I think often about the choices I have made up to this point and I wonder even more often if they have all been the best ones. I know each one leads us down a path that leads us either to better and happier choices or to harder and not so happy choices. The choices made here have now come full circles.
It all started when I was a child. I grew like all kids, I hit puberty a little early but not much and then I had a love hate relationship with the cycles that came each month. Some were normal and some not so normal. Mom told me one day to start keeping track of my cycles. something she had learned in some class or something and handed me a chart. I faithfully followed that and noticed that some months I had more then one cycle and some times I would randomly spot. Words were not often spoken on this subject in my home and being an only girl I really had no one to compare to besides mom and mom had a hysterectomy when she was in her early 30's so she was done with the entire process when I was really just getting into it. So this became my norm. Then one day in health class we were talking about infertility and how 1 in 6 people would have problems. Then my teacher did a count off and when it got to me that I would have a problem I had a feeling come over me confessing it was true. I was young and didn't think any more on the matter.
Then I grew and was about to get married. I went to the Dr. for my pre wedding check up and found out that my vagina was too small and I would need a surgery to make it large enough to have relationships with my soon to be husband. freak out moment. Good thing my dad and my soon to be husband were both priesthood holders and after seeking a blessing I went home to Washington to seek a second opinion and schedule a surgery. Low and behold I was find. Perfectly normal and they didn't know what the other Dr. was talking about. :) Good thing I have Heavenly Father on my side right! Anyway we were married and life as a couple Begin. Guess what IT wasn't my favorite thing to do and in fact IT hurt so much I never really wanted to do IT. My poor husband had to come to the conclusion that the honeymoon phase of marriage was over not to long after we were married. I felt horrible and didn't know what to do.
I seemed to be sick or in some kind of pain all the time. Our first apartment had a flight of stairs to get to it. I was in so much pain it hurt my breast to even walk. I had to take the stairs sideways as slowly as I could while pressing my arms into by chest just to try and ease the pain enough to get outside. So much fun. This passed and lead to sharp pains in my ovaries. Still Young and dumb I thought this was normal and didn't really question it to anyone but I started worrying about what was going on. I knew that 2 of my mom's sisters had infertility problems and so one day I called them and we talked for a long time of what I was going through and feeling they came to the conclusion that I was having similar symptoms to them. We moved to Utah and I went to see the Dr. by now we had been married a year and had not prevented at all. I grew up only wanting to be married and have a family.
I was so sad when we were pregnant and everyone including my parents were bugging us about having a baby. It wasn't for lack of trying on our part it just wasn't happening. I found out that I had pollycycstic ovarian syndrome. This is where you get cyst on your ovary's and can produce to much male hormone. I then turned to the Internet and researched it. I found out that tons of people of this and not one of them had the same symptoms. Not much to encourage a person really but I went on clomid to try and help my body produce enough hormone on its own for us to get pregnant. This medicine has a high risk of twins or triplets. I didn't care as long as I had a baby that was all that mattered. We also looked into foster care. Age comes to play here. I was barely 19 when we got married and had just turned 20 around this time. We were told that we had to foster troubled teens. I couldn't do it. 1 thing I just left my teens and another no teenager was going to listen to some young married person. So we gave up on that.
Oh I need to back up for a moment. We were living in Washington in the town Wenatchee. We had moved to Idaho Falls because we both really liked Idaho and it was close to family but not to close. Dan had been promised a job with his current place of business in Idaho so we went. When we got there the store didn't honor the promise and we were stuck. We had just moved and neither one of us had a job. 3 months later we moved to Utah to live with my parents while Dan started his job in Smithfield and so we could get caught up enough to move out on our own again. I had a few odd jobs along the way and one was to help prep and paint the old theater on main street in smithfield. I had never stopped tracking my cycles and hadn't had one in awhile. This was my new normal skip a month or two then have one and be regular for a bit then go back to always wondering. At the time I should have bought stock in pregnancy tests I was buying one almost every month. Anyway, I had finished what I could do at work inside and they asked me to start to scrap the brick off on the outside. The minute I squatted down to do this my uterus burst or so it seemed. I had never had so much blood on me at one time before. I went in told my boss I was sick called my aunt and walked to her house. She then took me to my mom's which was home at the time and I spent the week on the couch with the heaviest period I had ever had in my life. Every time I moved I had to go change all my clothes. I had to walk with everything squeezed together and hope that I made it to the bathroom with out to much of a mess. It was awful. In my mind I had miscarried. There was no way that I could be having this big of a mess without having a baby. No one seemed to believe me so I just kept it quiet.
The next cycle and for many after that I was afraid it was going to be just as awful and I had a very hard time with it. I was sick, had symptoms like I was pregnant and never was. We finally moved out on our own again still in Utah and had great jobs. Still had the desire though. I was obsessed. I had never wanted anything more then I wanted a baby. It was horrible. I would be happy excited one minute the next devastated that I wasn't pregnant. I resented people who were and couldn't find job in sharing with others who had kids. Mothers day was the worst holiday ever invented. I cried so much and was sick all the time. I really felt bad for Dan. We got a call from his Sisters in Oregon telling us to come here there were great jobs and we needed to come.
