Sometimes I feel like 2010 made me who I am today. I feel compelled to share it with you so you’ll have a better understanding of who I am and where I’ve been.
In early 2010, my husband, Lon, and I and our 4 year old daughter Gracie moved to Thousand Oaks from Clovis, CA. Lon and I had been together for 8 years, had suffered a rather unpleasant journey of infertility, surgery, in vitro (x5), miscarriages (x4), hysterectomy and finally the adoption of Gracie, the most beautiful newborn baby girl ever made.
We were happy for a long time, but then Lon started slipping away from our family. I found myself taking Gracie everywhere alone – vacations, trips to Disneyland, visits to friends’ houses, swim lessons, play dates, etc. It got to where I couldn’t convince Lon to join us at the dinner table at home. See, he was addicted to a computer game that ate up his every waking hour. His online business that had thrived for over a decade began to decline, and it became difficult to keep up with our household bills. In late 2009, I hired a bankruptcy attorney and broached the subject of divorce.
Lon sold his online company before my attorney was able to file the bankruptcy paperwork (thereby ruining that plan and saddling me with $157k in marital debt – all in my name), and suggested we move to Thousand Oaks together with a nice savings account and start fresh. The very same day the money hit his bank account, our adoption attorney called to tell us Gracie’s birth father had impregnated another woman,who also wanted to place her baby for adoption and wanted it to grow up with a genetic sibling. Even though our marriage was on very shaky ground, we were eager to adopt a sibling for Gracie. We moved into a beautiful rental home in Newbury Park on January 12th, 2010. Hudson Ryan was born January 15th, when we were still unpacking. We brought him home from the hospital six days later, and I was as happy as can be.
Lon was an attentive and loving father to both children in our new home. We had nearly half a million dollars in the bank, two gorgeous healthy children, and we were living in a beautiful home in a fabulous town where I had wanted to live for years. Life was good. In April I opened a photo studio on Thousand Oaks Blvd and got to work searching for new clients to photograph and decorating it to be my dream studio. Lon and I attended all the post-placement visits with the adoption social worker and were set to finalize that summer. Then, the proverbial shit hit the fan. I was feeding the baby on the couch one day in May when Lon quite suddenly announced that he’d spent all of the money (on WHAT??) and did not want to be responsible for a family anymore. He didn’t want to be a husband or a father, and didn’t have any advise for me going forward. He told me that we had two weeks of paid rent on the house left, and I was to “figure it out.” It would be an understatement to say that I was shocked. I really thought everything was fine. I had a travel trailer that I stored at a campground in Kingsburg (near Fresno) that would work as a home, but I also had a brand new studio with a two year lease that I had yet to even finish decorating and open, complete with a $1500 a month lease attached to it. The way I saw it, I had two options – let the studio go, move into my trailer and try to build a life in the small town of Kingsburg with my former Fresno clients, or move into the back of the studio and try to make a go of it in a new town with the help of a retail location. I ultimately decided to do both.
I was also completely terrified that the state would not let me keep Hudson as a single parent. He was my daughter’s genetic sibling, and had been my son, my baby, for over 5 months. I was as attached to him as if I’d waited my whole life for his arrival. I would have skipped the country if anyone questioned his place in my family or tried to take him away from me. Luckily, that never happened. Hudson’s birthmother wrote a letter to the state giving her permission to let me continue with the adoption as a single parent, and Lon filed a petition to remove himself from the adoption. I had to start the post-placement visitations all over. The social worker worked with me to approve the post placement from my studio, in spite of the fact that I was buried in debt, broke, alone and living in a retail location in violation of city codes with no shower/bath, laundry or kitchen.
Studio living was rough at times, and perfectly fine other times. Gracie and I slept on an air mattress in the back, and Hudson slept in his crib behind my desk area. We had a bathroom, thankfully, with a sink with hot and cold water. That worked to fill up a baby bath for Hudson. Gracie and I joined the YMCA and showered there every other day or so. Boy, did I miss my daily bath routine! Wecooked with a microwave, toaster oven and mini fridge. I did our laundry at the laundromat down the street. When I got tired of living like that, I would drive to my trailer at the river and escape it all. The one thing I had going for me was my car, a brand new hybrid Toyota Prius Lon had bought for me before he left.
