So let me back up about 10 years... I was living as a single woman with my own apartment and fuzzbutt cat Allie, working as a special education teacher in western NY, when a friend (my current husband Kevin) and I decided over a Valentine's Day visit to NH to finally just date one another. Speed ahead 6 months...found out my job in NY had been RIF'd (no longer existed....thank you budget cuts), and decided to either move to NH or NC. I had had enough of the dreary trash can gray skies of western NY. I do not miss anything coined "Lake Effect". The day before a moving truck came to move me, I found out I most likely had cervical cancer. Throughout the future posts, you will see that timing is everything in my life. So upon hearing this news, I search the internet (slow dial up at the time so it took FOREVER), to see what this exactly meant. I did not meet any of the "risk factors" for a woman with cervical cancer at the time. I was not an IV drug user, I did not sleep around (although a comment my mother made to me at the time appeared as though she thought that I did), etc. The only thing I could find was that I used birth control pills because I had horrible periods since I was young. Apparently, the use of birth control pills had been "unofficially linked" to the possibility that my body was defenseless and unable to defend itself against anything. Needless to say, I moved to NH, got a new Dr., had two surgeries (the last began with a disclaimer, "If this doesn't work, we need to send you to an oncologist as it is very aggressive"....comforting words). I dropped the birth control pills and loaded up on vitamin A & E which were supposed to boost the immune system. Interestingly....my body repaired itself. PHEW!
A year after that ordeal, I had a new job as a Reading Specialist and English Teacher at a middle school (yes....my first job in NH...again was RIF'd), and Kevin and I happily purchased our first house and got married. Due to my past medical history, we decided to try to start our family right away as we knew that I may have problems carrying a pregnancy to term due to my prior surgeries. I had many friends try to dissuade me, "Travel and get to know one another first!".....ummmm.....I have known him....since we were 16....we were friends for years.....I didn't marry a stranger! Anyways....we were lucky and got pregnant right away. My friends and I laughed about possibly stitching me up like a turkey if my cervix decided to give way. We all held our breath.....but at 39 weeks and 1 day.....our beautiful daughter Elizabeth entered the world. She was the most beautiful and perfect baby we had ever seen! We were on Cloud 9! Kevin had also in the meantime, gone back to school to be a Business Teacher and earned his Master's Degree. He scored a job in the same school where I worked as the Computer Technology Teacher.....life was PERFECT....at that point in time.
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