From Dusty's Perspective

                Katie’s second mistake…setting this blog up with me watching so that I know her password. Hi, this is Dusty, Katie’s husband (I think most of you probably already knew that). Katie is in Fredonia spending time with her sister and nephew’s and niece. She was supposed to be back today, but her car has been having some problems so she is staying a couple of days longer to get it worked on. Therefore, I saw this as a perfect opportunity to hijack her blog and post a chapter of her story from my perspective.

                I read the last blog Katie posted and I guess you could say that it was that which prompted me to hijack her blog and post this. -So what is it like being the husband and watching Katie suffer day in and day out with sickness? I’ll tell you what it’s like, it tears me apart! Even the thought of what she goes through sickens me and upsets me…knowing that I can’t do anything to help. Katie mentioned in her last post that I have a rare blood disease. The symptoms of that blood disease cause frequent (daily) fatigue…where I simply feel exhausted. But about once a week…and really it’s more like once every other week…I begin to feel sick to my stomach where I’m on the verge of throwing up. That feeling lasts maybe 15-30 minutes. And even THAT feeling, once every other week, drives me crazy. And to think that Katie feels like that every morning …every day …every night and even sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night dry heaving and/or throwing up; well that kills me and tears me apart. And the feeling is even worse watching her dry heave uncontrollably knowing that I am as helpless as a fly. Sure, I do run and grab her some medicine and some water (even some saltines) which will often times calm her nausea down (for a while), but in the big picture, I am helpless to her.  

                I can only imagine that some of you are thinking at this point, “don’t beat yourself up for not being able to help, that’s just the way it is”. And I’ll be honest with you, if the same thing could be said if Katie happened to be married to someone else…then I wouldn’t stress it. But it can’t. I, of course, read Katie’s blogs and give her my ‘two cents’ here and there...so I know what she has written in past blogs. And if you all will take a moment and go back and read Katie’s blog titled “Seconds” then you will remember how she explained that there is/was a chance and a way for her to possibly be healed of the hell she is going through…and that way is to get pregnant. Well now you can hopefully see why I am so disappointed in myself and why I feel so terrible that I can’t help her.

                It’s one thing that I can’t give Katie what every mother dreams of…to carry, birth and raise a child of her own! To have a child with whom she can pass her knowledge, care and love to! To start a family! -But it’s takes it to a whole other level when that thing, getting pregnant, could possibly also be the thing that will heal her and take away the illness that has changed her life…but she can’t get pregnant in part because of me.

                Oh but she’s a fighter, WOW is she a fighter! I would have given up LONG ago… but day in and day out she finds reasons to keep going… reasons to be happy …reasons to put up with the living hell she goes through daily. Even though I try to be strong for her and pull her through her trials…it is she who has strengthened me and who has shown me the true meaning of perseverance. “Perseverance is the hard battle you fight after you get tired of fighting the hard battle you just fought!” –unknown.

                There are two things that I can’t believe…the first is that I am writing in a “blog”, I think I may have to eat a nice juicy steak later to make up for it. The second thing I can’t believe is that I’m talking about this on a blog. But I never thought being “infertile” would make me feel so useless. It’s been said that when men in royal families were infertile, it was looked upon as a thing of weakness in which some men were cast out! Thank you Kate…for not casting me out, I just never imagined that I would be the reason preventing us from getting pregnant! I almost don’t feel like a man (go ahead blog readers, let the jokes roll on that one).

I thank God every morning and night for you Katie… you are the best thing that has ever happened to me! I also ask God every day to let us get pregnant! And trust me, I know that the struggles and challenges we face are for a reason. I know that God puts us through these things to help refine us and mold us into who He knows we have the potential to be. And I try my hardest not to ask “why”…but I’ll be damn honest…it’s hard! It makes it even harder when you see mothers killing all their kids for no damn reason …or fathers beating their kids, leaving them bloody! Why they were given the chance to be parents but we have not been given that chance…well that’s a question I’ll always have, but also a question that we may never know the answer to.

                But alas, all things are good! Even though you (Katie) are sick every day, most of the day… things could be much, much worse. And I most definitely thank God every day that things are not worse.  I look at those who have a terminal illness and who know what their expiration date is…and I see how positive they are, and it makes me want to be better. I hate this quote so forgive me for using it…but “it doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up”…and you, Katie…are a perfect exemplar of that quote! Ralph Marston once said that “excellence is not a skill…it is an attitude”! And by that definition and every other definition in the book…you are excellent Kate. You are my world… you are my everything …always and forever! And I truly am sorry that I can’t give you what you want, what you need, what you would be SOO good at…being a mother!

                 Katie’s first mistake, agreeing to marry me before knowing whether or not I was fertile!

                 So, what’s next? Well Katie mentioned in her last blog that we are waiting on lab results for me…and waiting to see what the results are of our 3^rd and last insemination attempt (which I’m sure Katie will give you more details about later). But I’ll be honest…my faith is wavering in insemination and I fear that this 3^rd attempt will end like the last two have ended…in disappointment and discouragement! And if such is true and this 3^rd insemination procedure does fail…well then Katie and I have some hard decisions to make. If it does fail…then it will dump us out at a fork in which we will have to decide which path to take. The one path has little chance of success but might give us what we’ve always wanted and may possibly fix Katie; while the other path has a high chance of success and although it WILL give us what we’ve always wanted, it will not fix Katie and it will most likely take us years to achieve!