That car saved us on so many occasions. I was able to leave the car running with my kids strapped in their car seats for my photo shoots, where I could see the car. It used up hardly any gas and entertained the kids with portable DVD players and air conditioning for them, and they hardly noticed 45 minutes at a time alone in the car. The car also allowed me to get to my Fresno clients for a lot less gas than any other car, which allowed me to earn money in both towns until I built up my business in Thousand Oaks. Whenever I got down to my last $20 and thought for sure I was facing homelessness or hunger, a new client would book a shoot or a good print order would come in, and we were always saved just before anything really bad ever happened. Not that we didn’t have some low moments. One time, Gracie had been jumping on our air mattress and popped it, and at the same time, ate some tomatoes that didn’t agree with her, and I woke up on the hard floor in a puddle of toddler vomit. That was a fun trip to the laundromat in the middle of the night to wash our only bedding. A friend gave me the money to buy a new air mattress before the next night. Another time, Hudson was 11 months old and had grown just tall enough to reach my coffee maker in the front room. He pulled a single cup of fresh, hot coffee onto himself and suffered second degree scald burns on his chest and neck. Luckily, we qualified for government medical insurance to treat his injuries, and the burn center did not feel compelled to report me to child services for it. I was so sad, but he didn’t even have a scar after a week of bandages. Another time, driving on the freeway, a truck way far ahead of us in the fast lane kicked up a fist-sized rock in the road that shattered my front windshield.
But again, a friend loaned me the money to replace the windshield and I was able to repay them shortly after. God has always looked out for me and my children, and we made it through that year unharmed and together.
The only real loss we suffered was our two pug puppies, Zoe and Lulu. They were my babies before Gracie and Hudson were born, and I loved them with all my heart. I couldn’t have them in my studio, so Lon took them with him to an apartment. He refused to get a job, so he was evicted 6 weeks later. Without even consulting me, he gave our dogs away to a family and we never saw them again. I must have cried for a month straight, and I still cry often. We miss them. I think Gracie misses them more than her dad, who never spoke to her again. I hope the family they are with now loves them as much as I did, and is taking good care of them. They were the best dogs. We will always love Zoe and Lulu, and we will keep them in our hearts forever.
Once Lon was evicted from his apartment, he moved into our family minivan. The finance company eventually found him and the car and reposessed it, leaving me with yet another debt I will never pay. Gracie called Lon often back then and left messages, asking him where he was and when he was coming back. She drew him pictures that I couldn’t mail because I had no address. He never even dignified her with a phone call, or a letter, or a card. That was the hardest part for me. Watching my four year old baby girl cry for her dad and ask me daily where he went, why he wouldn’t call, when he was coming back. All I could tell her was that daddy got sick in his head and had to leave to take care of himself and try to get better. Eventually, she stopped asking. Now she hardly remembers him, and Hudson has no idea who he was. I finalized Hudson’s adoption just before he turned 2. That was a joyous day. About a year after we moved into the studio, I had grown my business enough to be able to afford to rent an apartment. We moved into a two bedroom, two bath apartment with a playground and a swimming pool, and we were so happy. I had TWO bathtubs! Then I met Ryan, my best friend’s husband’s best friend. We met at Disneyland on 11/1/11, and the rest has been paradise for me and my children. We were married October 15th, 2012, and changed the kids’ last names to match ours. I find it quite adorable that I randomly chose Ryan to be Hudson’s middle name, and now his dad is named Ryan 🙂 We are hoping to finalize Ryan’s adoption of both kids sometime this year, and get them fancy new matching birth certificates showing two parents and one beautiful last name :D. We live in a big beautiful house in Thousand Oaks where I run my (very successful) business. We are very happy, and very lucky. That is my story. Thanks for reading. 🙂