NFP Saved My Life and My Marriage

The following is a series of blog comments posted by Heidi at Little Catholic Bubble. They were so good that I asked her if I could consolidate them into a guest post on my blog, and she graciously agreed. Heidi blogs at Bringing Theo Home, which is about her family's journey to adopt a little boy with Down Syndrome from Hong Kong.

Graphic courtesy of http://www.iusenfp.com

I grew up in the deep South. Being Catholic was NOT the cool thing to do (I can go on and on about how we were treated, but let's just say you were the target of most of the Protestant religions. Masses were crashed and priests spit on, I was once the focus of an "intervention" by my friend's parents to "save" me, etc). My parents, who are very much "cafeteria Catholics", scrimped and saved to send me and my siblings to a Catholic high school. The only one in a 4 hour radius, to be exact. I am not at all exaggerating when I say that this decision on their part saved my life. I went through a DEEP depression in college, and it was the Truth that I was taught there that kept me from killing myself. The beacon of the Church was the ONLY thing I was able to cling to during that time period. (I actually haven't talked about this time period in my life with anyone other than my husband, so those of you who know me IRL....umm...surprise!).

One of the things that this school did well was teach the Faith as a tapestry - it permeated every aspect of our education, like Catholicism does in real life. This included the sciences - I was taught an incredible amount of anatomy and physiology....concurrently being taught Catholic moral theology (which includes these sexual issues) in my religion classes. We were taught a basic form of mucus-only NFP, WHILE being taught about the dignity of both male and female and life. Basically, it wasn't "Don't do this, don't do that," it was "you are made in the image and likeness of God and your worth and dignity is found in that truth...and you should NEVER be exploited." As I came through the early part of my 20s (the deep depression), I started to realize just how much that foundation was the saving grace for me. If I had NOT been taught about this innate dignity - as well as the intricacy of human reproduction - but instead, relied on what I was being told by my OB/GYNs and the culture, at large, I'm pretty sure I'd either be dead or at least divorced at this point. Even though the culture and the medical world was telling me that contraception and casual sex was the way to "empowerment".....it lead me into a deep, dark place full of bitterness and hurt (every time I think of CS's comment about the "constant sobbing", I flash back to college life and my contraceptive years).

My husband and I met early and started dating young (18 - he was the first person I met at college, after my roommate). We were married at 22, after finishing college in 3 years each. We were not at all chaste during this period. (We gave in to the culture). In some ways, I guess we were "better" than we could have been, in that we were in a committed relationship and not sleeping around, but this period of time involves some of my greatest regrets. I degraded myself, and I degraded him. We both used each other, not empowered each other. I had been put on BC as a "solution" to my PCOS, and honestly, the fact that I was already taking it for "medical reasons" led me to give into the rest of the culture. I wish I hadn't.


We were married young, on purpose. He was entering medical school, and we didn't want to delay our marriage for at least 8 more years (med school + residency, which could have extended if he'd decided to do a fellowship as well). One of my clearest memories was after he proposed, when we *finally* discussed plans for children during our marriage. Thank God I'd had that foundation in high school - I flat out told him that I was not going to be on birth control during our marriage. It wasn't really "fixing" my symptoms, even after shopping around for doctors and prescriptions, and the side effects were horrible (little did I know how much they were effecting the other things I was dealing with at the time - relationship issues due to a low libido, weight gain, hormonal swings that were CRAZY, high blood pressure, etc), and I firmly believed that marriages needed to be built on an openness to children. (It's funny to me now, how I was able to "divorce" the sexual act from marriage - I had no moral problems with birth control and sleeping with my husband BEFORE marriage....but once that wedding happened, it was "wrong" in my thoughts...).

We were married at 22, like I said, and got pregnant right away. Unfortunately, that pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. I was devastated. I started researching the birth control options that I'd been on and learned things about birth control and miscarriage rates, breast cancer, infertility. I was livid that I hadn't been told these things by ANY of the doctors I'd seen, even though they're well-documented in medical literature. Part of this blame I accept as my fault - I should have done the research BEFORE taking it. We did successfully get pregnant and maintain that pregnancy full-term, having our first little boy a year later, at 23.

Having children young was the BEST decision we EVER made. I cannot say that enough. Was it hard? You betcha. My family lived 9 hours away, his lived 4 hours away, and all of our friends from college had graduated and moved on by the time we had kids (we stayed at the same college for med school as we were at for undergrad - most of our friends graduated and left the state for jobs). Our parish "community outreach" was a joke - we had no support there. Parts of the country are like that, I've lived both in parishes like that and in Leila's diocese. Night and day difference. We had NO money. I was working, but it was an entry-level job that I'd gotten in college to pay for school and only kept because the health benefits were fantastic (it was a union job) and we needed that as a young family. He waited tables when he wasn't in class or studying. The only financial support we had from family was $100/month on my parent's credit card for groceries. We had no physical support - we had to make our own.

