Sometimes you really shouldn't just say whatever comes to mind...

I saw the most absurd post on Facebook today. It is from a young woman who has two children. Let’s just say for all of us who want to be moms so desperately that we put ourselves through surgeries and treatments that are no fun in anyway and cost a ton of money, you get upset seeing the posts. It went something like this, “I love not being pregnant. I can pee whenever I please, get really drunk, and I can sleep on my tummy! Yay for no babies!”

Really? Is there a dislike button for facebook? Could you imagine if people could mark dislike, and what her reaction to it would be? This is what I deal with on a daily basis. You turn on the news a couple is being arrested for giving their 5 year old cocaine. Go on Facebook, and my friend is happy to not be pregnant because she can get really drunk (and be responsible for 2 babies under the age of 2). Yet here I am as bitter party of 1 because I would give anything to be the mom to just one baby.

Her words are no different than those of my students. A student saying to me I don’t have kids so it means I hate kids to me is similar to what this young woman posted on Facebook. This generation children we are raising really do not understand that you need to really think about the words spoken. Facebook has created an environment in which it is ok to say whatever you want whenever you want. I am all for speaking your mind, but you truly have to think how the spirit of your words are taken, and take into consideration who is seeing or hearing them.

So while I am glad that you are doing everything you can to not get pregnant again, and I applaud you for that, please keep in mind that some of us are, and it may not be taken well by those of us who struggle with the grief of either losing children before they were born, or never even having the chance to even love a child as your own.

To hell and back, that last few months...

Yesterday was an amazing day for me. I tried on pants I haven’t put on in about 2 years. I literally gained 70 lbs plus in three years. I have written many times about being broken physically and mentally. These last two years have been full of incredible heartache, so much so that writing even became too much. Every time I sat down to write something for the blog I would just cry and cry.

There is a point in which hope seems pointless. That things don’t seem like they will change. You are stuck in the same cycle over and over. While there are still days like that, my days seem to have gotten brighter. The overwhelming feeling of being helpless seems to go away little by little. As I tell people my story of a disease that no one even the Dr’s don’t really understand, to our struggle with having children, I keep getting told you should write a book.  Maybe one day I will turn my blog posts into books, but right now blogs seem to be enough.

In June I had gastric bypass. It was not an easy decision. If you had asked me a year ago, I was adamant that in no way would I do that. It was an easy way out, that I could just lose the weight on my own. As my Intracranial Hypertension and PCOS progressed to severity that my body could no longer handle, the hardly eating because of nausea and exhaustion was making me gain weight. Nothing, no matter how good I ate, I gained. On top of that I was dealing with a body that could no longer exercise that getting out of bed was a struggle, and I barely made it through the school year. In the last year, I have had 3 major surgeries. A brain surgery, back and spinal surgery, and my stomach.

Let me tell you bypass is no easy thing, but I am so glad that I made that decision. I am now 80 lbs lighter, and I have a new lease on life. My body is working normal again. There is hope. Seeing other pregnant woman, having friends and family making pregnancy announcements, anything pregnancy is still incredibly hard to deal with. I have had to find other avenues to deal with my emptiness that I feel. I now sell Origami Owl to help pay medical bills, and I coordinate Foreign Exchange students, as well as taking classes to be a Child welfare and Attendance Counselor. We have invited a young man for Taiwan into our home to be our son for the school year. I at least get to play mom for a little bit.

I pray and hope that one day I will get to know what it is like. I am now taking each day one day at a time, and using the strength God has given me to not blow up at that child who says I must hate kids because I don’t have any of my own. She is so young that she doesn’t truly understand the heartbreak I feel in my heart. I have gotten so good at putting on a façade. No one knows how much pain I am in physically or mentally. I hide the tears that want to spill out every time I hear an announcement or walk into the bathroom and over hear a pregnancy conversation. I hide the bitterness when I hear someone complain. I hide the snide comment I want to make when someone says I understand how you feel, or they know someone who has the same issue. No you don’t really understand, because unless you have been in my shoes, you can never understand how I feel, and the fake sympathy just makes me feel worse, but I know that they don’t know what else to say. Instead I go home and cry into my husband’s shoulders because yes he truly understands.

With all of this has become a feeling of inadequacy.  I can’t give him the one thing we both truly want. That my body and what it does is out of my hands, and that having a rare brain disease with no cure, and a medical condition that the medical community only recognizes enough to give you birth control but not cover the meds you actually need, is frustrating beyond belief. Why me? Why does the crack head get to keep popping out babies while I cry, pray, hope that one I get have just one of my own.  What I would give for a we weren’t planning it moment.

