Santiago, Chile
I have to admit that I’ve been having a rough week. I so needed and enjoyed my independent adventure in Peru, but just after finishing my trek to Machu Picchu, I learned that, for the 17th month in a row, I’m not pregnant.
This isn’t something that I have shared on our blog until now because I don’t want to be that woman. The woman who complains and asks for pity because all of her sisters and friends are getting pregnant and having babies. The woman who turns otherwise exciting moments in her friends’ lives into an opportunity to wallow.
But I hit a breaking point this month. I hate not being in control of this. I feel so ready for a child, but my body and the universe have other plans. It has been an upsetting week.
And to make things more difficult, I got this news while I was alone in a cold hotel room in Cusco, thousands of miles away from Andrew.
Luckily, Andrew was on his way to meet me, however, in Santiago, Chile the next day, and when he crawled into bed with me at 7:30 am after a red eye flight, I felt better again. Safe. Protected. Loved.
Andrew didn’t have many vacation days from work, so he flew 11 hours to Santiago in order to spend 3 and ½ days with me. Not only did he make the trip to get here though. Andrew planned activities for the entire time. All as a surprise to me.
With only two hours of sleep, he brought me to breakfast in our beautiful hotel, the Hotel Magnolia (this award-winning hotel was like a fairy castle after the hostels I had been staying at in Peru), and then we set off for a walking tour of downtown Santiago, finding all of the nooks and crannies in Hidalgo Hill and walking hand-in-hand through Guadalupe Park. We came back in the early afternoon to take a nap and make love, then had a nice cozy dinner in our castle hotel so we could fall asleep in each other’s arms.
We woke up on Day 2 to another beautiful breakfast, followed by a stop at a hot chocolate restaurant built out of retired wine barrels, a nature hike where we met two live pumas up-close and could feel the spray of a waterfall against our cheeks, and lunch and a private wine tasting at Vina Haras de Pirque, a vineyard in the Maipo Valley of Chile that is shaped like a horseshoe to commemorate the owner’s winning stud, Hussonet.
I napped on the drive back to town, and then Andrew took me on a surprise dinner tour at a swanky new restaurant that did a series of nouveau-Chilean infusions...followed by a private invitation to a speakeasy on the rooftop with live jazz!
We walked home, holding hands and admiring the lovers in the Forrestal Park, and awoke on Day 3 to tour the coast of Valparaiso, with its winding hills and graffiti-lined streets. The sidewalks, walls, doors, storefronts, were like candy for my eyes. And to top it all off, we had lunch at a classically beautiful restaurant at the top of the hills with a beautiful view of the ocean.
First and foremost, I am in awe at the thoughtfulness of the man who chose to marry me. Every single thing Andrew planned was exactly what I would have asked for, and in every moment, I felt loved and cared for. But more importantly, I was a difficult person this week. I was emotional, tender, insecure and needy. But Andrew only responded with love, caring, touch and support.
It is in moments like these that I wonder why he married me. It is in moments like these that I thank the universe for bringing him to me.
Thank you, Andrew.
From the bottomof my heart.