Having that experience (we had our second child 17 months later, on purpose - I knew enough NFP from high school that we were able to use what I knew about my body to "better" our chances of conceiving, haha) is what strengthened our marriage. It's what pulled me out of my depression. Was it easy? Not at all. I cried myself to sleep quite often, out of sheer exhaustion. But the joy that those two little boys brought to my husband and I - the PURPOSE they gave our lives - made every dinner of ramen noodles or the driving to the post office on a particular day instead of another, in hopes that we could have a bill payment cashed on one day instead of another, worth it. We were no longer two people living side-by-side, as we had been pre-kids, but a team that *had* to rely on each other. I won't idealize it - there were days when I just got in the car and had to drive away because i was so stressed and angry at my husband that I couldn't look at his face. We were very, very strapped, not at all "flourishing" by the world's standards (or even my own at that point), but our *souls* were flourishing. We were growing in virtue - especially growing in charity. We have to remember that the Church deals in matters of souls.....

After baby boy #2, I had a severe recurrence of symptoms from my PCOS. I went to my OB/GYN and she prescribed yet another form of birth control, citing it as my only option. Not knowing any better, and again, not doing my research yet, I started using it. (apparently, I'm a slow learner). At this point, my husband had started his training in OB/GYN. Let me tell you, there is pretty much NO discussion of anything other than birth control during this kind of residency. He only received ONE lecture on NFP....and it was one that he gave after receiving training at the Pope Paul VI Institute. Birth control is presented as the only option/treatment for quite a few reproductive issues, and definitely as the only "reliable" option when it comes to avoiding pregnancy (which makes me giggle, honestly, considering the high user-failure rate of birth control).

The year that followed was the worst of our marriage. My libido was gone. We were not attracted to each other AT ALL and my emotions were all over the place. I know now that there is science behind a lot of what we experienced, but at the time, I didn't. We went back to living like roommates, and our parenting suffered. There was one instance that chills me to the bone now....that almost resulted in me packing my bags and taking the two boys and leaving him. I was determined to do so. To this day, I thank God that my husband is as strong as he is. He was the first one to - on his own - start researching alternatives to birth control and mainstream OB/GYN care. He was the first one to find NaProTechnology and research it - he knew, after those years without birth control (even though we were both working full time and he was attending med school full time AND we had two kids under age 3...so stress level was pretty much the same, if not less in residency since I was no longer working as many hours), that the Heidi he was seeing at home was not the real Heidi. (Mind you, this was birth control option #4....it was not a simple "wrong dose" experience - I'd had this same experience on ALL of the forms). He found NaPro, explained it to me, and we found a way to get the help that I actually needed to get control of my PCOS symptoms...without the birth control.

When I stopped taking it, my life turned around completely. I finally felt "normal" again. My libido was back. I still had symptoms that I was dealing with, but I *finally* had someone who told me that they weren't actually normal and that they were tied to something else going on in my body that we COULD fix. Before this point, I was told by multiple doctors that these were just "common complaints" and that birth control would fix things. Looking back, I see now the beauty and truth found in Humanae Vitae. NFP literally saved my life and my marriage.

We did go on to have a third little boy, during residency. A lot of people told us that we were being irresponsible. After all, my husband was working 80-100 hours a week, we were going into our third year of residency (the worst one, schedule wise), and he was only making $3/hour. However, I firmly believe with every ounce of my body that the irresponsible move on our part would have been to avoid conceiving our third son. Everyone around us (remember, we were submerged in a dead parish and the mainstream OB/GYN world) told us we needed to be "done" at two. Most of their reasons had to do with finances and lifestyle choices - we'd need a bigger car, we needed to pay off med school debt, we wouldn't be able to take vacations, we didn't have family nearby, my husband wasn't home very much, etc. Responsible parenting, in their eyes, would be securing these things FIRST.

They were wrong. Responsible parenting meant being the best parents we could be to our children. Being open to life was responsible parenting for us. Our third child is integral to our family. I cannot imagine the void that would be there if we had done what was "responsible" in the culture's eyes and stopped after our second son. In fact, before Leila even posted this thread, I posted a status on FB that said just that - I am grateful to God every.single.day that He changed our hearts, that He allowed for my high school foundation and knowledge, and that we have our children that came after #2 (#3 who is here already, #4 who we are in-process of adopting, and #5 that I'm currently pregnant with).

I recognize that not every story will sound like mine. But the statistics support the fact that the vast majority of those who do use NFP find joy through the suffering that they may experience. I think NFP changes your HEART more than it changes anything else. Contraception doesn't force you to examine your priorities every month, or examine your world views, or grow your communication skills and get creative in how you show your love quite like NFP does. The biggest thing that I noticed between my NFP life and my contraceptive life (other than the side effects) was a very noticeable change in my worldview and my heart. I was *forced* to grow in virtue. I was forced to acknowledge the truth about sex and marriage (biological truths), and order my life accordingly. Living in denial of truth does not lead to empowerment....it leads to bitterness and pain. Living in accordance with the truth is what leads to joy. And no matter how much we want to deny it, the biological truth written on our bodies is that sex leads to babies.