Through all of this though, there is one thing I have discovered. I have discovered not only how strong I am, but I have learned compassion for others. It was there, but not in the way it is now. I see that every one has there struggles, and what may seem like a small problem to me, I understand that for that person it can be a life and death struggle. The one thing I have told my family is that I hate that my Intracranial Hypertension is treated like something minimal. That it is nothing. It isn’t cancer. That it isn’t that big of a deal. Many people close to me have been guilty for this. For calling me a baby, for saying that I need to just deal with it. That it isn’t a life or death struggle like cancer. For me cancer seems almost better. The Drs know what to do with it. With my disease it is a shot in the dark. The shunt may or may not work. Just take these heavy-duty pain pills and live with it. Yes, you are going blind but it is just headaches. We truly don’t know how someone is suffering until we walk a day in his or her shoes. I am dealing, and I am so grateful that I get to go back to almost normal, that I have my life back, that I can do almost all of what I did before, because not everyone has been as lucky or blessed as me.

So in June I went into the hospital a very broken person. I came out a stronger woman. I survived 24 hours from hell in which I couldn’t get out of bed because just moving made me dry heave. I had nurses and Dr’s yelling at me to get out bed and walk within a couple of hours, but just a trip to the bathroom was enough to have me dry heave for 10 minutes. So when they realized that they couldn’t give me enough nausea meds and that sleeping was better than me being up, I was left alone.

Here I am 81 lbs lighter, and yesterday I decided to pull out old pants just to see if they would fit. They weren’t plus size. They were normal size bought in a store when I could just walk in a store and fit in clothes. They FIT!!! I was so excited. I felt sexy, I felt normal. We decided to take our “son” shopping (his favorite activity) and my husband said I could spend some money on clothes because he realizes that I just need new ones. So the first few stores I walked into, I looked around didn’t really see anything, and was truly nervous if I would even be able to fit. No one gave me that odd look like why are you in here, you won’t fit in anything. Instead there were inviting offered to help me. I finally worked up the courage to try on a few things. I cried, or almost did; I really do hate public crying. The 16 with no W after it fit. That hasn’t happen in a long time, a very long time. I thought maybe it is just the outfit, nope. The next item fit. The XL shirt fit, that is an XL not the XXL. It fit. So of course I had to buy a few. Now the 16 is a tight 16, but in a week or two it will be just right.

Now we are waiting on finding out am I or aren’t I. We are in that dreaded two week wait. I have all the glorious symptoms. See two years ago I was miserable with those sore boobs, you know all those PMS things. Well now I welcome the hormonal migraine, the sore boobs, the cramping, the moodiness because it means only one thing. My body is working, and I am back to almost normal cycles, although I was never truly normal.

In the meantime I have host mom duties, a jewelry business, teaching, graduate schooling, church activities, and lots of fall things to do that it seems the time is flying by fast. I truly can’t wait to see what God has planned for us, I just feel that we are on the other side and nothing but good is going to happen. In the meantime, I need to read up on how to deal with a teenager.

God is good...especially in dark times.

It has been an interesting last few weeks. Literally almost everyone I know is expecting a baby before the end of the year. Cried an hour over it. I am good now, but you never would have thought it would be so difficult.

Then last week I decided that I really like crocheting, it gives me something to do, and maybe I can make a little extra money at it, so I started crocheting things that are baby. So weird I know, but hey, I have a lot of babies to get gifts for in the next months.

I met with the Dr about bariatric surgery, and now I will be taking my next steps in having that surgery. A year ago, I absolutely refused, now, I feel like it is the absolute right decision. It is the best decision that I can make at the moment, and I feel like this is the next step in getting pregnant, and that I could do that without the use of fertility drugs.

Since becoming sick, I have realized that I was on so many medications that I really believe that it was making things worse. With this surgery, I hope to get off at least 1 if not 2 medicines. That it will keep my shunt working for a long time, and that I can get pregnant easily and hopefully in the next year or so.

In all of this, I have come to love my husband even more than I ever had before. He has been my rock, he takes care of me, and he is supportive no matter what I look like, feel like, or choose to do. God truly blessed me with a man that is the epitome of what a Christian Man should be.

