My trials and my blessings

I am always asked about my history, my history of trying to have children. I have three biological children so many people don't realize my trials or don't empathize  with me so I usually don't seriously talk about it. I usually joke around about it and brush it off even though I am really hurting inside. And then I make myself really busy so I don't have as much time to think about my trials.  It's just my way of doing things. Almost a year and a half ago I did my final grieving about this subject.  No one really knew, I waited until Jeremy would be at work and my kids were either at school or busy playing. I did it alone but that is what I wanted. I didn't want to shout it to the world.  I wanted to quietly sit in my room listening to music, reading different materials and just crying and letting it all out. I was at a point in my life I needed to make an important decision. I will come back to this decision later and will start from the very beginning of my story. This will be a shorter version and I will have to leave out some important parts but for the sake of the length of this post I need to. 

When I was a teenager I would have horrible periods. But of course at that time in your life everyone thinks they have horrible periods. They didn't start getting really bad until I was around 15. I was really active so I would get lucky some months and not have a menstrual cycle. Those were my favorite months:) Then I had just turned 19 when I married Jeremy. I got on birth control (Yasmin) only because that's what you do right? I took it for about four months and then I couldn't handle the side affects any longer. It made my hair fall out, I had migraines, it made me nauseous and just flat out not myself. 

My periods started getting even more painful and it started effecting my work schedules. I would have to stay at home at the beginning of my period, luckily I was never fired. When I made it to work I would try to tough it out a lot but if I waited too long to go home my legs would actually become numb because the pain was so bad. Most of my friends would laugh at me and tell me I should never have kids because I couldn't handle pain. It hurt my feelings but I just let it roll off. I actually started to believe them. I thought everyone had periods where they can't walk and they just roll around on the floor moaning in pain. I started having pains that were happening at times I wasn't on my period and they just got worse. I was so swollen and bloated all the time and it would hurt to even walk.  I had so much pain in what felt like my ovaries. 

Since the time I stopped taking birth control Jeremy and I weren't really preventing anything from happening. Having intercourse killed me. I would just scream and cry and do my best to get through it. It was horrible. I really wanted a baby. But it just wasn't happening. I tried not to stress too much about it and just tried to rejoice when people around me got pregnant. But one person very close to me got pregnant. That was a hard time... I felt like I was doing everything in my power. I would ask my husband if maybe God could be punishing me for mistakes I made in life. I thought maybe I wasn't getting pregnant because I wasn't worthy enough. All sorts of thoughts go through your mind when you are facing fertility issues. 

The pain continued, people continued telling me it was in my head and I somewhat believed them. 

Finally I had enough, my pain was unbearable and so I decided to see my OB. I was so scared for her to do an exam because I knew how bad it would hurt. She asked me if I had ever been sexually abused because of how bad I was freaking out. I had already self diagnosed myself with endometriosis. It was seriously the only thing I could think of because I knew at this point that what I was going through could not be normal. Of course she said it could be endometriosis but the only way to actually find out would be to do a laparoscopy. At this time I was like no way I will just deal with it. But then my urine sample came back with blood and protein in it and so this started a whole new journey I would go on for over a year. I have never done so much blood work and urine samples in my life. They ended up doing a biopsy of my kidney and it was healthy but they couldn't figure out why I still had protein and blood in my urine. 

I finally got pregnant!!! Four years into our marriage it finally happened. And once it happened I was so sick!!! 24 hours a day and it lasted for seven months (the worst part of it lasted around five months) with my first. I was a high risk pregnancy because of my kidney issues and so I was lucky, I got to do more urine samples and bloodwork.  I couldn't keep any food or water down. Of course I just thought this was normal. I would try to tough it out I had to get IV therapy a few times. I should've got IV's more but I felt like the biggest wuss. People are pregnant everyday right? I thought why can't I handle this? I would cry everyday when I woke up and it wasn't the day that the sickness would end. People told me I would forget about this and would want more kids... I thought they were crazy! (I never forgot!....but I did want more kids)

A few months after having Savannah the pain started back and in full force. I just did my best to not let it affect me. I actually got used to living in pain. The days where I wasn't in pain it was so weird. Then one night I dropped to the ground screaming and Jeremy didn't know what to do. I told him I needed to go to the ER and I remember him asking if it was just gas...I think that was the only moment in my life that I really wanted to kill someone. Did my husband really ask me if it was just gas? We see a doctor and they did some unpleasant vaginal ultrasounds and found out I had a cyst that had erupted. That was literally the most painful thing I have ever experienced.  We all have cyst and that's ok but when they fill up with blood it is called an endometrioma. And they hurt really bad when they burst. Anyways, I needed to see my OB and he set me up to see someone that could do my surgery for my endometriosis. 