I've already written a huge novel, but I wanted to speak to a few other comments. I know that we would have had a different set of struggles and different aspects to discern through if *I* had been the med student/resident, as opposed to my husband. [This is] why I think the Church is so wise in not giving us a "list" of what is and is not a grave reason to avoid pregnancy, or even a bulleted list as to what defines responsible parenting. I think our culture, specifically, has forgotten what discernment is, and how to do it. (I'd never even HEARD the word discern until after college!). We're so used to our little boxes of bulleted information, that it throws us for a huge loop when there ISN'T a direct answer. The best advice I can give anyone is that when you are following God's will for you....there will be peace. There will be joy. The existence of peace and joy does NOT mean that there will not be suffering. That's not what being at peace and being joyful means. But...when you discover God's plan for you, peace and joy will be there. The reality is that even with contraception, sex still leads toward babies. Every act of sex - even when we fight it with contraception - is ordered toward procreation. If God's plan for you involves only 2 children and working full-time....who am I to say you are wrong? You will know by His gift of peace.

What a Difference a Decade Makes

Ten years ago today, I walked down the aisle a single woman...

...and walked up it a married woman.

After the ceremony, we laughed...

...and relaxed...

...and had cake*...

*Actually, all but the top layer of cake is styrofoam. I didn't like buttercream frosting so we served cheesecake instead. We tried saving the cake and eating it on our first anniversary, but it was disgusting.

 ...and kissed...

...and had fun hamming it up for the camera during our wedding dance (which was, inadvertently, Harry Potter-themed).

But we had no idea how much our lives would change in the span of 10 short years, or that we'd go from this:

to this:

 

 ....plus one:

We've done an incredible amount of growing, changing, and learning since our marriage, and I can't thank God enough for the incredible blessings He has given us during our journey. Without Him in our marriage, I fear it would have crumbled long before we reached this point. Our journey to Catholicism has made us stronger as individuals, but it's also made us infinitely stronger as "one flesh."

Here's to ten great years... and, God willing, many decades more.

Response to Maya

Commenter Maya, who I know from a secular message board, left a series of comments on last week's post that really deserve their own post in response due to their length and depth. I've put Maya's comments in green so that it's easier to distinguish her words from my response.

Maya, once again, thank you for being respectful and courteous in your response. Your civility is very much appreciated.

The reason your words provoked outrage is precisely because, to many people, myself included, the term "objectively disordered" is offensive in the extreme. It suggests something is fundamentally wrong with a person, and is often used to describe conditions of great deviancy, such as pedophilia. Surely you can appreciate how, no matter the distinction between sin and sinner, why that phrase in particular would be cause for a great deal of anger and outrage? If you're not calling homosexuals objectively disordered, why use a quote that describes the condition of homosexuality as such?

Straight off the bat, I'm confused. In the same paragraph (by my interpretation), you acknowledge that I have only called homosexuality an objectively disordered inclination, but then you also say that I have called homosexual people objectively disordered. I have done the former, but not the latter.

If this phrase causes anger and outrage, it's because it's not properly understood. All sin is objectively disordered. Adultery is objectively disordered. Premarital sex is objectively disordered. In the same token, all people have disordered inclinations. Something is fundamentally wrong with all of us. It's called sin, and no one is immune from it.  The Catholic term for this is concupiscence. For some people, these inclinations come in the form of same-sex attraction. For others, an inclination to promiscuity or extra-marital sex, or an inclination toward deviant sexuality such as pedophilia and bestiality. For others (like myself) gluttony, anger, sloth, envy and pride. For others, it's a genetic predisposition to alcoholism or drug abuse.

Saying that homosexuality (or gluttony, or alcoholism) is objectively disordered is a reflection on the disorder itself, not the person who has that disorder. We can't necessarily always help what disordered inclinations we have, but we can control how we act in response to them. Thus, there is the Catholic distinction between homosexual inclinations and homosexual acts. It is not sinful to have a disordered inclination. It is sinful to act upon that inclination.

Furthermore, if you believe that homosexuality is not a choice, then yes, it does become rather more complicated to separate out "hating the sin but loving the sinner" as the two become inextricably linked. Obviously we are never going to agree on the point of whether or not homosexuality is a biological orientation or a choice, but at least try to understand where people's anger and outrage is coming from instead of feigning surprise at their reactions.

I wasn't "feigning surprise" at anyone's reactions. I honestly WAS surprised, and I asked for evidence that my words were, specifically, "hateful, bigoted, and vitrolic" as those were the accusations leveled at me. To me, those terms describe someone like Fred Phelps, who believes that anyone with same-sex attraction should be publicly flogged and executed and attempts to desecrate the funerals of soldiers and Catholic murder victims in order to pontificate his disgusting viewpoints.

Again, I was very surprised that I could post this and have it called hateful, bigoted, and vitrolic:

It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.

It's hateful to say that violent malice in speech and action against homosexual persons is deplorable? Really? All people have intrinsic dignity and worth. The disordered inclinations that each person may have has no bearing on their intrinsic dignity as a human being.