This last week I also ran into one of my best friends from High School. It was amazing, and can’t wait to get together and catch up on what we have been up to in the over 10 years we haven’t seen each other.

So while there has been some dark times in the last few weeks, there have been many more blessings that have made it even more better, and really what can be better than spring break. 3 days of work, then I get to destress for a whole week, and come back to 6 weeks left in the school year.

It is spring, and I feel lots of changes are on the horizon, and it is the time of year to remember the man who made a sacrifice for us all. God is good.

God's approval...

Something has been bothering. On one of the support pages I posted about something that was bothering me. I vented. Along with the vent was a post about my plans to help my fertility. Apparently the idea of having a gastric bypass to help with my pcos is not one that many feel should be an option for me.

In that conversation I had with those people, it became evident that we are all so stuck in our need to become mothers that sometimes we forget that everyone needs to make the best choices for themselves, and that one option is not right one for everyone. I received a backlash of judgement from ladies who should have been my support. I wasn’t asking for advice, I was asking for support in my decisions and my struggles in trying to not become a bitter person and trying to be happy for all who have what I so glaringly don’t have my life. My 12 and 13 year old students ask innocently about any children I have, and then why I don’t have any yet. To them it is a given, they don’t yet know the struggle some of them or their friends and family will have, yet these women were those same children at one point.

How is it that we go from the innocence of childhood to tearing each other apart as adults? I am starting to see it younger and younger in the schools as well. We are too quick to pass judgement on someone, and I will be the first to admit that I do that as well. Instead of walking away from that conversation with an uplifted heart, I walked away with doubt and shame for a choice that I made. That somehow I was giving up too soon on medicine, and that I should just wait a little longer. Give it a chance.

It was then I realized that we all have different stories of how we have become who we are. I struggle with health and fertility issues which has put a financial strain on us. My struggle aren’t necessarily that of others. As I interact more with support groups on Facebook, I have realized that we too often tear down those that have a success story or those who are choosing a different method. We as humans seem to naturally want others to be as miserable as we are, to feel that pain we are feeling. We can’t let that define us. If anything that my IIH has taught me is that we can’t let our pain and problems define who we are. Yes I don’t do the same things I have been able to do in my past, but that doesn’t define me as a person, and I certainly can’t be ashamed of the decisions I make from this point on or have made in the past.

God has called us to love one another. He didn’t say judge each other. He also didn’t say only love the person if they do certain things. What he calls us to do as humans is to recognize our faults, and recognize and forgive it in our selves and others. We shouldn’t be saying harsh words to each other, and we definitely shouldn’t call it a support group if we are going to do nothing but tear each other down. That isn’t support.

With all of that being said, something was posted on Facebook that really bothered me. We too often as Christians tell women that a child is God’s blessing, or in the words of a friend yesterday, God’s approval on you and your husband. While these words are said with good intentions behind them, it is something that has bothered me. For someone who knew it would be a struggle to conceive (didn’t realize that it would be this much of a struggle) I struggle with the idea that it is God’s plan. Is it God’s plan that I was in pain for 16 months, that my husband and I would have thousands in medical bills for something that wasn’t even fertility related, and yet keeps us from being able to try for fertility treatments for the sheer reason that taking 10,000 out in loans for a treatment that has a 20% guarantee of working? I just don’t see how any of struggle in the last year has been God’s plan, and then to be told that it is all his plan with so much suffering that I have gone through. It just cuts you to the core. What could you possibly have done to deserve so much bad in one’s life? That is what it feels like every time I hear God’s Plan.

Nothing will take away the pain of not being able to get pregnant. That is a failure that is something that you just work through, with the hope that some day it will be a possibility. So when I read that it was God’s approval on someone to get pregnant, I lost it. That sentence passed judgement on all the rest of us who struggle. It isn’t a bible verse, it isn’t even true. Because if it was, then why do women who use and abuse their bodies get pregnant. Why do parents who abuse their children were able to become parents? There is something inherently wrong with the statement that children are god’s approval.

I then find myself thinking that she meant well, she has never truly understood what fertility struggles are. That I pass it off as she doesn’t know any better. This goes for anyone who posts a complaint about a little nausea, or that the ultrasound has to be done again and it is an inconvenience because you are uncomfortable while doing it, or that you are tired just a little more than usual. All of these things I would give anything to feel in a heartbeat. And that is where I become bitter, and I can’t let this feeling take over. I can’t let it define me. It is yet another thing that I have overcome, and with the strength God has given me, and used my situations to develop me I can. See that is where God comes in all of this. It is these situations that happen to us that God uses to help us to become better people, and find and discover ourselves in new ways.

