Five years ago, Thomn and I were finalizing plans to go to Palm Springs for the weekend with a drive to Vegas for the week following our trip to California. While we were there in Palm Springs we sealed our fate for the foreseeable future and paid the tuition bill for Thomn to begin his PhD program at Colorado State University.  It felt like a huge step at the time, and I don’t think either one of us were really prepared for what the subsequent years had in store for us.  It was 2014 and we had endured two years of infertility followed by two miscarriages for a total of four long years wishing for a baby.  Professionally, we both knew that Thomn earning his doctorate was something that needed to happen.  Personally, it felt like an escape from our current reality, a shift of perspective to something else, something more obtainable than having a baby.

So, another course for life began while we continued to wish for a baby. Little by little, our life majorly changed.  If you haven’t earned a PhD or been in a relationship with someone that has it is hard to understand from the outside what life is like, but I will attempt to help you see some of the big picture as even those that are close to us had a hard time really understanding.  Big picture – all free time came to a sudden halt.  Thomn attended classes in the evenings from the comfort of our dining room, worked on papers and group projects late at night and all weekend long. The life that we had known together evaporated.  I picked up slack around the house when it came to the dog, cleaning, eating, all of the normal things that make a home function.  And on top of it, we were both working 50 hours a week with jobs that had long commutes.  Our friendships suffered, we stopped going to many family functions (although that has never been our strong suit), and our yard looked like we had abandoned our house.  Two weeks into his second class I had my third miscarriage and it rocked me to my core.  In the fertility world it seems like most things work with threes.  Try for three months before you feel concerned (although that seems a bit off – in general it takes most people a full year to conceive), whoa – your third miscarriage: now we need to do more testing…. etc. So, we encountered our third miscarriage and it meant a whole lot more testing for me.  Basically – does my uterus work and if so, why isn’t it?!  On top of this, the schoolwork didn’t end for Thomn.  He now had late nights and group work to do all while consoling a partner and suffering through his own loss. 

Fast forward through those five years and you will find a life completely unrecognizable from where we were that day when we were planning our vacation to California.  We had two more lost babies for a total of five miscarriages, two babies, and two job changes and with all of this he has persisted and fought like hell to become a doctor.  There were nights when both Scarlett and Thomas were newborns that he would work well into the night while still helping me with diaper changes and feedings only to wake 30 minutes after coming to bed because one of the babies woke up.  His determination to finish this and to finish it well is a trait that I hope both of my children inherit.  Someday I hope they are able to look back and understand the complexity of what he accomplished during their early years and that he did it for his own personal growth but also for them.

Last week, I had the honor to watch him be hooded as a Doctor.  I had so much pride and love in my heart as I could feel his heart beat wildly and feel the tears of his eyes when his advisor placed the hood over his shoulders – even half of an arena away we continue to be connected.  They say there are not many relationships that survive a PhD program – but somehow, we have come out even stronger on the other side of this.  Could it be our lost babies that continued to refocus us as a family?  Could it be the two little Bells that clapped and cheered for their Dad along with me in that arena?  Whatever it is, I am so happy to have made it to the other side with you.  Congratulations, Thomn.