Two steps forward, three steps back

Robby and I talked on the phone at the end of June. It made me reflect on a lot of things about my own life, how I view things and how what I used to think was important really isn't. No one ever really knows when their time is going to be up. No one has an expiration date stamped on their foot like a gallon of milk. Life is short and we all need to take advantage of any form of happiness when it presents itself.

Robby is preparing for a kidney transplant and has a real possibility of dieing. His kidney function gets worse every month but he isn't giving up. He has a friend at work who is willing to donate one of her kidneys to him and give him a chance to live long enough to get to know our granddaughter who is due at the end of August. He has a nice life-partner right now so I am happy for that.

We were always good friends. When we decided to marry it filled a need for both of us. Don't get me wrong, we loved each other but it was not the kind of love to sustain a marriage but more like the kind that sustains a life long friendship. While planning the wedding my mom would get some not so kind calls asking why is her daughter marrying that "fag". The ink was barely dry on the end of the last marriage so she could not figure out why I was jumping into another one. I guess looking back, I was always one of those people who kept trying to get it right. Failure was not an option this time. At least this time I knew he wasn't going to beat me like a dog the way Stu did, I was safe with Robby.

I was in complete denial of him being gay. How could he be, he was my best friend and we liked all the same things! To me he was the perfect Mr. Right (now) because he loved to shop, he helped take care of my son, was there when I needed a boost in my ego. He was everything I needed when I needed it. I was what he needed too. I was there when he wanted to talk, I was there because he needed to feel needed and he so wanted a family and a child to take care of. His step father was a good influence on him and showed him that a child doesn't need to be of your blood, to love them as if they were. He saved Gayle, when she was trying to raise Robby and his sister Deena on her own. He made sure they had what they needed and took care of Gayle when she was sick and had her kidney transplant.

After the wedding we lived in mom's rental house four blocks from Robby's moms home. He was a Mommy's boy ( should have been a clue) and she did not like me from the time we started dating. Nobody was ever going to be good enough for her little boy and I do mean nobody. We butted heads from day one but I was stubborn, she said I was making a mistake so I needed to prove to her it wasn't. I swear I need my head examined because even today I still feel the need to prove I'm right. Gayle and I fought over everything from how I kept house, or lack of it, to how Robby did too much and I needed to help bring in some money and not just stay home with the baby. It wasn't long after the wedding I was feeling like all in laws needed to be a long distance phone call away so I pushed Robby into finding a new job in a new state. Not much was available so that was going to take time.

He was waiting tables in a fine restaurant in town so we were doing OK, not well but making it. Then I got pregnant with Chelsea. Austin wasn't even a year old so I was freaked out by this but Robby was bouncing off the walls. I was scared to tell him at first, remembering how horrible it was when I told Stu I was pregnant but this was total opposite. I wasn't going to make food because Robby was so good at it and I could screw up boiling water, so I decided to wait till he came home from work and just give him the test. He acted like he just won the lottery. He jumped up and down happy as anyone I had ever seen before. Wow, this is how its supposed to be, finally I got it right. He took such good care of me while i was pregnant. We even moved to Texas to get me away from the stresses . We were a real family and I was happy. Not for long though...

Pregnancy is never fun but this was nothing like my first. I was so sick for so long and she kept trying to come early. I was working delivering pizza so we could make ends meet but I couldn't work full time because I was just too tired. I was grateful Austin was such a good baby and not too demanding as he was growing. He loved to nap with mommy and I could put him in a play pen and he enjoyed playing by himself so I could rest or take a hot bath. I was making a delivery and went into labor with her. The guy who got the pizza was funny, he said "Hey I just ordered a pizza not a baby" and was nice enough to let me use his phone to get my manager to meet me at the hospital to take my money bag. She was still too small so they stopped my labor and sent me to my old doc in New Mexico. I had to spend my last month back home at my moms house till it was safe for her to be born. Mom didn't mind, she got more cuddle time with Austin and could re spoil him all over but to me, this felt so bad, so deja vu.

Chelsea was born six weeks early, she was small and very demanding. Robby made it for her delivery and was in the delivery room this time. He was so happy, glowing, proud. He was so happy when we took her home to Texas and could start that new chapter in our life and to be honest so was I. We were home only a couple weeks and the problems started. Chelsea stopped breathing and had to be rushed to the hospital. She had sleep apnea and had to be on a baby monitor when she was sleeping. A new level of sleep deprivation was more than I could take so Robby would help me a lot with her. I was breast feeding but if he could have done it he would have.

With two in diapers now the bills would mount up. Austin was on solid foods and only 16 months older than Chelsea so he still had a lot of baby needs. He was growing so fast and growing out of his clothes, shoes and everything else. Mom was wonderful, she would send "Care Packages" to try and help. Chelsea had a lot of medical needs and they were not cheap either. We had to move a lot because we had to find places we could afford. Money was just never there it seemed no matter how hard Robby worked. The last place we lived was so bad, Austin came in to tell me there was a kitty on the bed with Chelsea. I went to look and it wasn't a kitty, it was a giant rat on the bed with my sleeping baby and chewing on her bottle that lay next to her. After that I freaked and we moved the next day to a new city. We moved to a border town on the New Mexico/Texas line and Robby got a job managing a Dairy Queen restaurant. He seemed to be happy and we moved into a trailer across the street from the place so he didn't have to drive to work. Things were OK for a couple of months but just when you think everything is going right, that's when life decides to rear its ugly head and slap the comfortable right out of you.