I don’t know exactly when or how I met Jason and Denise (aka @iHubby and @snazzy_mcgee) but it was honestly love at first tweet. It’s probably been at least a year and a half now. Internet time is so strange!

You may remember Jason from the great National Championship BlogBet as he’s an Oregon fanatic and well, Auburn won! 

I think the most amazing thing about Jason and Denise has got to be their spirit. Even though I’ve never met them or even talked to them on the phone, I know that they are special people. They’ve had some setbacks (cancer and lingering effects of it) but are on a mission to become the most amazing parents ever. I mean, if I were in the market for new parents, which I’m not because mine are kinda cool, I’d totally be heading out to Oregon so they could take me to school, make me clean my room and pay for my college! Because that would be awesome to make Jason pay for me to go to Auburn again, right?

I asked Denise to share their story with all of you. Jason has told their story from his side but I know there’s another side to the story. The side from the wife who stood by his bedside, who mourned the loss of an innocent adulthood and who mourns the loss of the ability to have their own biological children. But also from her side is hope. Lots and lots of it. She IS truly snazzy. 

What am I waiting for? Here she is: Snazzy, I mean, Denise! 

It’s a pretty risky deal to start off a guest post with telling you about my dream, because who actually reads long-winded diatribes that aren’t real? Especially the dreams of someone you don’t even know? I hate reading about people’s dreams, and in the interest of your time I will keep this short and sweet: I dreamed that my husband and I had three children delivered to us by a stork, and even though I didn’t physically have the kids I knew that they were ours.

This was before my husband, Jason, had cancer. It was before they removed his testicle and before he went through chemo, though he went on to do all of that.

When I had the dream, our lives were fairly inane and remained that way until two weeks shy of our first wedding anniversary. That’s when he thought he had a stomach bug that turned out to be a lump in his left teste. We went to the ER on Sunday night. They removed the tumor and teste to which it was attached on Tuesday morning. On Friday morning we got the dianosis: cancer.

He went through two rounds of chemotherapy and we were instructed to wait six months before trying to have children. We weren’t really ready to have kids then, but at his year-after-chemo doctor’s visit, we requested a sperm analysis be done. Four days later we found out he had no sperm.

That stung more than the cancer diagnosis. Despite never having imagined myself pregnant, I felt crushed. I always figured it would be something I would do eventually and I was starting to warm up to the idea of morning sickness and loss of bladder control.

Having the choice of pregnancy be ripped away from me was more painful than I ever thought it would be. I mourned for myself a little bit; I mourned for the loss of options. One night I had a full-blown pity party, ugly, snot filled cry present and accounted for. Not my finest hour, no, but it was absolutely necessary.

It’s hard to explain why I was sad about something I never thought I wanted; I suppose because the alternative was so foreign that I was scared. I was scared of all of the waiting and the money and the telling my child that she’s adopted and having her hate me; I was scared of being different and unable to relate to my friends who did not adopt. I was angry that so much had happened to us in the past two years; I was pissed because it wasn’t fair. Juvenile, right?

I’m better now. We both are. It’s been six months since the sperm-free confirmation and our irrational fears and hesitancy have been dealth with. I still get little twinges of jealousy and I still sometimes have near-hyperventilation experiences when I think about how long this will take and how expensive it will be, but we will find a way.

We are ready to be parents, and as that is our ultimate goal, becoming parents through adoption meets those needs to a tee. We will provide a safe home, a home that fosters creativity and uniqueness.

There will never be a day that our child does not know how much we love him and that how special he is for being chosen twice: once by his birth mother who chose to carry him and let him go, and once by us, his parents, who loved him before he was even born.

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She didn’t mention it, so I will. There has been a Chipin site set up for them to help offset some of the fees that it will take to make their adoption happen. It’s a long process and every little bit will help them make it happen sooner than later. It’s quick and easy to donate a couple of dollars… They won’t agree to naming rights though, I already asked! 

Denise and Jason, thank you for sharing your story and opening your heart to a sweet soul who will possibly never understand how much he/she was loved well before they were even born!