As to your arguments about incest and pedophilia. Incest doesn't technically harm anyone if the two adults involved are consenting, but there's issues of whether or not that consent can be genuine, for a start. I have my doubts whether it ever can be truly consensual, but aside from issues of consent, there's the fact that closely related biological individuals procreating vastly increases the risk of serious genetic conditions. [note from JoAnna: bolding mine]

Regarding the bolded portion -- one argument of same-sex marriage advocates seems to be that reproduction should have nothing to do with marriage. At least one commenter on the last post asked why infertile or post-menopausal heterosexuals weren't denied marriage, for example. If this is the case, why should the couple's ability to sexual reproduce make any difference to same-sex marriage advocates, whether or not the couple is homosexual or biologically related?

Another issue -- one of the only ways that homosexual couples can have children is via IVF, but the CDC states that children conceived via IVF may have a significantly higher chance of birth defects than children conceived naturally. I'm assuming, however, that these statistics aren't significant enough for you to feel that IVF should be banned.

Either the potential for sexual reproduction has nothing to do with marriage, or it has everything to do with marriage. It can't go one way for homosexual couples and another way for consenting incestuous couples. Would you support marriage for incestuous couples if and only if both were voluntarily sterilized or post-menopausal?

As for pedophilia, really? Pedophiles might be "born that way," but their victims are unable to consent.

 Why is consent the sole criterion of the good? I happen to think that a lot of things that happen between consenting adults is deplorable and immoral. Adultery, for example.

Neither of these conditions holds true in a consensual, adult, homosexual relationship. It's also deeply offensive to me to relate homosexuality to incest and pedophilia, even for the purposes of making an analogy (however poor I think it may be), and many others feel the same.

I'm sure they do, but at the same time there are parallels. It's true that homosexual relationships do not typically involve child abuse, but the fact is that both homosexuals and pedophiles claim they were "born that way" and that their sexual proclivities should be condoned, encouraged, and even celebrated. NAMBLA keeps lobbying to lower the age of consent and present arguments that teenagers, and even young children, CAN consent to sex. (Obviously, I disagree...) Two doctors, in testifying before the Canadian parliament, claimed that pedophilia was a sexual orientation no different than homosexuality or heterosexuality. The line is getting blurry, and that's worrisome.

Saying that homosexual inclinations and pedophiliac inclinations have a similar genesis (in that they both may be genetic in nature) is not saying that homosexuals are no different than pedophiles, but that seems to be the first assumption to which everyone leaps.

In your reply to Hannah above, you say that she has misrepresented or misunderstood your words, and that "gays can't procreate so they don't need marriage." In your earlier entry on the NY vote, however, you wrote this: "As homosexual couples are, by nature and design, unable to naturally procreate, the privileges are unnecessary." I understood privileges in the second part of the sentence to refer to the privilege of marriage, which you referenced earlier. If that sentence is not stating that, since homosexual couples cannot procreate naturally, that they do not need the privileges of marriage, then what were you trying to say?

I was trying to say that it is patently unnecessary to radically change and alter the institution of marriage in order to grant certain legal protections to individuals. To quote from a Vatican document about this issue:

Nor is the argument valid according to which legal recognition of homosexual unions is necessary to avoid situations in which cohabiting homosexual persons, simply because they live together, might be deprived of real recognition of their rights as persons and citizens. In reality, they can always make use of the provisions of law – like all citizens from the standpoint of their private autonomy – to protect their rights in matters of common interest. It would be gravely unjust to sacrifice the common good and just laws on the family in order to protect personal goods that can and must be guaranteed in ways that do not harm the body of society. [emphasis mine]

In your [message board post] and here, you also cited a secular article in defense of your position. However, had you returned to the thread, you would have seen that Halfwright challenged this statement. "The second author has written several books on how government should enforce morality (his morality, of course).

Oh, so the government should enforce her morality instead? I find this argument amusing, frankly. Law is, essentially, the morality of the majority being enforced upon everyone else. In democratic societies, it all depends on who makes the most persuasive case that their morality is the one that should be imposed.

The first author has written (religiously-based) letters to the editor about abortion and wrote his senior thesis on the (moral) dangers of premarital sex. At least two of them are very devout Catholics -- the first page of google turned that up easily -- and write frequently about the issue from a faith-based approach. Religion absolutely informs their views. Though they might not reference religion specifically (and they even try their hardest to stay away from it), I'd argue that religion is front and center in that piece. The vehicle might be secular, but to claim that his religious leanings have no bearing on his opinion is, to me, disingenuous. It is not a wholly secular piece against gay marriage if the author has that kind of publishing background.

I find this viewpoint -- that if one's views are influenced by religion, their arguments are therefore invalid -- extremely bigoted, frankly. In fact, it's very theophobic. You acknowledge that the arguments do not appeal to a religious perspective. Shouldn't those arguments be judged, then, on their own merits as opposed to judged on the basis of the religious background of the persons making them? I personally believe that it is wrong to automatically discount someone's arguments on the sole basis of their religious (or non-religious) background. For example, I don't automatically discount Christopher Hitchens' beliefs on the basis of his atheism: I reject them because I believe they are both uninformed and illogical.

