The Story of Isaiah

A small boy at just 20 months old is stumbling around our living room.  He loves playing with our dog, who is thrilled to finally have a child in our house.  Now that he's got walking down running is often being pursued, what young child would want to walk when they could run?  The cupboards and drawers have all had the child safety locks installed. Baby gates are closed to contain the curious little boy full of energy.  He calls out to daddy to watch him as he runs at the dog rolls around.

Isaiah stands rubbing the head of his dear sister, just a few days past 6 months.  He's trying to tell her to hurry and grow, he can't wait to teach her to play and to run.  Of course only a few of the words are fully understandable and sounds more like "oh hur-ee grow, tea-ch ploy an runnnnnnnnn!"  She looks up at her big brother and smiles, as far as she is concerned he is the greatest thing on earth.

He stands there looking up at me with those gorgeous blue eyes, his brown curls outline his face, holding out his hand.  " I has owie!"  I bend down, and scoop up the son I love so much.  I pull his little finger, he's squashed with is own clumsy feet, up to my lips and plant a kiss, the healing kiss of a mother.  "Aw bwet-er!" With a bear hug, I let him down and he's off to explore.  

Cleaning and cooking has changed as there is always an eager helper standing by.  He's not always making things easier, but the joy and happiness he spreads outweighs it all.  The day comes to close with a story and bedtime prayers with daddy.  The last memory is always a hug and kiss from mommy and daddy as his eyes close in eagerness for a new day to come again.  

To my first son, Isaiah, who has been on my heart these last few days.  Some days I strongly wish that you were here.  I dream often of you.  I wanted so badly to see you sit upon your daddy's lap, to hear your little voice.  I never got to see you.  You were pulled from this earth way too early.  I've longed to hold you in my arms, but for now I hold you in my heart.  I'll see you someday and I'll hold you as well.  You've got some a little sister up there to watch out for, you also have two other siblings that I never got the chance to find out about, but I know you're taking care of them, just like your daddy would do with his brother and sister.  Love them, guide them, and hug them.  When you find it hard to watch your three younger siblings, my mom will come and she will hug you, and know that it comes from me.

Post-Op

I've been dragging my feet about sharing my post op.  Mostly because I just don't feel any better about any of this.  I'm so bummed that even after all this I can't find any hope.

Dr. S showed me my pictures of my messed up insides.  I had so many dark cyst it was crazy.  He showed me my poor left ovary.  It was covered in a mess of scar and endo tissue that has glued itself onto my bowel and pelvic wall.  He explained that this was probably what was causing all the "pulling" sensations.  After he had removed all the tissue he added a weird mess device around the ovary to hopefully prevent it from reattaching while healing. The device is suppose to dissolve, in fact should be gone now.  That does worry me a bit, because what will prevent it now since most of us all know that endo doesn't stop growing just because of a lap.  We also know that I won't just magically stop having cyst rupturing.   My tubes looked great, which was a relief.  It was nice to know that the on tubal ectopic I had was just a random fluke and not because of my tubes being destroyed my endo.

My uterus was different story.  Dr. S told me that there was barely a spot in my uterus that was not covered in endo or adeno.  Crazy.  It's been no wonder I've felt so terrible and had so much bleeding.  He removed as much and as deep as he could, but he was trying to be careful because while removing it is good, it does also create more scar tissue, which just provide a welcome mat to growing endo.

That really all he did. It was good, but I don't feel it was enough.  He didn't search outside of these areas, which I know shouldn't effect my infertility, but I'm thinking about my quality of life as well.  I know in my other surgeries Dr. N had looked everywhere and had found stuff on my bowels, stomach and intestines.  I have no doubt I have some back, but I don't think that was taken care of.  I know I pursued this surgery in hopes of helping us in having a child, but I did also want to have some time of feeling better, and now I'm sure that is going to happen.

Dr. S went on to explain that he thinks that I'm still no ovulating.  I was like um, how is that possible?  Clearly I have since I've been pregnant.  He then went on to explain that yes technically I've been ovulating, but they have been chemical/clinical pregnancies, which basically means that while we had implantation issues, we also may not have had fully mature eggs.  This confused me because all my follies have been of good size.  He went on to explain that when monitoring everything is guess work.  He said that while I've had good follie sizes there may not be an egg, or a good egg inside.  My body is going through the motions of getting pregnant, my HCG raises, and I've even had a sac, but other then our first, we are not sure that anything was really there, or at least anything truly viable.

Well this was a lot to process.  It made me feel like the children we lost were suddenly nothing.  I felt like I shouldn't feel sad for them.  I know that's not true.  I know the chemical doesn't mean there wasn't something there, but it makes me feel like the loss of them is suddenly less important.  This in itself was a lot to take in.  I'm still trying to process what this all means.  How am I suppose to have hope that things could work now, when really nothing has truly gotten better?

Dr. S is ready to rush forward with trying again.  I was on birth control before and after surgery.  Today is suppose to be my last pill . Then I am suppose to wait for AF and start with my base scan.  I've been spotting/light flow since my surgery so I know it won't take long for AF to show.  Once the base scan clears me of cyst I am suppose to start 5 days of fermera, a oral pill normal used to treat breast cancer, but in different dosage is good for treating endo, or helping to stimulate the ovaries.  Once that is complete I'll start gonal injections, and start monitoring with ultrasounds and blood work.  Our hope is that with the blood work we can have a better idea if I'm really ovulating or not, or if it's good quality or not.  The idea is to do this cycle, get results, and depending on what happens, repeat one more time.

The crazy part is that he only wants us to do this 2, maybe 3 more times and then go straight into IVF, he doesn't want us to waste time with an IUI because he doesn't feel it would help, since it's not a male factor at all, it's an ovulation and implantation issue.  I haven't been able to share fully with this doctor that my husband and I are not really for IVF, but I have to say, now that we've made it to this point where IVF looks like it may be our only hope, I'm wavering in that choice.  I even sense that my husband is. Money may be the deciding factor anyway, but I'm not sure what to do. Dr. S holds more hope with IVF because we can actually see quality, and know that it's got a real chance of survival, but then there is still implantation to content with.  Though with being freshly cleaned out there is some hope that it could happen.

I'm not sure how to feel about any of this.  I've been stuck in this weird funk.  I haven't wanted to go hang out with anybody, it doesn't help that my friends around me all have kids and, while they try, completely fail at understanding.  I have no idea what to do.  I don't yet feel recovered from my surgery, but I'm suppose to be deciding if we start the journey of TTC again.  We haven't decided if we want to try, or wait another month.  This means more time for endo to grow, more time to lose even more eggs.  It means that we have more time to heal from our last loss, my surgery, and time to think and make more knowledgeable choice. We have until tomorrow evening to make a choice.

I'm losing hope, I'm losing my peace, and I have no idea what to do, what to think, or what to feel.  Why does the journey for children have to be so hard, why are the the most undeserving incompetent people able to so easily conceive and birth healthy babies?  I'm angry, sad, and so tired.  I'm so tired of having to pretend I'm happy all the time.