I can do anything through him. I am going to try to be more uplifting to those around me. Not to let the negativity suck me in, and truly realize my strength in these very tough times for me.

gastric bypass or not to bypass?

I have wrote this post, and then decided not to post it because it just didn’t felt right, and then have restarted so many times. There are so many feelings and thoughts going through my head at the moment, and it is hard to put it into words in my post.

Facebook has been a barrage of pregnancy announcements. Some I am over the roof for, others just make me feel worse, and in some ways I have started to pity myself. I know that I am on the road to better things. I feel amazing, and haven’t felt this way in a long time. I am bogged down with 3 weeks of work that had to be graded in 5 days to do report cards, so a lot of stress involved. I only really started to get exhausted this week today. Usually tuesday was the first day in the week I could barely get out of bed to go to work. Pain is a non factor at this point, but the whole shooting pains in my hooha from the tubing is killer every once in a while (and something they don’t mention to you). When you feel hopeless, like things aren’t going to happen like you want and have dreamed and hoped for your whole life, it is hard to get out of that dark place.

Infertility is truly a grieving process. One in which you think you have made it through and then you are pulled back into those dark depths again. So here I am, watching everyone have their happy moments from a far. This isn’t to say that I am not happy with my current life, but there is just that something missing. My husband tells me all the time, he loves me no matter what. That is comforting, but still just that something that is missing.

So with all of that in mind, I went to an information meeting on bariatric surgery. Up until a month ago I would never have considered it. It wasn’t for me, but my Dr said something that made me really think, and then look up the research. She was of the same mind as me, she said no way am I going to let you do that. I had 3 Dr’s saying no bariatric surgery wasn’t the answer, 3 that did. Finally all agreed to eye-sight saving surgery to place a shunt with me willing to talk to a Dr about bariatric surgery. I said yes just so the Dr would do the surgery. All he said was I had to consider it, I did, and was dead set against it. Then Dr S said that she has been researching on how to help my fertility issues without needing drugs and Dr’s I couldn’t afford and insurance wouldn’t cover. What could we do to get my body to work right again. Losing weight is one, but with my thyroid and pituitary not working right due to the pressure in my brain, and PCOS, losing weight was a losing battle. I was already not really able to eat due to the nausea caused by headaches and the bad eyesight.

I feel like I am on an endless cycle of some eating disorder I can’t kick. I go from hardly eating for a few days to being so hungry I eat everything in sight. It has been a struggle, and one in which 15 lbs up and down is my story. So here I am talking with her about what she has researched and she says I think we should consider bariatric surgery. Dr S is the one Dr I trust. She knows me, she has been there every step of my adult life that I have struggled through. She is another mom to me. She listens, takes her time, and gets excited at all the successes in my life. She worries when I am too sick to get through daily life. She is the best Dr anyone can have. So when Dr S says bariatric surgery will reverse the PCOS at least long enough to get me pregnant. So I ran home did my research, and sure enough it does. That it is a procedure they use to treat PCOS. No one, not even the RE mentioned this to me before. Had they, maybe I would have done this last summer, but I can’t do the what ifs, that is another dark path.

So monday, my husband and I head out to Ventura to meet with the Dr. Have In-n-Out on the way (I know, fast food on the way to talk about bariatric surgery). Dr. B was funny, kept it light, and was extremely informative. I walked away with hope. With the idea that in June, I will have the surgery, and by this time next year or by June, I could be pregnant, or preparing to do so, and that my body will work right. Hope is amazing, it makes the world brighter, and makes it easy to get through anything. I had lost it. I had been wondering why me? Why do I have to deal with all of this?

What I am learning? Nothing happens when I want it to happen. I thought I would get married right out of college, didn’t find my soulmate until I was 30, when I had figured I would have already had my complete family by. So it makes sense that having kids is taking a little longer as well.

So in the meantime, I am going to enjoy life. Get that grading done, and really enjoy that I am getting my life back from the clutches of IIH. Can’t wait to see what is in store for the future.

LP shunt update

It has been a crazy, and life changing few weeks. I had the shunt placed, my head pain, and majority of Intracranial Hypertension symptoms have gone away. I have now gone back to work, and am so exhausted from the first few days, but not like before. I don’t get dizzy by the end of the day, my vision is almost normal, and while I have pain from the tubing as it settles in, the pain I had before is gone. I feel different, and it is a good different.