You also assert in your previous post that you do not need to be married to someone to, for instance, be able to will your property to them upon your death. No, you do not, this is true. However, in the event you do not take extra legal steps to specify that you wish this to happen, the state will automatically assume that your property will go to your husband.

Actually, in the U.S., this varies depending on state law. Not all states are community property states. Arizona is a community property state, but my husband and I also have a will (drawn up by a lawyer and duly notarized) specifying that if one of us dies the other one inherits all possessions and property, just in case that ever changes.

Gay couples suffer through countless little slights each day that to me, are unnecessary. Why should they have to fight legally and jump through hoops (or sometimes even be denied the ability to jump through hoops) to obtain the same privileges conferred automatically upon heterosexual couples?

Why should the institution of marriage have to be radically altered -- indeed, redefined -- in order for these rights to be conferred upon two individuals who wish to specify disposition of joint property upon the death of one of them?

To use a real example, in the thread, Jemma mentioned just one way in which the exclusion of considering homosexual couples to be legally wed in Pennsylvania has affected her family. Her wife works at the university her daughter attended, but "My daughter attended that university and, for her first three years, she had to pay tuition, whereas the step-children of straight couples do not. That little example cost my family about $20,000. By her final year, my wife's union had won same-sex benefits. That's just one small example." To me, this is wrong.

Well, here's another example. When I first attended college, I lived with my mother and stepfather. Because I did, my stepfather's income was considered my "household income" when it came to federal financial aid. My mother and father, individually, made very little income; my stepfather's income was significantly more. Because my stepfather's income was considered my household income even though he was not paying for any part of my college tuition, I received very little financial aid from my university and had to take out significant private student loans in order to attend college, a situation that to this day has negatively affected my credit.

Would you support abolishing marriage altogether, or abolishing remarriage after divorce, so that other people in my situation can receive better financial aid packages? I'm guessing no. In my opinion, the answer would have been to change rules of that university should be changed so that step-children of heterosexual employees also have to pay tuition, or go by different criteria altogether, not to radically redefine marriage so that someone can have a better financial situation.

If we as a society hold that the ideal relationship legally is two people, bound to each other by law to the exclusion of all others, then the benefits of that legal relationship should extend to any in a similar situation, regardless of the genders involved.

But that's not what marriage is or why the government is in the business of recognizing marriages. Steven Greydanus just published a series of articles called Redefining Marriage that goes into this in more detail, but this is the excerpt that really sums it up well:

Recently in an online forum a same-sex marriage advocate wrote to me, “I’ve never once had any conservative be able to tell me how the legalization of gay marriage affects, in any measurable way, their relationship with their spouse.”

My response was: “I’ve never once had any same-sex marriage advocate be able to offer a coherent account of what marriage is and is not, and why it is the state should have a bureaucratic apparatus for certifying (and decertifying) sexual partnerships involving two and only two non-related adults in any gender combination.”

And what about when civil unions and domestic partnership laws become discriminatory? Take the case of Joyce and Sybil Burden, two sisters in a platonic relationship (i.e., non-incestuous) who applied for a British civil union in order to get the estate tax benefit, so that if one of them died the other wouldn't lose their family home. However, they were denied, because the final court of appeal essentially ruled that civil unions only applied to women who weren't biologically related. I think this situation is unfair under Britain's current laws, frankly. If they're going to give a civil union to two lesbians, why not to two post-menopausal sisters in a platonic relationship?

I've also never been able to understand, nor received, a satisfactory answer as to what changes when one partner in a homosexual relationship undergoes a sex change, transforming the couple into a heterosexual one. Suddenly, they are allowed to marry, yet they are not able to naturally procreate, so would they also be denied the ability to marry in your worldview? I'm genuinely curious.

In my view, such a couple should be denied marriage, because I believe one cannot "change" into a different sex.  One can have plastic surgery and take hormones so that he or she resembles the opposite sex, but a DNA analysis will still prove that he or she is genetically the sex he or she was at birth. Thus, the union would be a homosexual one, not a heterosexual one, and natural reproduction is impossible by design.

I will return to read your reply, but I don't know that I'll feel compelled to comment again. However, just this once, I decided to give it my best shot at explaining why I feel the way I do, and attempting to get you to see why your remarks would provoke such anger and hostility on the board.

I very much appreciate your willingness to dialogue, and once again I appreciate the civility that you displayed.

A comment on the NY vote

“I apologize for those who feel offended,” Mr. Grisanti said, adding, “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.”

- New York Times

What you say makes absolutely no sense, Mr. Grisanti, as no one was being denied rights prior to this vote. Every adult in the state of NY had the exact same rights: to marry one, non-related, unencumbered, consenting adult of the opposite sex.

Those are the exact same rights shared by you and your wife. They were not being denied to anyone before.

What you have done with this law is granted special, unnecessary privileges to a certain category of people based on their sexual preference, privileges that could have been granted by law without making a further mockery of the institution of marriage.

Please quit deluding yourself into thinking you're some sort of civil rights hero, because you aren't.

Our Harry Potter Love Story

The two of us, back in the day.

Betty Beguiles is hosting an engagement stories link round-up, so I thought I'd participate!

