Happy Anniversary to us :-)

Eight years today - I woke up, and my only thought about the blind date that night was that I hoped it'd be over time for me to meet my friends for margaritas afterwards. But it turned out to be the day my whole world changed forever.

There are times in your life when you can trace back to, and say "that, that one event was the one that changed everything." Sometimes it's a new job or a new baby and sometimes it's a blind date with a guy you met on-line. And there's nothing in my life that prepared me for Marc. Completely swept me off my feet, it was the first, totally sweet, completely romantic, EASY, fun, and perfect relationship I'd ever had. He was simply everything I always wanted, and I was half in love with him before the end of the first night.

I was a good semi-Catholic girl, with lots of ideas about how important sex was and how you should never rush, wait as long as you can. And with Marc, I just didn't. Waiting seemed irrelevant, and there was an immediate chemistry unlike anything I'd ever experienced. But three weeks later, when I realized that I was actually four days late, I was stunned, thrilled and terrified. In that order. Suddenly, my perfect little love affair was going to get deathly serious. I was pregnant - and I wanted that baby so badly. There was no chance that I'd have an abortion, no chance that this baby was anything less than completely loved from the beginning. Planned? No way - I had never been so shocked, but wanted, absolutely.

And when I told Marc, and I was so afraid - he was recently divorced, with two little ones already, and I knew that it didn't matter what he thought, I was having this baby - he sighed in relief and said "Thank goodness, I thought it was something awful." And we surged forward, no idea what we were doing, but we were having a baby and I couldn't be happier.

Until I miscarried. It took about two weeks, because they were twins, and I lost them at 10 and 11 weeks. All of a sudden, the world became so much darker, so much more dangerous. How could I have lost my babies? I wanted them so much, had so much faith in us, in our babies - I didn't understand how this was happening to me. And the only place where I felt safe, the only person who really understood me was Marc. He was the only thing that got me thru that. The only person who made me feel as though there might still be a reason to wake up, to go forward. And when we decided to conceive Jess, he held me thru the first scary trimester and made me believe that we'd be okay.

He's an amazing father, there for his kids more than any other man I know. We've managed to blend in his daughters from his first marriage in with our kids and we're building the big, happy family that we both always wanted. He loves me more than I can say, and makes me feel safe and secure and sexy and content. He's my first call, my best friend, the one I want to be with all the time. He's brilliant, with a mind that constantly astounds me. He's just everything I always wanted. Happy anniversary, honey - you've made me happier than you'll ever know.