My Journey

     I never knew how motherhood would change me and my point of view on life. Ever since the day that Serenity and Savanna was born, I don’t think I’m ready to go back to work just yet.Serenity is now 2-years-old(almost 3); man, time sure has flown by quickly. 

My husband TJ and I have been married since August 1st,2016(2 days before his birthday,lol) he has been so amazing not only as an amazing husband, but as a wonderful father as well. 

I have learned over the past few years that, as a parent and as a spouse, that you have to make hard decisions. I had to leave one place where I was making $10.20/hr and where I was getting paid bi-weekly; to a place where I make $9.00/hr and get paid bi-weekly. My hours are consistent though; compared to only working five hours a night for 3-4 nights a week. I was working second shift(2pm-10pm) where I worked five days a week; my check was not always consistent though.Now,I’m looking for a better paying job, so that my husband isn’t always doing things in his own. 

I have noticed as a spouse, that it takes not one, but both people to make a marriage work. DON'T RUN, from your problems, just work them out and talk with your partner. COMMUNICATION IS KEY! When you are married and have children,you are going to have your ups&downs; except don't make your spouse do all the work. You need to put some effort into it; I am trying to do that. Both my husband and I are now parents of two little girls; one is just a few weeks old and the other is almost three. Like I explained in my last blog, I had complications with our second child; but she is healthy and that is all that matters. Serenity,Savanna,and my husband TJ are the best thing that has happened to me; before I met my husband, I was going down a path of darkness because I had been through a lot. In this blog post, I am going to tell you my story. I am going to take you on a journey from when I was eight than until now. 

My journey all started when I was just eight-years-old, when my stepdad(I did not know he was my stepdad at the time,I’ll explain later)had collapsed onto the bed in front of me. My mom had already called for an ambulance and also called my grandmother aka Gma,before she started getting ready for work because he had asked her to call for one. He was fine when I woke up that morning to make myself something to eat; he was taking his medicine through his breathing machine. I came out of the kitchen, sat down at the table and than looked over at him; only to find him lying on the bed. I ran into the bathroom to tell my mom, and I helped her wake up my little brother and sister. I was eight like said; my brother was four and our little sister was just a little over a year old. 

Shortly after that, the paramedics arrived and so did our gma; she had to run to the bank and than she took us three kids to the hospital. We were walked to a room where my mom was,who was in a chair crying; I than took off running outside and sat on the curb in front of the emergency entrance. I tried to cry but couldn’t, I was still in shock after seeing my stepdad collapse onto the bed. My stepdad’s name was Michael Daniel Selitto, he died on May 31st,2001 at 9:17am in Lakeland,Florida.About seven months later, my grandpa died in the hospital after having a heart attack and a stroke; I was still eight-years-old at the time except my siblings had turned five and two. My grandpa was in a coma and had a machine breathing for him; so, on January 4th,2002 in Orlando,Florida my gma had made the decision to take him off the machine so that he didn’t have to suffer anymore. My cousin and I was still in the room when the nurses came in and started taking him off the machine/taking the tubes out of his mouth; so I’ve seen two people that I loved die in front of me at a young age, this time I was able to cry. 

I’m just going to point out that for the next eight or so years, I blamed my mom for my stepdad’s death so on top of that, I kept running away for the next two years; now we’re going to flash forward to when I was fifteen. 

In the year,2008, my mom told me that my biological father had called her that morning. Now,granted this was on October 31st,2008; she came into my room to wake me up for school, when she dropped the bomb on me. “Amber, time to get up; I’m heading downstairs to go to work. I hope you have a good day at school and I’ll see you when I get home from work, but be ready to go when I do because remember we’re going with your cousins to Downtown Disney for ‘Trick or Treating’.” Being the normal stubborn teenager, I gave her a thumbs up and rolled back over; as she was about to turn around and walk downstairs, she said “And oh by the way, Joey called me this morning. He asked me if you would like to talk to him. I have his number written down if you decide to. Well, anyways love you”. Than she turned around,went downstairs, and went off to work. 

Well, I thought about it all day at school, and so when my mom got home I told her I would like to talk to him; she told me that we’ll call him when we get back home. We got back home a few hours later and I asked her to dial his number; we talked for about an hour and I found out that we both liked a few of the same things. We talked everyday after I got home from school; he than sent me a cell phone and a few other things. One day I asked him, if he would like to come down for thanksgiving;he lived in North Carolina while I lived in Florida(about a 9 hour drive)I went and asked my mom if it was okay with her and she said that it was fine. Well not only did he come down for thanksgiving but he also came back down for Christmas; well he had to go back home after Christmas because he had to go to a meeting at the fire station(yes he was a fireman). I asked my mom if I could ride back with him, we spend New Year’s Eve up there, than drive back home the next day; well I dropped her a bombshell when her and my siblings came up. After spending a few days with him and everything, I asked him of I could live with him; he told me I had to ask my mom, and so when I did she said okay. So, for the next five years, I was living with my dad and my amazing stepmom(well I call her mama).

I’m going to explain now some of the guys I went out with before I got with my husband.

The first guy I was with, was good to me at first but as it turns out he was a convicted felon. He even raped me and made me accuse my father; my dad to this day can’t trust me, and I even burned a lot of bridges when I was with this guy. I was only with him a couple of months, when I decided to break it off with him because I wasn’t going to be the only one working and being his keeper by trying to make sure he didn’t go back to prison. The second guy I was with, he was worse than the first guy I was with. This guy was abusive and was very persuasive into making me do things I didn’t want to do; I was with him a year and five months. 

The second guy I was with, didn’t make my life easy at all; anyways, my parents helped me get out of that situation and I had to move back home. The third guy I dated used me and so did a couple more guys; so finally, the last guy I was with before my husband not only used me but also cheated on me. The guy used me and cheated on me with his ex-girlfriend, he used me by trying to make her jealous; well it hurt me more than it hurt him. Shortly after we broke up, I downloaded and set up my account for “POF” and that’s when I started talking to this guy(now my husband,lol)I also realized that he looked familiar. So after talking to him for a couple of weeks, we met up and went out on our first date; ever since that day I have been with the same guy for four years but married for three. He had been there for me no matter what,plus we’ve gone through a lot of storms together but we’ve come this far and we’re not going to give up on each other. 

To conclude, being a mommy of two girls and a wife; life can get hard but as long as you have someone that’s by your side and is supportive, you’ll pull through everything just fine.