As much as I love this pic, I equally think it is cheese ball and we should really be on the front page of a “vascectomy” advertisement the more I look at it! 🤣
Also, now that I’m making my life more open via blog I realize how some topics my generation talk about openly are a bit awkward for our parents and grandparents generations to touch on. Sooo aunties, mama, poppi, mother in law; I love you and know you love me but I’m going there and feel 100% led to open up all the awkwardness when the time is right on this blog. Thanks for joining!
I had a lot of people ask me what I was referring to in my last blog about vascectomy warnings no one really told us clearly. There aren’t a ton but I’ll fill you in on our experience so you can be prepared if your “v-day” comes.
My mom did warn me that some men lose their normal sex drive and per usual I believed her but didn’t think that was possible for “my” husband. And it did! For a whole year I was actually pretty sad about how much it lessened. I felt like Jeremy wasn’t attracted to me and thought something might be wrong.
Also, Jeremy (and several of his friends) had pain down there during sex for nearly a year! Like they were still in surgery recovery for a whole year!
Gladly I can report both of our “issues” are now gone but did last a solid year! Another reason I share is because my brother does vascectomys for his patients and has heard similar accounts from them. He felt good hearing Jeremy’s experience because he thought he was maybe not the best surgeon if his patients’ experiences were like Jeremy’s. He always does his best job but some of us must just take longer to heal than others?!?
Hearing my brother helped me to quit blaming our surgeon for doing a lousy job.
Anywho! That wasn’t too awkard? Was it!
Beware.. Be warned.. Surgery is surgery no matter how “small” a surgery it is considered to be!
All the kids and grandma came into the ultrasound room with us to find out what our “last baby” would be!
When the tech asked Brekken what the baby was, he said “probably a girl because that’s all my mommy makes 🤣”
Anywho, he ran out of the clinic with pictures of boy parts in hand, telling everyone there loud and proud that his mama was having a baby boy!!!
Why and how did we decide to have 5 kids and are we content? What a loaded question!
I’ll try to tell our story quick…per usual!
I always wanted 3 kids. I thought it wasn’t too small of a family but was big enough for a party. I thought if anything ever happened to Jeremy, I could take care of 3 kids “easily”. I wanted to give my kids all my attention, $, and have time for everything they chose to do in life. I wanted to be able to be there for each and every grandkid they had. Basically picture me being a research analyst who had a grid of life and how to avoid anything hard or “impossible”.
I had my tubes tied the day after Brekken was born and cried almost every day all alone in my closet out of regret. I prayed for God to either take away my longing for more babies or miraculously give us a baby or to show us how to adopt etc etc. Adopting and fostering was started and just did not go easily. It was just not right for us. I remember bawling on our living room floor and begging him to take away the longing. I felt guilty for letting this consume me when people in 3rd worlds were starving and being persecuted for just being humans. I clearly remember hearing ” I have 2 more kids for you”. No miracle or change happened but we decided to do our part.
We decided to just start saving money for a reversal procedure, and to not talk about it until the money was fully saved. Years later and we had the $10,000!
Long story short, I had a reversal, only one tube was repaired, and I was pregnant with Aveya about a month later!
We knew we wanted one more baby after Aveya for sure but didn’t know after that. We both feared I would feel that ache if we did anything permanent again.
For some reason when I found out #5 was a boy I just knew it was ok to be “done”. During Bridgers pregnancy Aliyah was entering a new mature phase of childhood where she really needed me and Jeremy felt her resisting him. Avalon and Brekken were soon to follow suit.
Shortly before Bridger was born Jeremy and I went through a marriage upheaval (blogged a week ago “Love Heals”). My sister calls Bridger the bridge between the old Jeremy and Polly and the new and she is soo right! I remember being soo thankful that I got to birth at least one baby while me and Jeremy were “new”. It just felt right.
Jeremy travels a ton and has never told me a certain number of kids is too many etc., but even before Bridger was born he said five was our number. He felt like he didn’t even have time to “know” the kids we already had and was content with 5. He would’ve let me have more kids if I asked but it just felt right to say goodbye to one beautiful adventure of life and step into a new one!
Bridger is 18 months in 10 days and I haven’t yet had any remorse or sadness about him being my last. I am definitely intentional about soaking him up and taking mental snapshots of all the “last baby” memories.
In a perfect world where husband’s work at home and family lives next door and we fully trust in God’s provision; I would probably have more kids. I feel God loves giving us choices though and he will bless this choice. I didn’t hear a clear yes or no on being “done” but the peace I feel is enough!
I thought this pic would be a fun(ny) way to end. Why is Jer wearing sweats on Sunday?!?
This was fresh after his vasectomy… And I may just write an appropriate blog about that someday too because you just need to be warned about some things that no one told us!
