and cars on our sixteenth birthdays, and everlasting love. Her little pep talks about destiny had us all in a tizzy. There were five us at home and the faster we grew the closer we were to one of us striking out on her own. I was the front-runner and wasn't about to loose my lead. 

On the day I was set to leave everyone was vibrating with excitement. I could detect a hint of jealousy from my housemates but mostly they were helping to get me pumped up for the trip. When the time finally came I burst through the protective sack that had held me and kept me safe while I grew. And I was on my own for the first time in my life. 

The elders had given me a map for my journey but once I was out there everything seemed a bit confusing. I was to head South but I couldn't tell up from down, left from right. I was considering turning around and heading home when I saw a street sign guiding my way. The big F was unmistakable and if I squinted I could guess that the rest of the word read allopian. 

Knowing that I was on the right path gave me a new sense of confidence. In no time I would be finding my destiny. Would it be an average comfortable life or would I meet my soul mate on this journey? I was so excited to find out. 

In theory the trip seemed very far. But before I knew it I was halfway down the road and ready for a break. I was just taking a quick rest when I heard the woman giggling and a deafening wwooooosssshhhh. I perked up instantly. My instinct was to move toward the noise but I remembered the advice of my elders. Stay put dear girl. Playing hard to get attracts the best suitors. 

So there I stood. Waiting. Feigning disinterest. And that's when I saw him. At least I think it was a him. I couldn't make out an X or Y. But it didn't matter. Love is love after all. 

He wasn't the first one to arrive. Or the seventeenth. But he moved with determination and grace.  And when I saw him the millions of his competitors just seemed to blur into the background. All those stories we were told about this moment were true. When you meet him you will just know. Those words rang in my head and I wished that I could go back home for just a moment to tell them all about it. But going back wasn't possible. 

The honeymoon portion of our courtship was nothing short of spectacular. For four days we learned everything about one another and somehow managed to morph into an entirely new being. With his love and support I became someone entirely new. There was a sadness in this process as I began to loose myself. But together we were becoming something so much more. That's how great love is supposed to work. Or so I've been lead to believe. 

The land wasn't quite perfect so we crossed the border into Uterus where there was more space and better soil. I was anxious to set down some roots. To plant into the land and build a life together. We built a glorious home. Even as the land got thicker and tougher we worked and worked until we were well established. 

The woman was so happy for us. It was hard to get any rest over her constant screaming and chattering. She must have called every person she knew yammering on about pink lines and bellies and other things I couldn't really make out. It was nice to have so much support. 

As the honeymoon period came to an end I was busy thinking and dreaming about the future. But somehow we lost our way. The quirks that I had once found endearing became irritating. And nothing I did seemed to make him happy anymore. Sometimes you can want something so bad, and everything can seem so perfect, but it just doesn't work out. It's nobody's fault, really. Although everyone likes to cast blame elsewhere while secretly internalizing it. The pain became both emotional and physical. And as much as we tried to stay together we eventually had to let go. 

I felt bad for the woman. She was so sad for us. I tried to tell her about the friends I had left behind. I was sure that one of them would make her just as happy. Happier even. I wanted to reassure her and offer her hope. But I don't think she heard me over her tears.