Dan applied for a job flew to Oregon for an interview and came home discouraged that he didn't get the job. We prayed about it. Thought about it and went to the temple about it. Then after leaving the temple one day I told my friend. , " I don't care if we sell everything we own we are going to Oregon" I came home told my dad the same thing. As soon as Dan came home from work I told him the same thing. That weekend we had everything up for sale and we moved to Oregon. We lived with his sister for a time until we found jobs and got established. Once we were on our own again I started having more problems. My insurance recommended a Dr. to me and that Dr. recommended a specialist . An endocrinologist who specialized in infertility. I went to see him . I was so impressed and so grateful. Here was a Dr. I knew was going to help us out. He asked what had been done. Ran his own tests and came to the same diagnose but with more information then we had previously known. He worked with us and helped us try many different things.
We had put in papers for adoption at this point and just had to pay the fees to get it going. We had taken a trip to California to see my Great Grandma for her 98th birthday. She was living with her son and my uncle and aunt at the time. We ventured on down to Arizona to see Dan's family and spend some time with them. All the while I hadn't had a cycle and was getting super excited that I might finally be pregnant. But no on our way back home we stopped in SanFanciso for a concert and I started. It was super heavy and I was devastated. I had hoped to share with Gram that she was going to have another great great grandchild making her posterity well over 200 members. I wanted to add to that so much. I guess it wasn't meant to be. 1 Month after we saw Gram she passed away and 1 month after that we were in Arizona for Christmas. I think some times the time line has all squished together. Anyway, While in Arizona seeing Dan's family I had not felt well. I was packing up the bags to leave and grabbed some chocolate for breakfast. Then I was thirsty and went and washed it down with a soda. BAD combination. I was sick! And we had to leave for the airport very shortly. Dan's mom always kept the 1/2 gallon box juice containers in the car in case someone was sick. Yep I used it on the way to his sisters house. I felt so bad. Then at his sisters I felt sick again. Man I was never eating chocolate and having soda for breakfast ever again. It was not fun at all. We got on the plane to come home and just for fun, I took a test. I didn't think I was I had just had a period and was feeling fine other the choc. incident. To my utter surprise it was positive. I couldn't believe it. I took another one and it was the same. I was ecstatic. Then I was really sick and wishing it would all just go away. 9 months later we welcomed our first child into our home.
Just before the our daughters first birthday I went back to see the wonderful Dr. who helped me with the first kid. We now had the right dose and the right meds. to work the magic charm. He put me on the meds again and 1 month later I was pregnant with our second child. It was so surreal both times. This magic combo was a diabetic combination of Metforim and Advandia. The two mixed together was enough to make me ovulate and be able to conceive. We discovered after years of working on this problem that I not only had pcos but i was innovatory and had to much insulin that was killing all the sperm before it could ever reach its potential. I also had spasms in my Fallopian tubes. I learned this the hard way.
Before we had our first I had a test called a hystercelpingogram. why the medical field has to use big words i don't know but this means that they put a dye into your system and watch where it goes. So they injected the dye into my reproductive system and put the monitor so I could watch. nothing happened. There was no tubes I couldn't believe it. I would NEVER BE A MOTHER!!!! The ultra sound Dr. that was doing the test didn't say anything but I know what I saw and I had to wait a week or so to be able to talk to the Dr. about it. How could this be possible. How could I not even have tubes for the egg to get fertilized an attach so we could have a baby. I cried so much. I mourned the loss of never being able to be a mom and never being able to have a baby. This probably should be up higher in the store but it falls here for a reason. I found out that all women's Fallopian tubes spasm. They take turns being open 1 will open then the other and they go back and forth like this constantly. Mine however do it at the same time. Making it even harder for the process to work. Yep its a fun ride so far. My emotions are out of control and I am not a fun person to be around.
Depression , plus emotions , plus hormone imbalance makes for a lot of really fate smiles. I was not a happy person and my poor husband just keep loving me and putting up with me and all i wanted was to be the wife he deserved.
So back to #2 yep it happened so fast. We were expecting our second child. I never thought we could be so lucky to have 2 . I really thought that our first would be our only one. I also knew then that if I had more it would be fast. I knew I had a very small window of opportunity in which we were allowed to have children.
Number 2 was here all is going well and I am baby hungry. It was not a good thing. Here I am with a brand new baby and all I can think about is having another one. I guess there was a reason because not to long after that with out any help we were pregnant again with #3. I was ecstatic and concerned how would we do 3 kids under 3 . it was such a crazy thing. like most people with pcos once you have had success your body will work again on its own. Well most of the time. Some women are lucky and never have problems again some have to have lots of help and some like me always have problems but are grateful for the surprise when they happen. baby #3 was here and doing great . We were planning a trip to see our family again and I didn't want to have to nurse along the way. I had done that once and it wasn't fun. So I tried everything I could to get the baby to take a bottle. He didn't want it. I then found out I was pregnant again.
