My name is Julie Keith, I'm thirty-nine years old. Me and my husband, Dan, have tried for a child for years. Each one was a misscarrige, we lost hope. Then Ray. He wasn't that healthy when born, but he was born, that's what mattered to me, a child I could keep and love and raise. He had to stay in the hospital for a while, to keep his little body stable and healthy. We had specific things we needed to do when he came home, checkups once a week to make sure. He was low on his everything, and it was a 50/50 chance that he'd get better. My little boy's a warrior, I adored him. He was sluggish when he first came home, and it may've took months to get him fully healthy, like a normal baby, but after that? He sprung to life, didn't take him too long to crawl. Skipped the scooting stage, pure crawling. Even when he started teething, still a little bundle of joy. He took an interest in many things, cats, dinosaurs, princesses. Exactly like I'd done when I was a year old.
Dan wasn't that bad back then, he was a dad. Whenever Ray was crying and nothing would work, he'd scoop Ray up, give him a good spin around the room making little engine noises. Ray would always giggle after that. For hours and hours, or until he got tired. And then I picked up my job at the animal shelter, Dan fixed his schedule to work whenever I didn't, so he could be there to babysit Ray. Sometimes he'd call me because Ray needed to hear my voice. Sometmes, I'd come home to see them asleep on the couch, some random cartoon playing on the televison, Dan with a book in his hand, having fallen aslee reading to him. Warmed my heart, it's everything we talked about. Even before that, Dan was so sweet, can you honestly believe I had to make the first moves? But now..? That isn't the man I loved.
Dan didn't come from a good family, he promised he'd never be like his parents. An alcoholic, abusive, monster. One of the promises he broke. Part of me still loves him, is that a bad thing? I tell myself that it is, yet it's my Danny .. We'd pass notes in school, he wasn't the brightest bulb, he'd come to me to ask for help on everything. And after a while, turned into just wanting to see me. I couldn't say no to that sweet idiot, he was my idiot. Seeing eachother at school turned into meeting up at parks, that turned into sneaking out for a date, and of course.. movng out when we could and into a crappy apartment. Getting married, moving into our dream home. Having children, Ray was our angel. We had so much stuff from my other pregnancies, we didn't need to buy anything. Dan got this big high paying job, it helped out so much. Whenever my due date was near, he took a break from work. We didn't live by much people, he didn't want to risk my water breaking and having no one to take me to the hospital. I think I passed out after the birth! But Dan took so much pictures, me holding Ray, little pictures of Ray in general. We we're both so happy he wasn't a stillbornn or misscarriage.