Thursday, May 5, 2011

Stuck Inbetween

* Disclaimer!!!
This blog is not geared towards any one in particular.  If you are going through these things yourself, or you aren't but you are trying to understand how a person going through them feels, please don't get offended!!

With Mother's Day approaching, I get a little anxious, sad, depressed and a whole other range of feelings that I can't even began to describe.  I'm feeling....um....stuck!!!

I am fast approaching the "BIG 3-0" and yet, I still feel like a teenager.  We are unable to have children!  Ok, that's out there in the open.  I am so tired of the looks I get from other people that are my age that are fortunate enough not to have had the problems I do and were able to become the most precious "M" word in the world, Mommy.  I have been waiting for that day for so long, and it still hasn't arrived yet.

I guess I'll start at the beginning.  That's as good a place to start as any.  I knew early in my teenage years something was wrong.  My body wasn't functioning right.  The doctor I was seeing at that time didn't investigate.  I remember when I was maybe 14 years old, crying at Vacation Bible School because I just knew I wasn't going to be a mom.  I got the "don't worry about that, you are still really young to even think about it" speech.  Finally, when I was 18 and having MAJOR female problems did the doctor finally do some test.  She got it wrong and the specialist she sent me to just went off what she was saying.  I was on Birth Control Pills from then until I turned 23.

I was having more problems about the time I turned 23, went in to see my doctor and told her I wanted to go to a specialist.  My insurance at the time required a referral from the Family Practice doctor.  She told me that she could solve the problems in her office, I didn't need a specialist. Fortunately, right after, the insurance changed, so I went to see the specialist I wanted without needing a referral.  When I first started seeing this doctor I remember exactly one of the questions he asked, "how where you diagnosed with PCOS?"  I told him through ultrasound and that the other specialist agreed. This new doctor (Dr. L.) did blood work.  I remember when it came back, him telling me that the FSH ratio would be 2:1 if I had PCOS and it had came back 1:1.  Dr. L. told me that he wanted to try a few different things but if they didn't work, I would need surgery.  I was terrified!!  I had had surgery before, but this was different!  Well, the initial treatments didn't work, so August 24, 2004, I went in for a D&C.

At this time, I was working at a different hospital and one of the ladies there that I had become friends with told me that I was having an abortion.  I wasn't even pregnant!!!  The D&C came back and I was diagnosed with "internal endometriosis" or what is known as adenomyosis.

OK, I'm going to go out on a tangent here.  I have been on progeterone, premarin, so many different birth control pills that I can't remember then name, fertility drugs and the like.  The birth control pills where not to keep me from getting pregnant, they were for my health (or so I was told, I think it hurt more than helped).  I have crazy mood swings, emotional break downs (if you couldn't tell), hot flashes and I'm not even old enough to go through menopause.

Getting back on track, June 2009, I started having really bad pain in my right side.  It started from where my right ovary is, went out in my side and then radiated from my ribs down into my leg just above the knee.  It felt like someone had stabbed me in the ovary and like I had a sunburn.  Matt took me to the emergency room as soon as we got off from work that morning.  I waited for four hours and was never seen!!  I was in so much pain, people from other departments would come in my room to check on me because they were passing and saw the condition I was in.  Even the security supervisor at the hospital was getting upset for me.  He could hear me writhing in pain and he was in a different room.  No one ever came in, even after Matt attempted to get someone to check on me several times.  We left the hospital.  They sent the youngest looking girl out to try to talking me into staying.  I'm not proud of this, but I cussed her out to where I thought we were going to be escorted from the property.

I was finally able to get in to see Dr. L. and he told me it sounded like endometriosis.  He suggested different therapies to try, but would give me some time to think about them.  After much prayer and thinking with my history and family medical history, I'd rather go ahead and have the surgery than to wait until it was to late and get my hand caught in the cookie jar.  September 22, 2009, I went in for a Laparoscopy and D&C.  Matt and Momma were told the results before I woke up from the anesthesia.  I have Stage 1 endometriosis.  I even got pictures!! LOL  Now, I am on progesterone for until.  Until what?  I don't know.  Until the Lord blesses us with a child, until it gets bad enough that I need a hysterectomy?  I don't know.

I think the next time I'm treated like I don't belong since I don't have any children, or told that being a stepmother should be enough, I'm going to try to calmly explain to them the pain I have been through.  As far as being a stepmother, I have no claim to this child.  This child is their father's and mother's child.  I have no say in what goes on in the child's life.  The only time I have any say in the child's life is what they eat when they visit or what time they go to bed while here.  Other than that, nothing!  I'm tired of people thinking this should be enough.  I'm also tired of people saying that maybe this is God's way of telling you to wait, or other things along those lines.

I guess I'm just tired of feeling like a teenager (for lack of a better description) in an adults body with all the adult responsiblities.  I'm tired of feeling like I don't belong due to medical issues.  These issues have plagued my life so, that if affects every single aspect of my life!!!

1 comment:

  1. Please know that I empathize with you, both medically and situationally, I think I always knew I would never birth a child, and was both relieved but anxious about that. But as I approach closer to 40, and the more I got around young moms and friends, the more lonely and sad I felt...I know what the pressure feels like, and it feels bad! So please just pray, give yourself a hug for me, and know that I am here for you anytime you need a shoulder to cry on, or a listening ear, or prayer. We are still praying about whether or not to adopt, it comes with its own set of challenges, and because of my weight and health, fertility help is out of the question, at least for now.

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