Things you may not know about me.
Things you may not know about me.
1. I had my first son when I was just barely 19.
2. I had Hyperemesis when pregnant with him. So bad that I was hospitalized more than once and had home health care nurses come when I wore a backpack that plugged in and IV was hooked to me from it as fluid pumped into me to keep both myself and my son alive.
3. Because I was so sick during the pregnancy I had to drop of out my freshman year of college.
4. Mind you, I do not come from a rich family. I had to work my ass off to go to college. This was devastating to me. I decided that while I may be out of the running for 9 mos I would not be out of the race for an education.
5. I gave birth to a wonderful, healthy baby boy when I was, like I mentioned above, just barely 19. His father had just turned 21 at the time.
6. We did not marry right away. He asked. I said… uh, let me think about it.
7. He wouldn’t give up on the idea of us being married. I gave in. We married. When we told peers some of them (okay, many but not all) laughed in our faces and said I give you a year or two at most. (side note: Its been 20 years… suck it)
8. Since I had to leave the university I was at and it was no longer a viable option because I had a newborn and had to work even more than when I was going to school, I signed up for a community college that was still nearly an hour drive each way. Mr. Mandy did as well. We worked and went to school at opposite times. We did not see each other much at all our first two years of marriage. We were too busy trying to make sure we had the skills to provide for our new family.
9. He went on to a four year school and had to drive nearly 3 hours each way twice a week for almost two years. He finished.
10. I finished my four year as well. By this point I was in my late twenties. I worked my ass off at every job I could that related to my desired field of employment (Marketing at the time). I took shit jobs, got treated like ass but still did it because I knew I needed it on my resume.
11. Mr Mandy did the same thing. Finally, he landed what would be his “adult” job for nearly 15 yrs. They sold the plant and without notice he and many others at his level were handed walking papers.
12. During this 15 year period he worked at his “adult” job we found out our youngest son was developmentally delayed… for a while they kept suggesting autism. Stunned, we decided that no matter how hard I’d worked towards my goal in marketing, it wasn’t worth sacrificing our kids. I stopped working at once. I dedicated all my time to helping figure out WTH was going on with our youngest.
13. Youngest was diagnosed with food allergies. Yes, these can be devastating to a child’s development.
14. Label in hand and a direction to go (oddly enough the therapies for getting him on track were the same ones used by children with autism) I noticed my nights were free (well, not if I wanted to sleep but what mom does that LOL). So I read a lot. Read everything the library had in the genre I liked. Decided, huh, guess I’ll have to write something. Laughed that idea off. Then got ticked about a junker car we had, started drafting a letter about it and it spawned into a novel… Yes, this is where Daughter of Darkness car scene where she is complaining out the rain leaking in comes from.
15. A close friend of mine found out I’d written an full-length novel in less than eight weeks. Asked to read it. Said, you need to send it in. Do it or I will. That was ten years ago in Oct of this year.
The rest you already know.
