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.