Judecorp.

I am so restless and anxious for us to move on to the next stage in our lives and our life together. It's been nearly five years since she walked back into my life after a temporary absence and at that time, with my somewhat innocent birthday phone call, there was no way I could predict a home, a marriage, a move, a legal ceremony, and our future plans. I adore my Jennifer and I want so badly for her to achieve her dreams and pull her stars down from the sky.

I remember when she told me she had feelings for me. I'd been enjoying several crushes with several wonderful people and she tossed the whole game. Jen doesn't have crushes - she's really kind of all or nothing. I didn't know whether to believe her the first time she said she was falling in love with me. We hadn't seen each other in several years and had only nightly phone calls for connection. I underestimated the force of her desires and the intensity of her emotions - intense in good and bad, though I wouldn't learn that for a little while. But I remember those chats, those early displays of affection, and how did those girls on those phones dream up a house in the country and a baby? When did we become so mainstream?

I told Jen, during one of those inky hours on the telephone before we saw each other again, that what I wanted most from our future together was a box of photos with her in them. Well, we don't really do paper photos much anymore but I do have a home full of picture frames of the two of us - Disney, Niagara, Ptown, Rebecca's bathtub. A home with a girl and our cats and our love and our dreams.

She's my wife and we're going to buy a house of our own in the beautiful Pioneer Valley and we will raise a family there, she and I. I never thought I would be challenging heterosexism by seeking heterosexual norms. I never thought I'd have a marriage license with her name on it. Someday, hopefully someday soon, I will have a birth certificate with her name on it as well.

hopemcg and meglett are currently in Rehoboth Beach, home of our first kiss, our first confession of love, our first taste of the future. They already have the love, the home, and the baby. Maybe we're a little out of order. Maybe they can send us a little of the mojo for the house and the baby. We're surely sending them hopes of the magic of Rehoboth nights and love under the stars and beside the waves.

I can't believe this is actually happening. I feel like I've been waiting to do this for so long and I really was wondering if I would ever get to this point, if WE would ever get to this point. When my first marriage ended I was really concerned that I might have lost my chance and then when Jen and I got together, it seemed like we would /never/ be ready.

We might become parents tomorrow. In some ways, we've already started as we work through decisions about donors, processes, adoptions, names. But above all of that talking and planning, it might actually /happen/ tomorrow. That's so crazy!

I was thinking about that in the car on the way to my fifth home visit, and I actually found myself choking up a little bit. We're trying, we're actually /actively/ trying. Right now, from the first time I went to the RE but culminating in 10:00 tomorrow morning for our first ever insemination. Our virgin voyage. I want to be one of those people who gets lucky on the first try.

In a lot of ways there is so much more pressure than if we were a straight couple who are trying, because they can just do the deed a whole bunch of times and the timing can be a little less perfect. Here we're putting a month's worth of hope on this one event, this one procedure that will take less than 30 minutes. And then we wait. And wait. And try again, if we have to.

I think about everything and it just makes my eyes well up. I love My Jennifer so much and I love our little family - us and cats - and everything feels right and good but the idea of putting something else, someONE else, in that mix just fills me up so much more. I'm in love with someone who doesn't even exist yet, in any fashion, and I'm already more in love with Jen for making this happen with me.

When I was much younger I always imagined myself a young mom, 25 or so, married to some guy and living in a cute little cape somewhere. There really weren't any other images in my head - Catholic school doesn't really offer anything else - except that I would someday be a mother. Twenty years later, the entire picture is different and so much more wonderful. I'm older now, more life experience and an incredible partnership with a wonderful woman, my amazing wife, in our overpriced apartment with some cats and a busted heater. We don't own a home, we don't have much of a "safety net," and we're not sure how we're going to actually swing the financial blahblah of being parents. And you know what? It doesn't even matter.

We're doing it. We're actually doing it. Right here, right now. And I don't know what I was thinking twenty years ago, because I can't imagine it any other way. Her and me. Our home. Our family.