An Unconventional Love Story
An Unconventional Love Story
By: Jill
If someone would have told me, “Jill, when you download that Plenty of Fish (POF) App on to your phone, you will find your future husband and be pregnant in 7 months,” I probably would have just died right there, on the floor, from utter disbelief. In case you missed my Online Dating for Longterm Compatibility post, in it I describe my online dating ventures and how I wasn’t even sure what I had wanted from online dating! Sure enough, New Year's Eve of 2014, Jungleman messaged me:
“Hey there tree lady, you would be perfect for a Jungleman”
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I know. . . I know! You probably thought it was a message that was more enticing. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure why he called me “tree lady”! I kind of chuckled in confusion and before even answering him I scoped out his profile. The first thing that caught my eye was his motorcycle. I am, by no means, I motorcycling riding girl. In fact, I hate them. I don’t know why it caught my eye, maybe it’s because I enjoy a little bit of the classic “bad boy attitude.” Regardless, he managed to make it through all my filters and barriers so we must be compatible. We started messaging back and forth which turned into texting. One thing that was absolutely remarkable was how easy it was to text and talk to Josh. I had an overwhelmingly good feeling about him. So much so, I felt as though it may be too good to be true. . . I was thinking I was being cat-fished or something.
So I decided to use one of my tactics to test him (as mentioned in my Online Dating post) and I demanded that he send a quick selfie.
He said no.
“I had an overwhelmingly good feeling about him. So much so, I felt as though it may be too good to be true”
Have you ever had that feeling when all the butterflies leave your stomach and your soul just sinks? My hope and good feelings changed to complete disappointment. My brother says that I am too quick to hit the “nuke button” and I believe that it is a character flaw that I still struggle with. I couldn’t believe that my radar was so off and I had allowed myself to get excited about this great guy; now had to nuke it. I texted a few times trying to convince him to send me a photo but he still resisted. In one final attempt, I sent Josh a lifesaver. I mean, I really did have this strange good feeling about him. I had to give him a chance to save himself…
I text Josh: That's too bad, I had a really good feeling about you.
He sends me a photo of him, sitting on the couch with a wry smile and raised eyebrows. It was him, maybe he was just being stubborn (probably). If you can imagine my hand hovering over the nuke button… I was so surprised he turned out to be authentic and reassured me. He didn’t know it at the time, but this interaction was a pivotal moment in our relationship. I was so relieved!
We decided to meet in person,
early afternoon at the Blue Wolf Bistro in Rochester, NY. It was not a date! We both made it very clear that we were just meeting up to chat. I have heard different rules when it comes to this first meetings. Some would say to stay away from tough topics like religion, politics, etc. I personally believe that there is no better opportunity to hash out these major topics. My favorite question to ask a potential date is, “Have you ever been arrested?” This makes for wildly interesting conversations! One bloody Mary and a white Russian later, I noticed 2 1/2 hours had passed. I scrambled to get out of there, I had broken one of my dating rules of getting caught up in the moment. Josh needed to bring me out on a proper date.
One of our first dates was at his house
and we affectionately refer to it as our burnt pizza date. I have an amazing recipe for Big Mac Pizza, so we decided to prepare it together and put it in the oven. We sit down in his living room, talking and watching TV. A commercial comes on about a couple on a first date, making pizza and burning it. Josh and I laugh awkwardly. . . “we won’t burn ours.” Sure enough, the smell of burnt crust is in the air and before we can stand up, all the smoke alarms are going off in his house. The kitchen is full of smoke! I grab the pizza out of the oven and start opening windows. Josh frantically tries to turn off the smoke detectors and by this time the one upstairs is going off too. He races upstairs only to find that the alarm does not have an off switch and looks like it is painted to the wall. A roommate’s dog starts going berserk, as Josh flies downstairs to get wire clippers. He bounds up the stairs again and clips the wires. . . only the noise doesn’t stop. He realizes he clipped the hard wire fire alarm instead of turning off the smoke detector 5 feet away!! Our hearts are racing as we stand over the mildly burnt pizza, wires sticking out of the wall and then we just laugh about the coincidence between the commercial and our date. I recognized a great quality in Josh from our burnt pizza date, he is always good in a high-stress situation and will always try to remedy it. 27 days after meeting Josh I became his girlfriend.
One day I was grabbing a cup of coffee
and was on my way out the door when I was hit with a sudden rush of nausea. I ran to the bathroom and dry heaved for about 5 minutes. I washed my face and looked in the mirror to find that my entire right eye was red. I had burst all the blood vessels in my eye from trying to throw up. I thought to myself, “that was weird” and left for work feeling fine all day. I was dog-sitting for a friend the next day and picked up a couple of Dollar General pregnancy tests just to rule it out. I had no inclination of being pregnant! I arrived at my friend's house, took the test and left it in the bathroom. I forgot about it for 30 minutes. When remembered to check on it, IT WAS POSITIVE. I stared at the test for a long time, checking the instructions. It looked VERY positive, according to the mom forums I was Googling up. I paced around the house and every once in a while I would open the bathroom door so I could again be hit with the reality.
I had to tell Josh the news.
He was gone that weekend on a snowboarding trip; I went to his house after he got home. We were sitting at the dinner table as he was eating some warmed up leftovers. There was no beating around the bush with the news I had to share. My red terminator-looking eye was a big conversation starter so I blurted out:
“So it looks like… I’m pregnant.”
The moments after I told him this will forever be burned into my brain. He chewed his food and stared at me. After what felt like an eternity, he asked me if I would like to go upstairs to talk about this. I had already played out 100 different ways in my head on how he could’ve reacted to this news, but he calmly just asked me to go upstairs. It went better than I expected.
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We talked all night about ourselves, our situation and how or if we proceed from here. We had only known each other for barely 3 months. Could we be sure that this would work out? The statistics on these kinds of relationships don’t usually pan out well. By the end of the night, I knew I was going to have this baby with or without Josh. It wasn’t going to be easy; however, Josh was incredibly supportive and compassionate about our decision. We needed to arrange meetings with each other’s parents to tell them the news.
“Josh was incredibly supportive and compassionate about our decision.. ”
It’s nerve-wracking enough to meet your boyfriend's parents let alone drop this life-changing bomb on them. By this time, we already had our first ultrasound appointment and I found out I was 10 weeks pregnant. Time was of the essence to meet everyone and get to know Josh more! The pregnancy flew by and I was always amazed at the ease of dating Josh. Of course, we had some bumps along the way but our lives seemed to perfectly click together in some unforeseen way. One of my most favorite memories was celebrating our one year anniversary. We were drinking wine while our beautiful little baby girl was sleeping in the bassinet. It was a major milestone: in one amazing year we met, fell in love, had a baby and now we’re living as a family.
In 2017, we tied the knot. Josh and I both agree that we have defied the odds when it comes to our unconventional love story. It is hard to judge what a perfect love story looks like. The serendipitous events that surround our story is what makes it magical for me. I am now a fond believer in the old expression “when you know that you found the right person, you just know” and hopefully all our readers have or will find their unique love story.
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“ In one amazing year we met, fell in love, had a baby and we’re living as a family.”
With the exception of Jungleman’s selfie… the incredible photos provided here were taken by Asif at
A Touch of Elegance Photography which is a sister company to The Boudoir Studio.