There is something I have been thinking about. This disease as well as PCOS has taken my ability to have children, has wreaked it’s havoc on my body, and caused me to gain so much weight that I am at a point in which maybe watching what I eat and or following a program isn’t working. I had a discussion with my GP, and she mentioned that she has changed her mind on gastric bypass. She believes from the research she has looked at that by going through gastric bypass I would be able to get pregnant. I questioned her on it, did my own research, and sure enough they have done studies on it, and it is looking like it is affecting PCOS women by reversing the hormonal imbalance and 18 months after, women are able to get pregnant. Is that my ideal age to have my first child? No, it isn’t. In the meantime, we are going to foster adopt.

In reality, one pregnancy will be enough for me. I am ok with that. I want at least two children, and through foster adopting we can have that and we can help much children who need someone positive in their lives. I can’t wait to jump into that.

Am I making the right decision on the gastric bypass? Only time will tell, and maybe going to the information meeting will make me realize it isn’t the right decision. What I do know is that IVF is out for us unless we come across major amounts of money, and any other fertility treatments since insurances right now won’t cover those.

I will also say, I have the best husband in the world. He has been there every step of the way. There was some complaining, but he has made sure that I was comfortable and well taken care of while recovering, and I truly wouldn’t have gotten through this without him. God gave him to me at just the right time. Now it is time for some good to come. Our first two years we were dealt with incredibly difficult health issues for me, so it should all be up from here.

One day at a time....

That one time when you read the church bulletin announcing a baby shower for someone you didn’t know was pregnant, and you felt a swift kick to your gut because you aren’t. Yeah, that was me yesterday. I also felt okay to say that I am not going, I can’t handle it.

I read somewhere that it is ok to say no, I won’t be there. It is ok to just send a present. Why put myself through that? I really am the biggest supporter of baby showers for anyone no matter their situation, but right now the hurt of why not me is just too much. It seems just when you feel you have gotten past all the tears and hurt, and you are to the numbness point grief something else just makes it all come rushing back.

Truly I am just tired. I am tired of fighting chronic pain (my back has been in killer pain since last wednesday). I think the pain is finally going away, and then my head starts to hurt, and then my back starts hurting and the head stops. This headache is traveling up and down my back and head. Tylenol and Advil barely cut it. So here I am counting the days until my shunt surgery, taking my metformin religiously, and thinking 18 more days and we get to think about a future filled with kids. We get to go back to that dream that has been on hold for a year. A very trying year in which our finances have become shotty because we have a ton of medical bills to pay for, two surgeries in three months, specialists, and lots of tests. Most not fertility related, but all of it affecting that fertility.

The reality is, I will have this shunt placed, and when I get pregnant, notice I said when because I truly believe it is going to happen (I have to have hope), I will have to have a csection with general anthestic because I won’t be able to have an epidural. This shunt may save my vision, but will only make for a more complicated pregnancy and delivery.

With that said, I have looked at the number on the scale. To me it is too little weight lost. Like I am not losing it fast enough, I could probably thank Biggest Loser for that one seeing as since I have started watching it I think my measly few pounds a week seem so small, when really that is a huge win for me. I haven’t been losing. I have been keeping on track with calorie intake and it was going no where. Put on metformin, and my body just feels different now. No more shakes when going too long without food. While I still have no energy (that is my IIH to thank for), I feel that I am processing the food better. So when last Friday I was only down 9.1 lbs, I did feel a little down. I then did the math. If I kept that up for every month I would be down 108 lbs by the end of the year. I am not perfect. I don’t track Saturdays, didn’t track yesterday because really it was Superbowl Sunday and well, I was just lazy. So while I am not perfect every day, I am good 80% of the time. Being down 108 by the end of the year, I am ok with that. So while the 9 seemed like a small number by itself, multiplied of 12 months it is a big number.

Besides I am thinking about Gastric Bypass. My GP mentioned she has done some research and she may be able to trick my body into doing what it needs to, to get pregnant with this. So maybe this summer it will happen, maybe it won’t, but I am a fighter and I will get this accomplished some way, some how.

In the meantime, I am going to sing "Broken hallelujah" at the top of my lungs each morning. If you haven't heard it by Mandisa, I highly suggest you listen. Very powerful words.