It was a dark and stormy night...

Oops, never mind. I slipped into my English major mode for a second there. :) Anyway...

It all started one fateful day in June 2000. I was a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, WY, and I was still on campus because I was taking a summer class (Spanish 2030). I was in a campus computer lab, reading the latest rumors about the fourth Harry Potter book. I'd read the first book during Christmas break at the urging of my mother and my aunt Sheri; I'd been immediately hooked and ordered the second and third from Amazon in February. By that summer, I'd reread all three books a million times, was eagerly awaiting the fourth, and was a certified Harry Potter addict.

While looking for Harry Potter webpages on Yahoo! (remember, this was before the heyday of Facebook and forum-based message boards), I discovered that there were five or six Harry Potter “Yahoo! clubs” – forums where members conversed by posting messages at a common webpage. It was sort of like a message board, but more of a thread format.

I noticed one called Harry Potter for Grown-Ups, and it immediately piqued my interest. I'd wanted to join a Harry Potter web club or mailing list, but I'd been afraid that I'd wind up in the middle of a bunch of eleven-year-olds whose posts looked something like, "i lik hagrd becawse hes kewl." I was looking for conversation that was a bit more up to my level. So, I clicked on the link and started reading a few posts. I was delighted -- adults, having adult, mature discussions about Harry Potter! So, I signed up and began reading and posting messages regularly.

One day near the end of June, the group got into a discussion about why grown-ups enjoyed Harry Potter. One person thought it might be because we all wanted to revisit our childhoods, which sparked another conversation. (By the way, the entire record of this conversation is archived at the Harry Potter for Grown-Ups website, so feel free to go and look! You can search for messages by number, which is why I've provided them; I think their archives go back to 2000 and beyond.)

One member posted a message saying that she would only go back to her childhood if she could go back knowing what she knows now. I replied to her message in total agreement. My message was as follows:

Message 2949: My biggest problems in adolescence were worrying about how popular I was and how fat I was. If I could go back, I'd say to hell with society's conventions and really *live* my life without worrying about being popular or thin. I thought that because I wasn't thin, I wasn't worth anything -- thankfully, I now know that life is NOT a dress size, and I'm perfectly happy being a size 14. [Oh, to be a size 14 again...] I'm having the time of my life at college, and I have many wonderful friends who like me for ME, and not for what size I wear.

Soon, there was a reply to my post - a person by the ID of Jarnor23 (a.k.a. Collin Wahlund). His reply was as follows:

Message 2963: Oh, I'm in complete agreement about that. Waaay too many women are given this totally unrealistic idea about what a woman should look like. Personally, those uberthin women do NOT attract me. I know it might sound odd, but I actually prefer women who look like real women. There can even be something about a "flaw" that I find charming if the woman has a really beautiful personality that actually makes me feel the beauty of the woman is enhanced. And as much as the media would also like to make you think all men are steriotypical [sic] pigs who just want their supermodels, I'll bet you'll find a lot of guys who agree with this. Maybe not all, but then again, I've met some pretty superficial and shallow women too. ;)

Naturally, this reply astonished me. A man who didn't like the look of supermodels?? Who thought supermodels were too thin?? Was he for real?? The mischevious streak in me surfaced, and I replied with the following message:

Message 3019: Will you marry me? *grin*

I kid you not - that was my reply. Of course, at the time I was being facetious. However, Collin replied with:

Message 3064: Geez, I've never had a proposal before... er, how about a definite maybe? :)

I replied to that message with:

Message 3079: Sounds like a plan to me! :)

That, I thought, was the end of it. The next day, I traveled back to North Dakota, as my summer class had ended and I planned to spend the rest of the summer in my hometown. However, when I checked the board again I found his reply:

Message 3100: Sounds good by here too! So... maybe you might check your Yahoo mail for a little letter sent by electronic owl, and maybe I'll get a response back? :)

I checked my e-mail, and sure enough, there was an e-mail from Collin! After I replied, I posted the following response:

Message 3181: I just sent an e-owl in reply! :-) I think we'd better stick to owl post rather than this board for individual messages, because I think some people might be getting annoyed at us. :) Thanks for the letter!

After that, our correspondence continued via e-mail. For a solid week, we wrote e-mails back and forth, most of them 16k or more! We talked about EVERYTHING – Harry Potter, our hobbies, our likes and dislikes, etc. As it turned out, Collin had grown up in the same area I had (he'd lived in Valley City, Jamestown, and Fargo, ND, but was currently residing in Minneapolis, MN). We'd grown up about 40 miles away from one another, but hadn't “met” until we were living 850 miles apart! (Later, at our wedding, we discovered that my stepfather and his grandfather had known each other for many years, but neither of them made the connection until that day!)

During one of my e-mails I mentioned that I really wanted to go to the “Harry Potter Release Party” that the Fargo, ND Barnes & Noble was having to celebrate the release of the fourth book, but I didn't have anyone to go with and I really didn't want to go alone.

