What is it about me?

Is it okay to feel selfish? I feel like no one really cared what I went through last year and will be facing this year. Someone asked me the other day if I had just 1 child, I said yes. I always feel like I have to explain why I have only 1 child. I don't want folks to think it was a personal choice thing. Especially when God told us to go forth, multiply and be plentiful. Anyway I answered her question and said that I had PCOS and that it took us 10 1/2 yrs to get him. She said "Oh!" and then started talking to the gal next to me, like what I said wasn't of any importance (side note the gal she ended up spending 10 or more minutes talking to was also discussing a health issue). I guess maybe to her it wasn't. But this is what I mean by folks not really seeming to listen or wanting to understand. Then there is the issue of others going through various forms of illnesses and getting lavished with attention, card showers and food being brought for their family to have meals for weeks so the person going through the illness wont have to cook. I went through 3 surgeries last year, a cancer treatment, my haired thinned out terribly, I worked hard to loose weight and tried to remain as stress free as possible, I was scared to death. No one gave me a card shower to bring up my spirits, no one cooked ( or brought) meals for my family, and some folks tended to add stress to my life. Why am I always the person who gets pushed aside, over looked and/or stepped on? I often wonder what it is about me that makes this occur so often in my life. I try so hard to be uplifting, understanding of what others are going through, put myself last, do for others and so forth. Sometimes it's just so hard to not think that no one cares! I guess I just am feeling so alone lately on this journey. Yes, I know I have God and my husband, but sometimes you just need something more I guess.
PLEASE NOTE: It's not that I don't care about the suffering(s) that others are going through. It truly breaks my heart to hear of anyone (friend or someone I don't even know) going through an illness or difficult situation, especially ones that are life changing or even in the worst case, life threatening. I tend to go out of my way to do what I can for them, being it something as simply praying for them or going above and beyond that. I don't like to see anyone suffer. I don't do those things to receive back their pity, help and/or so forth. I do it because I truly do care.

Watery Break Down

No, I am not together as I sound when it comes to this whole PCOS and desiring another baby thing. I know that God is ultimately in control, even if my hearts desire is different than His plans for me and my family. When asked what I want in regards to this issue, I always answer "God's Will". I really do want God's Will but I must admit my desires are still there. I want to control the outcome. I want, well, what I want. Yesterday, I had a very intense "talk" with God while in the shower. I had wrote HYSTERECTOMY on the shower door in the moisture. Just looking at the word, right there, in front of my face triggered so much frustration, anger, lack of self and hurt. Without thinking about it, I wrote in very large letters BABY. I started screaming and shouting that I didn't want to have to have a hysterectomy, that I wanted a baby. With so much anger, I wiped off the word hysterectomy. I kept saying over and over that I didn't want that, that all I wanted was another baby. Someone for Edward to have in his life after we were gone. I worry about him being alone, with no other family to share his memories with. I started crying, I felt like I was being punished (I often feel that way, I just don't usually share that feeling with others because most don't understand what it feels like not be able to have a baby without trying day in and day out to conceive one). I don't tend to share a lot of my "real feelings" about what I am going through because most folks tend to shut down and don't really care to hear what it's like to feel like half of a woman (or less). Sometimes I think God hasn't blessed us with another child because I am an awful mother, not worthy enough to mother more of his blessings. I started begging God for my hearts desire, a baby, there in the shower. Sometimes it's just very lonely and I guess all those unshared feelings build up until they have no other choice but to explode. Since I don't share, the only one I can explode at is God. I feel so overlooked and unloved at times, wondering what I ever did wrong to have bear this cross of PCOS and Infertility. I try so hard to look at it like Laura Story's song "Blessings" but I must admit that at times that can be very difficult to do. I pretty much know that my thoughts are safe here because so few take the time to come and read what I wrote. They probably think it's just more whining, crying and poor picked on me. Well maybe it is, but I am the one who has to walk this path in life and I need a way to vent ... that is in part why I started blogging about my journey with PCOS and Infertility.

The Count Down Begins

Well, it's begun, the count down to the hysterectomy. Barring any miracles or emergencies, I will be having a hysterectomy at the end of 2012. It's so final. No, that doesn't mean that I will not have PCOS. I still will, even if they took my ovaries too. At this point though, the plan is just for the uterus to prevent the hyperplasia from coming back and turning into cancer. The chances of that are astronomical, so I have to have this done ... no choice, especially since those chances will increase dramatically when I hit menopause. If a miracle happened and I were to get pregnant then I could put off the hysterectomy until after I was done breastfeeding, since pregnancy and breastfeeding increase the progesterone levels in the body. Which would keep the hyperplasia at bay. Now, I know you are going but what does emergencies have to do with this, well if no miracle happens I have to go in around June/July (or so) and have another surgery, where they will scrap and check my lining. If they find that it's thickened back up and get A-typia (positive for cancer) results back, then I will have an immediate hysterectomy. I do have to say that the thought of a hysterectomy scares me, I have heard so many horrors about them. One is that you loose your mojo, I don't want to loose mine ... I love that for a woman I have an exteremly healthy one. I read though that it's actually do to the PCOS in part. Hey at least there is a plus side to it. :0)

Over Half of a Lifetime!