This started a whirl wind of events. baby number 3 was weened cold turkey. While mom was miserable for a week. during that week also I stared to miscarry. I went to the Dr. every few days to check my progesterone levels and they weren't good. I was worried about how the 4th baby would be even closer then all the others and how I could handle this I was sad that I was loosing the baby and then it took a long time. I thought when you miss carried it was over instantly but no it took over a week before I finally had the baby and felt better. I was able to ween #3 and go on our trip. I was actually relieved and felt it was a huge blessing to not have that other child right then. but then the time came when I would have it #4 and I was sad. I wished I hadn't loss ed him/her. I wished that I could have the opportunity to have a baby again and begged and pleaded and longed for another one. 3 wasn't complete. I never wanted to stop at 3. How come I couldn't have another one. This went on for a long time. soon all my kids were starting school and life was progressing. \
My heart was still yearning for another child then one day i realized my baby was going to school. It had been 6 years. A pattern repeating or so I had hopped. It took 6 years to get our first and now it was 6 years again and still nothing. I went back to see the magic Dr. and tried the metformun again this time with out the Advandia and had no success. this lead to other problems longer and longer times with out a period. more days of spotting more pregnancy symptoms with out being pregnant more feeling sick and tired and much more getting back on my roller coaster. I discovered through research that I was in the stages of peri menopause.
I dealt with this for awhile then this year rolled around 2012 and the month of Jan. I bled more days then not. I went to the Dr. showed him my charts that I have faithfully kept and his assistant ran some tests. My uterus lining was huge. For all the bleeding I had been doing I hadn't even had a real period. I went on progesterone pills to make me have a period. 3 days into this I went back into to have my lining check out. It was still to big even though I was bleeding very heavily I hadn't shed enough of the lining. I was scheduled for a D&C later that afternoon. I came home got Dan sent the kids off to a friends and went back to the Dr. for a surgery procedure. They sent this to a pathologist to see if anything like endmetriosis had set in or anything else was going on. Nothing! it was all normal. so we talked.
I was giving 3 options. We could treat this with medication we could leave it alone and hope it all works out or we can take it all out. I was also told not that I was a high risk for uterine cancer but that I was a higher risk of getting it in the future. When I had heard that 3 times within a week I was worried. I knew that I needed to really pray. I had prayed for years about having another child and sometimes I felt that it was ok but mostly I felt we were done. I fought this so much . I didn't want to be done. I wanted a sister for K I didn't want her to be an only girl like me. I argued and cried and never accepted the peace of being done. I still wanted my 4th child to come back into our home. we have a setting for 6 at the table and when all the chair are filled its complete. when there not it feels like someone is missing. But I knew, I knew I had to pray and accept the answer that would come I knew that we were done. I then told the Dr. that I would take the operation option.
I had peace. I knew it was the right thing to do. I know it will eventually make me feel better but for now. I had 6 weeks to think about what I was doing and to prepare for the surgery. I thougth alot and cried alot and couldn't wrap my mind around that fact that I really was going to be done. During all this I thought too that I was just having my uterus removed. I went in for my pre op and the Dr. talked to me about all the things he would be doing and we both came to the conclusion to truly feel better that everything needed to come out. I was scheduled for a full hysterectomy on April 11, 2012.
Went to the hospital the next day to do all the prep work for the surgery and meet the anastegologis and find out his roll in putting me to sleep. I had 1 week it still seemed surreal at this point. I couldn't believe it. I realized I had come full circle. I had always wanted to be a mom and I have been blessed with 3 amazing kids. I couldn't be happier with this blessing in my life. I know that part of the reason we had to come to Oregon was so that I could meet my magic Dr. and We could have our kids. Heavenly Father really does know the desires of our hearts and puts us in the right places to make them happen. I am truly grateful for that. I am so blessed to have the 3 kids in my life and the many other kids that have been in my life and will be in my life.
Surgery went well I am recouping trying to mind my P's and Q's and pat my foot but i get antsy and feel good enough to do things . I do them and then get sick and have a set back. I know when I have done too much and try to push it sometimes but I also know that I am doing the best I can to heal and move on. I am truly at peace with the choices this path has taken us, my family and I. I am so grateful to Dan for being there for me along this path and picking me up every time I fell or hit a brick wall or just basically was an emotional wreck. He is such an amazing guy and Heavenly Father knew I would need Dan in my life. No other man would have put up with me for so long.
I count my blessing knowing that this was and still is a choice path to follow . I pray that it leads us all HOME!
And now you know the rest of the story. :)