Collin surprised me by writing back and suggesting that we go together. I couldn't believe that he'd be willing to drive all the way from Minneapolis just to go to a Harry Potter party with me, but he insisted that it wasn't a problem. So, I said yes. We agreed to meet beforehand and go to a movie, then to the party, since the book wasn't being released until midnight and the party itself didn't start until 10pm or so.

The day we were to meet was July 7, 2000. I spent that day in Detroit Lakes with my best friend, Abbi (who was later my maid of honor), and confided in her that I had a date, and I was going to meet a guy that I'd met over the Internet. She was worried, but I assured her that we'd been talking weeks, and he didn't sound like an axe murderer. Besides, I was going to meet him in a well-lit place with plenty of people around (which is an excellent rule of thumb for meeting anyone from the Internet, by the way).

Later that evening, I drove back to Fargo and over to the mall movie theatre. We'd already exchanged pictures in prior e-mails, so I recognized him immediately. I'm not sure if it was love at first sight, but it was definitely "like" at first sight! He gave me a hug, and it felt very natural and very right. I think the thing that made me fall in love with him, though, was while we were standing in line to get our tickets (we saw the movie "Chicken Run," and it was great!). He turned to me, quite suddenly, and said, "My God, you're beautiful." I think I blushed and stammered something incredibly articulate like, "Oh, um, thank you." It was the tone, not the words, that had stunned me -– he sounded so incredibly awed and sincere.

After the movie, we went to the party at Barnes & Noble. We had a lot of fun – and we talked, and talked, and talked, and talked some more. We talked so much that we ended up sitting in his car in the parking lot until 2am! (Okay, maybe we did a little more than talking... but not much more.) ;)

I remember thinking, as I was driving home, that I had just met the man I was going to marry.

After that, we saw each other every single weekend. During one of our weekends, I accompanied him to his grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary party. We'd been dating about a month at that point, and I was very nervous to be meeting all of his relatives – parents, brothers, grandparents, aunts & uncles, cousins – in one fell swoop. I was especially nervous because Collin had confided in me that he'd been getting some ribbing due to our age difference – I was 19, he was 25. However, the weekend went very well, and by the end of it his grandmother had asked me to call her Grandma (something, according to Collin, she'd never asked any other girlfriend of his to do), and his aunts were giving me wedding planning tips. (Never mind that we weren't engaged...)

It's a good thing gas prices were pretty low back then, as he was driving 470 miles, round-trip, every week – until it was time for me to go back to Laramie. I found myself reluctant to go back – it was so far away from him! I loved the University of Wyoming, but I didn't want to be 900 miles away from Collin. However, via LOTS of phone calls and e-mails, and even a visit from Collin a few months into the semester, our love continued to flourish and grow. During our conversations, marriage had come up several times, but he'd said that his finances wouldn't allow him to purchase a ring for some time, so I accepted that it would be a while before we could get officially engaged.

After the semester ended, I flew to Minneapolis to spend a week with Collin before going home for Christmas. Among other things, we planned to go and see the Harry Potter exhibit at Dayton's in downtown Minneapolis. (The original building is still there, but it changed to Marshall Fields, and now I think it's Macy's?) Collin had already attended, with his aunt Cheryl & her family, and said that I had to go see it. So, the day after I arrived, Sunday, December 17, 2000, we went to see it.

There was almost no line for the exhibit, which delighted me. Collin, however, was surprised but not particularly happy about it. I wondered why, but unbeknownst to me he was incredibly nervous and wanted to spend the time waiting in line to calm his nerves!

We went through the exhibit, talking the entire time, and at the end I sighed and said, "Wow, that was fantastic!"

Collin said, "It's not over yet."

I looked around, confused, because I didn't see anything else. Collin, however, handed me his program and said, "I don't think it's in your program."

I looked at his program. He'd taped a little sheet of paper to the end that basically said the last scene was where he proposed to me.

I looked at him, and he was on one knee with a ring in his hand, saying -- something. My mind was frozen! All I could think was, "A ring! He has a ring?? He has a ring!!" (It turns out he'd borrowed the money from his aunt Cheryl, and she had helped him pick it out. It was exactly the kind of ring I loved -- small, simple, classic.)

Suddenly, it occurred to my still-frozen mind that I should say something! I blurted, "Yes, yes, of course! Yes!" and gave him a hug.

The rest, to use a cliche, is history. We called all of our friends and family that night and broke the happy news. Everyone was very happy for us (although I doubt my mother will ever get over the shock!). We went over to his aunt Cheryl's house to celebrate by playing a game of Harry Potter trivia. I, of course, kicked butt. (The winning question? "What was the spell that Ron's twin brothers gave him to try on Scabbers?" The answer: "Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow; turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.")

Collin and I were married on September 1st, 2001 (the day that Harry Potter usually returns to Hogwarts via the Hogwarts Express -- which, geekily enough, was partially the reason that we picked that date, since July 31st wasn't a Saturday!), at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in my hometown in North Dakota. We're still very much in love and very happily married. Married life has had its ups and downs -- but luckily more ups than downs! :) Baby #4 is due on December 16, and I'm hoping s/he will wait a day and arrive on December 17, which will be the 11th anniversary of our engagement.