It just dawned on me that since I was almost 17 1/2 yrs old I have been trying to have a baby. That means that over half of my life I have spent being poked, prodded, probed, tested, medicated, arguing with doctors who just don't seem to know or understand what is wrong, and so on, just to become a mother. 10 yrs ago (this coming August) I was blessed with becoming pregnant and being able to give birth to our beautiful son (our miracle--in May of the following year). But since then I have spent a lot of time in doctor's offices, with my legs in stir-ups with people looking at my most intimate area all for the sake of being able to be blessed again. I have gone as far as poking myself with a needle in my stomach and putting pills in places where pills just should not go, in hopes of becoming pregnant. I joke about the fact that I don't have to take pills or precautions to prevent an "unwanted" pregnancy like other women, instead I have to do just the opposite, I have to go to almost the ends of the earth (the women who go to the ends of the earth on this same quest in my opinion are the ones that have no other choice but invetro) to try to accomplish what those who just look at the opposite sex are trying to prevent. BROKEN! DEFECTIVE! NOT WOMANLY! ALONE! ASHAMED! MISUNDERSTOOD! SELFISH! that's how I feel a lot of the time. It's like you have this awful secret and there is just no one to share it with because no one seems to know or understand what you are going through. Yes, they try (some harder than others) but complete comprehension is just never achieved. Only those who have battled this lonely path in life or are exteremly close to someone who has, can understand some of what you are or have gone through (everyone's journey is different, therefore no one can completely understand 100% about your personal journey on this road or any other road that you have traveled through in this life, even when they want to with all their heart). I believe that PCOS just might be one of the most loneliest diseases that a woman can try to journey through.

Hyperplasia Update

Had to go have a sonogram yesterday, what joy! There was a cyst on the right ovary and the lining was slightly thick. Other than that everything looked okay. Cycles are coming pretty regularly. Had to get a shot last month but not this month. As long as everything continues as it's going, I wont have to have another surgery until the spring, if even then. It would be nice not to have to have another one for a while. I had way to many of them last year. My hair doesn't seem to be growing as quickly and I wonder if it's still not from that high progesterone treatment. Coming off that stuff messed with me something awful. I pray I never have to go through that again. In October I went to hair dresser and the gal, cut off all the effected hair. You could see where the new growth that came in after I went off the medicine started and where the old growth was. I ended up with an awful haircut to just remove the effected hair. I do have to say though that my hair pretty much has stopped coming out in fistfuls in the shower since it was cut. That was very freaky. I am being very serious about this, if you have don't have a regular monthly cycle (especially one that doesn't come at least every 3 months) get your hinney into the doctor now and if they don't listen to you see a specialist in Female Reproductive Health. Not having a month cycle is a very dangerous thing, especially if you have something like PCOS. If your doctor doesn't know about PCOS and you think you have it . Arm yourself with information, be your own advocate (this also goes for any other type of aliment). That is what I had to do, I got tired of arguing with doctors who couldn't find out what was wrong. It's frustrating. Surprisingly there are still a lot of doctors out there that have no clue (even specialists) about PCOS, sometimes you have to guide them more then they will guide you through it.

Giving Up The Dream

I never shared this before on my blog but back in July when my Step-Sister was throwing a baby shower for my Step-Sister-In-Law, I gave up all the beautiful baby girl clothes that I had been collecting and storing in hopes that I would have a little girl to put them on. It was so hard. I cried while I packed that box to ship off. I cried after I put it into the mail. It broke my heart. It was so final. So in my face but it was my choice. I gave them to them so they would be lovingly used on a beautiful little girl. I had my Step-Sister give them to them in private. There was a gift for her to open at her shower that I bought especially for her. Just felt it was time to finally share this. It's been hard knowing that there is no longer baby girl clothes hanging up in our guest room closet in hopes of having a little girl in this home who will be able to wear them.

Secrets

Wow! September and October were great, awesome months. Received my cycle on time with not intervention, which was WOW!!! moments for me. PRAISE THE LORD! To me that was God. He gave me 2 months with no intervention (shots -- i.e. jump-starts as I call them). That is a blessings, it may seem small to most but to someone who has to spend every month knowing that if their cycle doesn't show with in 35 days, it's off to the doctor's where they will have to take a (depressing --- because it's always negative) pregnancy test (to me it's like a form of torture that I have to go through monthly --- worse than the actual shot by 100's on a pain scale), wait 2 hours in town and then come back to get the shot that I already know in my heart that I will have to have. They have to do that test though, just in case and I respect that, because if a miracle did happen I wouldn't want to be given a progesterone shot that could end in tragedy.This month has not been so WOW! Looks like I will be needing a jump-start this coming week. I haven't been very good with in the year with trying to keep off the weight I lost. I gained back 10lbs of it. I need to get it back off. It was so hard this past summer to get motivated, as it was blistering hot here and to go outside and walk 2x's a day was just hot, draining and tiring to think about let alone do. I do watch the scale and try not to over do it, but it's not always easy. I need to get moving again. I have a secret, but I can't go into because I promised not to. All I can do is ask that if you read this blog, to please pray for an unspoken prayer request for the writer of this blog. As always I put everything in God's Plans and Will for my life. He is ultimately in charge, I put my complete faith and trust in Him as always.