After I hit “publish” and became “official” a few days ago, a bit of panic set in.

What if no one reads what I write?
What if people read it, and they hate it?
What if nobody likes it? Likes me?

It was sort of like the night before freshman year of high school all over again. Except this time I had two marriages, two kids, an aging dog, experience with suicide, post partum depression, addiction, mental illness and grief, as well as a bladder that sometimes caused me to pee a little when I coughed or sneezed to go along with my high anxiety. I was also lacking an abundance of Wet n Wild cosmetics, and as we all know, nothing makes you feel more confident than circa 1988 electric blue eye liner.

So, here goes, a little about me.

I was born and raised in Southern California by East Coast parents – my father a Jersey boy born and bred and my mother from Connecticut. I’m a bit more East Coast than West Coast, and while I haven’t flipped any tables during dinner, most will tell you there is a bit of Jersey Girl temper in my blood. And in my vocabulary.

When I was 19, I met the man who would become my first husband, Greg. We had a relationship of highs and lows, peppered with his addictions and mental illness, making the love we shared both the most wonderful, and, at times, the most unhealthy thing for us. At 28 I was a widow, having lost Greg to suicide, and thus began the long, hard road of putting my life back together.

Three years after Greg died, I met my current husband (still working on that whole “what to name him in the age of the internet and no privacy when he didn’t sign up to have his wife share every detail of their life online” thing) through a work colleague/friend. He just happened to be this colleague/friend’s brother. After a few months of emailing, finally meeting in person and sharing an eight hour first date, we began dating. I knew he was the one when he didn’t ask me to hide my past from his friends or family. He didn’t ask me to not mention my previous marriage. He didn’t expect me to just forget about the life I had before him. He accepted it. He embraced it. In all its messiness. He proposed a year later, while I was in Amsterdam teaching a summer course on Family Building Using Assisted Reproductive Technologies. Oh yes, minor detail – career wise, I’m an attorney, specializing in assisted reproductive law. Basically, what that means is that I assist those building families using alternative means – egg donation, sperm donation, embryo donation, and/or gestational surrogacy. I’ve been in private practice as a sole practitioner since 2002.

In 2007, the current husband (!!) and I were married with just our parents as witnesses in Hana, Hawaii. In 2011, we welcomed twin sons into our fold. We became a family of five, as they joined their older, four legged sister Roxy, now dubbed the Nanny Dog.

What can you expect to find here at mamalawmadingdong? A little bit of this and a little bit of that. Truly, it is going to follow what is rambling through my brain at any given time. It might be something going on with work (think Sherri Shepherd wanting to deny maternity to her surrogate born child). Or it might be something funny going on with the boys. Or, as you have seen, it could very well be about my journey so far. Where I have been and where I hope to go from here.

I readily admit, I am doing this mostly for me. I needed to write again. More than just an extended Facebook status update. More than just a letter to an editor or comment on a news article. I needed to write. So, selfishly, this blog is about giving me an outlet. And preserving my sense of purpose. As well as my sanity. However, I want you to take this journey with me. I hope that sometimes what I write will resonate with you. I hope you will give me your feedback and tell me what you like and don’t like. I hope to make you laugh sometimes. I hope we can laugh together. And cry together. Feel and be together.

So, what’s a mamalawmadingdong?

A mother. A lawyer. A wife. Scattered. Scheduled. Routinely 5-10 minutes behind schedule. Confident. Full of self doubt. Prone to dropping the F bomb. Often when she really shouldn’t. But trying to do her best at this crazy thing called life.

In other words, me.
You can also find Mamalawdingdong on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/mamalawmadingdong