A picture from our wedding dance -- we hadn't intended the Harry Potter theme, but Collin's aunt showed up with HP glasses and started passing them around. Most of our wedding pics feature guests in HP glasses!

Ten Facts about Me and My Better Half

I was going to do this yesterday, but I forgot. Better late than never, right? Thanks to Betty Beguiles for the suggestion.

1. Collin and I met online in 2000 via a Yahoo! web club called "Harry Potter for Grown-Ups." (A web club was part message board, part e-mail list, essentially).

2. There was an ongoing discussion about why adults loved Harry Potter, and someone suggested it was because we all hated our childhoods and wanted to live vicariously through Harry (like his childhood was any better?!). Somehow that segued into a discussion about teenage body image. I said that I'd been teased for being chubby as a teen, although looking back I wasn't really as fat as I'd thought I was. Collin replied to that post, saying that he thought the models of today were ugly and disgusting, and way too thin; he said he preferred a woman who had nice curves and natural beauty. My response to him -- and I am not making this up -- was, "Will you marry me?" I had no idea he'd take me up on it!

3. We started e-mailing off-list and discovered that although at the time we were living 850 miles apart (I was finishing my freshman year of college in Laramie, WY; he was working in Minneapolis, MN), we were both North Dakota natives and had grown up within 40 miles of one another.

4. I went back to ND for the summer, and our first date was on July 7, 2000 at the Fargo Barnes & Noble. We went to the release party for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." We'd gone to a movie beforehand ("Chicken Run"), and after the party we stayed in the store parking lot 'til 2am talking. I think I knew even then that I wanted to marry him.

5. I met his ENTIRE family all at once, as he asked me to be his date at his grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary party (about a month after our first date). It was very intimidating, to say the least. However, I must've made a good impression; by the end of the weekend, his aunts were giving me things to use at our wedding and his grandma had said both "she's a keeper!" and had asked me to call her "Grandma" instead of Bernice.

6. We got officially engaged on December 17, 2000. I had flown to MN (from WY) to visit him for Christmas break, and he took me to see the illustrated "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" display on the eighth floor of the downtown Minneapolis Dayton's. (Then it became Marshall Fields, and now it's something else... Macy's, maybe?). At the end of the display, I commented that it was really nice, and he said, handing me a program, "It's not over yet. Check the last page." I looked, and he'd pasted in a little paragraph that said that the last scene of the display was where Collin asked JoAnna to be his wife. I looked up and he was down on one knee with the ring box in his hand. Obviously, I said yes. :)

7. We were married 9/1/2001 (September 1 is the day Harry Potter traditionally left for Hogwarts School). As we were married in the Lutheran Church, we were able to have the "Star Wars" theme as our recessional. Our dance was Harry Potter-themed, but not be design; Collin's aunt and cousins showed up with Harry Potter glasses and temp tattoos for all the guests, so many of our dance pictures feature guests in Harry Potter glasses. We also got a ton of Harry Potter-themed wedding gifts, many that we still have.

8. Our song is "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You" by Elvis Presley. It seemed to fit our relationship very well.

9. Collin's birthday is December 24, and his youngest brother's birthday is also December 24. They are something like 5 years and 1 hour apart. Crazy, isn't it? I think Collin was actually due on New Year's Eve but came early.

10. For our seventh anniversary, we went to Las Vegas and were able to be present at the closing weekend of "Star Trek: The Experience" at the Las Vegas Hilton. It was phenomenal and I'm so sad they closed it (especially since now we live within driving distance of Las Vegas!). If it were still open, we'd probably go there for our tenth anniversary as well.

Nine years ago today...

September 1, 2001

What an amazing nine years it's been.

We moved three times (twice to a different state). We had five pregnancies, three incredible kids, and two babies we lost before birth. We jointly discovered the Catholic Church and converted, a move that wildly changed our lives for the better. We bought our first house and a new car. One of us finished college, and one of us just went back to school yesterday (he's doing an online program via the University of Phoenix). We visited Las Vegas twice and Disneyland once. We made it through some really rough times, and have had some really good times.

Here's to the next nine years.



I love you, honey.

14 weeks today!

We went to an introductory Bradley class last night. The instructors (who, as an interesting side note, are both blind) have had 10 homebirths! Their oldest is 33 and their youngest is 9.

We listened to one couple's amazing birth story (and met their adorable 2-month-old, Elias) and chatted for quite a while. We're looking into seeing if I can switch to a midwife and Olga (Bradley instructor) is looking into that for me. The trick is seeing if the hospital will allow the midwife to deliver there. I will probably keep my OB as a backup OB if he is amenable to that.

We're still not sure if we're going to take the classes (Collin is hesitant about the price -- $300 for 8 sessions + 4 optional review sessions), but he was impressed so I'm hoping he'll agree. If nothing else, we made some new friends.

It's also our eighth wedding anniversary today. That's, what, twenty in celebrity marriage years? We're going out for dinner and possibly a movie (sans kids!) on Thursday to celebrate. I am looking forward to many more happy and fruitful years, God willing.