I had my laparoscopy and not only was my endometriosis a stage four but it had grown and blocked one of my tubes and then my other tube was actually blocked from a birth defect. I also had some intestenial defects that he worked on. A buy one get one free deal:) 

So Savannah was truly a miracle baby! My doctor talked to me about if I wanted more children or not. I told him yes but I wasn't actually ready quite yet. He told me if I wanted to get pregnant I would want to try right after my surgery. We were instructed to have intercourse every other day so we didn't miss our opportunity. My doctor said for the first three months after my surgery I had about a 60% chance of getting pregnant and then after three months it went down to 30-40% and then the longer I wait the lower my chance is. That extremely stressed me out because I felt like I had to get pregnant within the first three months. I wasn't pregnant and it was one week before it had been three months so my doctor decided that we should make an appointment with an in vitro specialists. I did not want to do in vitro but I kinda felt like this was my only choice. I decided to give it my all until that appointment. I ended up getting pregnant within the last few days of my three months! I was so excited and I was so excited thinking this would be my second pregnancy and I had been told every pregnancy is different.  So I thought there is no way I would be that sick again. Well I was wrong! I did IV therapy again. And I just constantly threw up. I googled everything I could find and tried everything to help with the nauseousness. And just waited until that day I would wake up and feel better. My sickness only lasted 5 1/2 this time. I had a little boy named Breckin. He was perfect. 

After he was born I thought I would give birth control a chance again. I tried four different ones and they made me so sick I just couldn't convince myself to take it.  I figured my chances of getting pregnant were slim so I didn't worry too much about it. 

One day I woke up with the flu and I still had it two weeks later... (Not really the flu)

Breckin was about seven months old when I realized I was pregnant. The sickness was the worst out of all my pregnancies. I didn't even think that was possible.  I vomited so much my body had nothing left in me but it still went through the motions. I was literally foaming at the mouth and would throw up blood. It was horrible. I went in to get IV therapy and they wanted me back in there every couple days to switch out the IV's. Well my veins started collapsing and rejecting the IV's. So they ended up putting a picc line in. I felt like I mentally and physically could not make it through another horrible pregnancy. I literally wanted to die! I won't go into every detail but let's just say I was deathly sick! I was diagnosed with Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) and I realized ok I'm not a wuss... Every pregnancy people would talk to me and say I know how you feel morning sickness is horrible. I literally wanted to go off on them and I have to be real honest for a second I wanted to do much worse than that to them:) but I would just smile and say yes morning sickness is horrible. Each pregnancy I would actually go through a month or so that I couldn't even talk to my husband because every time I moved my mouth I would vomit.

 

During my pregnancies I can't take care of my children. Which with my first pregnancy I didn't have to worry about that and then when I was pregnant with Breckin, Savannah was almost three so I literally would sit out boxes of cereal and crackers and a sippy cup on the floor and put on the tv and she literally took care of herself. But Breckin was only seven months old when I got pregnant with Ella. So my mom would come over at 6:00 am and stay until around 6:00 or 7:00 pm and then Jeremy would take care of the kids. This lasted for 6 1/2 months. 

During this time I literally hated God. I know it sounds horrible but when you have to depend on everyone else and can't take care of your babies you feel horrible. I couldn't understand why it was so hard to get pregnant with my first two and then boom here is my third. I was so upset with him! 

Once Ella was born I realized that he sent me a blessing. He knew that the next few years my endometriosis would get worse and I realized it's not on my time it's on his timing. She needed to come to our family. 

The next year would be trying for me because Breckin literally hated me. He would scream when anyone left him with me. I was dealing with a newborn and trying to deal with a toddler throwing his limbs everywhere when Jeremy would go to work. I would sit at home and cry because my son didn't like me. Luckily he outgrew that and loved me again. 

My pain of course came back after Ella (the pain from endometriosis goes away when you are pregnant) and it got really bad. It started ruling my life again. You just learn how to deal with it on a daily basis but it doesn't mean you are happy about it. My menstual cycles got really heavy and was so painful. I knew I needed to go see my doctor again but I knew it was going to be that appointment that I needed to decide to keep doing laparoscopies or to have a hysterectomy. I did not want to ever go through being pregnant again but I also was having a hard time saying take everything out. So that's when I did some personal soul searching and took time to grieve. In January of 2015 Jeremy and I went to the temple and knew this was the right time to start the adoption process. Well 2015 was full of travels and events and life just got crazy. But traveling with the periods I was having was emotionally  and physically exhausting. I dealt with a lot of stuggles in 2015 and finally made my appointment I was dreading with my OB in October. We decided that the best thing to do would be to take out my uterus and my tubes but leave my ovaries until a later time. I went to the temple once I had made my decision and was scheduled for surgery on December 15th. I did not expect what was going to happen next. 

I told them of my allergy to medical adhesive and they said they would use glue. 

I came home after my hysterectomy and was so itchy... I was trying to not take any of my pain killers because when I have surgery I have a hard time going to the bathroom if I'm on pain killers. My doctor was out of town during this so I was communicating with a nurse at his office. She didn't realize how bad it was and I actually ended up having Jeremy take me to the Instacare because I couldn't handle it anymore. 

At my two week check up my doctor felt horrible for the rash and said he had never seen anything like this. He ended up sending my pictures to corporate because he doesn't like the prep they make him use. Which is what I'm allergic to. He said it actually burned my body. 

Anyways we are currently working on our paperwork for adoption. We couldn't be more excited to grow our family.  When I am pregnant I used to struggle with this because I never bonded with the baby inside of me. I thought something was wrong with me. But after three pregnancies I realized why I don't bond during pregnancies. Because Heavenly Father had given me the ability to not need to carry a child to be able to love him or her. I have always felt like adoption was a beautiful thing and now it is what will grow our family.