I wasn’t going to bring this up until the perfect year, month,week, day and hour…but as I put this shirt on today I kinda heard that gentle whisper “go for it… I am with you so now is as perfect a time as any”.
Jeremy said I could share whenever and wherever I want because he is an amazing and humble man.
I soo don’t want this to be long but we’ll see how we go. It’s going to be a testimony/love story/redemption journey. Hold on & buckle up or just quit reading.
Both Jeremy and I grew up with parents that taught us truth. We were raised saturated in the good things of God.
My personality just believed what I was taught with no question. I call it the gift of faith. Jeremy’s personality is a more scientific one where he needs proof and needs to experience things for himself and then he is all in! Soo he didn’t take his parents faith on as his own (and in hind sight I’m so glad).
When we met/married Jeremy was very honest about his past. Weed, alcohol, countless girls and other sad choices all stemming from some stuff his mom had no clue happened to him as a little boy (enemys #1 attempt to ruin him).
Way before I met Jeremy, me and my girl cousins were praying about each other’s future spouses; and all I remember hearing for mine was ” I think he’s smoking weed right now and he’s not a virgin like me?…and why am I 100% peaceful about this God?”
Anyways… I have loved every single minute of our marriage. Jeremy threw out his weed the day we met and broke up with 3 girls around the country that thought he was dating them! He steadily grew closer and closer to the Lord and I just felt soo much peace about being with him…red flags and all! I vividly remember asking God “am I supposed to break up with him” because of his past etc..and I heard “you have no reason to break up with him; that was in his past”.
Fast forward through what we both still describe as a wonderful 11 years of marriage. We never had the “hard first year” or the “dissatisfied with each other” phases that are soo common. Parenting just made us love and appreciate each other more and we had common goals and dreams and just basically were/are BFFs.
Soo we were on a weekend getaway celebrating our 11th anniversary… Soo giddy to be without kids for 3 whole days! We were having the best night and I have no clue when why or how but I guess I flat out asked Jeremy if he had ever cheated on me. (I don’t remember asking him this or why I would because we were soo honest with each other about if we thought someone was attractive, our struggles etc). His face went white and the world stopped. The rest of the weekend was a blur.
He spilled that he was unfaithful to me in the first few months of marriage while out drinking. Not once but 3 times. In the moment I learned about this I heard a loud and clear “YOUR KING IS HURTING, HANDLE THIS WITH DIGNITY”…and so I did. I leaned over the table and kissed his cheek and said “I’m soo sorry you have held this in soo long alone…tell me everything”.
We took turns being weak and strong that weekend. He wanted to die that weekend. He said he kept it to himself for 11 years because he knew it would ruin my life. (When we were dating I told him my worst nightmare would to be cheated on by my spouse.. worse than death to me). He said he wished he could just have a heart attach and die… We cried and talked about why and how and on and on and on. It just all led back to addiction to sex from the age of 4 when he was abused. Alcohol and insecurities led him there too. He had lived that promiscuous cheating life for soo many years before we met; was I a freaking fool for believing he would change for me in an instant… That it would all leave him alone forever?
I got flashbacks to all the people who told me not to date him/marry him because he wasn’t perfect. I felt like a fool for telling them he was a new, clean, good man that loved me Soo well!
And then I heard again, “he was and still is a new, clean, good man that loves you Soo well” and “he became that because you treated him like that for 11 years”. I felt soo privileged to have been chosen to marry him. To have been able to see him the way Christ sees him and saw him… even in the midst of his sin. I am so honored to be his wife and am Soo thankful that he finally shared this. And in hind sight I think the timing was perfect… For a moment I believed our life together was a lie because he was dishonest the whole 11 years! I had to talk that out with Jer and God for a while. We had a hearty 6 months of hashing out details and digging really deep. And then it kinda just lifted and left us! I can’t really get sad about it even when I try now because of where we are now all because of it?!?
We will celebrate 13 years of marriage this May and we are going to redeem that weekend with some of our closest friends and family who helped us heal when it all came out. We are going to stay in the same hotel room that we spent days crying in… We are going to do all the fun stuff we had planned but never did.
There are a billion details I left out obviously but just know that God is a miracle working God! He has healed us and made us whole….and I felt whole before it even came out?!?
It’s been phenomenal to me to see how Jeremy has become an even MORE amazing father and husband than he already was because he isn’t carrying shame and guilt around anymore. I’ll link a private YouTube video I recorded shortly after it all happened so you can get a better idea of how we started healing. Our dear friends told us about a man named Dan Mohler that just rocked Jeremy in all the best ways. He kinda pieced together all the questions about God that Jeremy had accumulated over 30 years of life. Jeremy can now claim his God for himself and not just belief what his parents told him.
I am proud to be Jeremy’s queen…always have been and always will be!
Isn’t this pic presh?!?
PPARRIE 