(5/13) “Tripp only had half a testicle. He blamed it on an old football injury. It never bothe
(5/13) “Tripp only had half a testicle. He blamed it on an old football injury. It never bothered me, but it kept us from getting pregnant. After seven or eight attempts we decided to get a sperm donor. I could have cared less. Adoption, donor, it didn’t matter to me. But Tripp wanted to keep it a secret, even from our children. And I was respectful of that. We chose a donor who resembled Tripp, and our first son John came out looking a lot like Tripp. We ended up having four kids in five years. The children adored him. They were a little scared of him, like me. But they adored him. We’d go to the beach and he’d play in the ocean with them until the sun went down. Every Christmas Tripp was in charge of decorating our tree. He and the kids would spend hours on it, and when they finished it would look like something out of a magazine. On Halloween our family always had a theme: Batman, Batgirl, King and Queen of Arabia. That was all Tripp. He was the fun one. He was the affectionate one. He’d walk down the street and the neighborhood kids would just fall down around him. Those first few years were so good. We never had much money. Some weeks there’d be less than $100 in the account. But I couldn’t have been happier if it was ten million. I put all my energy into being a mom. We couldn’t afford childcare, so I stayed home with the kids. Their hair was always done right. Their clothes were always ironed. All the things I’d always wanted someone to do for me, I tried to do for them. I remember one night sitting on the back porch of our log cabin. The kids were playing in our blow-up pool. Tripp was building a treehouse for John, with a real deck around it. The weather was perfect. And I realized it was the happiest I’d ever been. It had always been my dream in life to have this great family. And now it was coming true. I thought: What else is there in life? These kids don’t care what I’ve been through. They don’t care about my childhood. They love me no matter what. I remember thinking: if I just put in the work, they’re gonna grow up. And they’ll be around. I’m gonna have unconditional love. I’m finally going to have a family.” -- source link