Graduation!

The night before Andrew and I were engaged, I had a break down.

It's kind of a funny story.

Andrew had mentioned to a girl from our neighborhood that he was thinking of proposing.

The girl worked at the local grocery store where my mom shopped.

My mom was checking out with her food purchases and was surprised to be congratulated on my engagement.

She came home a little bit upset that she had to find out from someone other than me that I was engaged.

Of course, I wasn't.

But it took a minute to convince my mom.

That night Andrew and I went out on a wonderful date downtown.

We toured the top of the conference center and had a wonderful evening.

But considering the events of the afternoon, the topic of marriage came up.

I brought it up -

By telling him all of the reasons I wasn't ready to get married.

(NO IDEA he was planning to propose in less than 24 hours.)

One of my biggest issues was my education.

I had just finished my associates degree and I didn't know what marriage would do to my education plans.

I wanted to continue on to get my BS degree.

For some reason, in my mind, I had always felt that my educational goals would need to take backseat once I was married.

Andrew assured me that if we were to get married, he would make sure I was able to finish.

The events of the next day are another story in and of themselves.

We were engaged, and Andrew held true to his promise.

We both enrolled in school and continued our educations.

We even took a class together - which was fun!

Sadly, I found my health failing and was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

It is a problem that seems to have been a bad reaction to medication.

The closest things I have had to relapses has been also traceable to medications.

But regardless of the cause, I became completely dysfunctional for a time.

I had to give up school.

I got to the point where I was literally only sleeping and going to work.

And then I got to a point where I couldn't even do that much.

I remember calling Andrew on my lunch breaks sobbing because I was so tired.

Even though I had literally slept for about 15 hours before coming to work.

Eventually I ended up on disability.

Fortunately, I found a specialist who happened to have an intern who recognized the medication I was on and had me drop it immediately.

With that change and a few other adjustments to restore my health, I slowly became a person again.

When I started feeling more confident about my health, my interest in education had waned.

I was ready for motherhood.

It was a scary choice to make - at that point I believed I had CFS.

I was told it could and would come back.

And I was told that having children can made it worse.

But I always knew I would be a mom and when the time felt right, we pursued that choice.

Ammon was born within the year.

Peter took longer to get here.

Ammon was getting older enough that I started to revisit my educational goals.

I was in the process of enrolling for fall semester when I went to the doctor to start fertility work.

He wrote me some prescriptions and I waited for the first day of my next cycle to start them.

That day never came.

I was pregnant.

And once again, I willingly walked away from school.

But after Peter, no more children were coming.

I got pregnant, but miscarried.

For a while I assumed I could get pregnant again whenever I wanted to.

But eventually we learned that it wasn't going to be so easy.

The tumor in my pituitary gland created fertility complications.

And the treatment caused me major health issues.

(Not the least of which was the CFS-seeming relapse.)

The doctor told us that if we wanted to actively attempt pregnancy, I would need medical help.

He said if we wanted to actively prevent, we would need to take precautions.

We were somewhere in the middle.

We wanted more children, but it didn't seem right at the time.

There were years of heartache and tears, but always the Spirit told me no.

What the Spirit did tell me was that it was time to go back to school.

The entire time I was in school, I didn't really know why.

I was playing with two different degrees, but I didn't really want a career.

I wanted to be a mom.

The whole thing seemed kind of pointless at times.

But the experiences of being in school blessed me and it blessed my family.

It was also really hard.

And my husband - true to his word - supported me faithfully.

On the night I took my very last test, I got into the car and started to cry.

I had done it!

And in that moment, all I could think about was that very first promise Andrew made me - 

That he would make sure I finished.

It took longer than either of us had hoped.

But the delays weren't his fault.

(I'm pretty sure the fact that I slept through the first year of our marriage was not his ideal.)

It was a long process of twists and turns, but he stayed true to his word.

In more than ten years, I never had a time when I mentioned wanting to be in school that he wasn't 100% behind me.

The graduation itself was LONG.

Somehow, even though I was in the very front row, I ended up being the fifth from last person called.

I felt terrible torturing the people who had come to support me.

Andrew, Ammon, Peter, my parents, my in-laws, my sister and my grandparents were all there.

Afterwards we had a family BBQ which included some of the people who weren't able to come up to the U.

I always believed that if I finished a Psychology degree I would get my Master's degree too.

I didn't get into the MSW program and I worried I would feel like my degree was a waste.

 But I haven't felt that way at all.

I have been amazed at how much my education is like my mission.

The process of having accomplished this goal, and the experiences I have had in the process seem like they have become a fundamental part of who I am.

I feel like I am better off for my education in a way that can't be defined through a job offer or income.

Though the process was slow and subtle, becoming a college graduate changed me in a way I will always be grateful for.