I remember sitting up in bed one night having one of our usual late night conversations with my roommate and best friend and we both confided in each other that although our greatest desire in life was to have a family, that we both had this deep inclination that having kids wouldn't come easier, or possibly at all. It was something that scared me but I wasn't willing look deeper into.
Meanwhile, college life passed by and married life began. With that, came the loss of my insurance. Which meant--no more birth control! I had been taking birth control for nine years. I had irregular periods (I know TMI) but more importantly I had constantly had sharp pains that the birth control had got rid of. Immediately, all the symptoms I had suffered from, that the birth control had masked for almost a decade, had come roaring back with a vengeance. I had experienced these random pains for years, but never with this intensity. I had frequented the emergency room and exhausted my share of doctors with the diagnosis' of gas, menstrual cramps, my weight, kidney stones, paranoia...and who knows what else. Meanwhile in the year following my wedding my weight had skyrocketed to my highest ever ironically when I was on my strictest diet plan I've ever followed, while working out most days a week-twice a day all while teaching (standing up all day) for 10 hours a day. When I wasn't teaching or working out, I was sleeping. I was tired. ALL. THE. TIME. My day consistently looked like this:
5:30 Run on treadmill
6:00 Light breakfast/shower
6:30-5:30 Work
6:00-8:00 Nap
8:00 Light Dinner/workout/shower
9:00-5:30 Sleep
I was miserable. I couldn't figure out what was going on with my body. But I had more important things to worry about in life that a weight gain and tiredness couldn't be priority. Ron and I decided that we were ready to have kids. We knew we wanted a big family and that we had already been together for 8 years, we were both ready. So we tried. Nothing. I began to go through a silent depression. Not only had I let my body go, spent all my time working for a less then minimum wage job that only was criticized and never appreciated in our lovely state, but now I couldn't get pregnant.
So the next step was to begin checking our fertility. Ron was found to be 'fine' and that the problem lied with me. How...we weren't quite sure yet. In the meantime, I was seeing my now sixth doctor about my lethargy and weight gain. She came highly recommended and the thing people said most, that she was a doctor that listened. I remember I walked into her office and talked with her and she said those magic words. "What's going on with your body, is NOT normal." She promised, that although she doesn't know what is going on yet, she wouldn't stop until she found out. Hope!
Weeks later I was back sitting in her office after going through several tests in the previous weeks. She notified me that she found that my insulin levels were all over the place, my hormone levels were going nuts, and to be honest I didn't listen to or process the rest of what she was saying was wrong. I just waited for a diagnosis. That was when she said, "You most definitely have PCOS-Polycysitc Ovarian Syndrome." I had never heard of it and had no idea what that meant. She didn't seem worried and said that it it actually more common then what I would imagine that about 10% of the female population suffer from it in some varying degree. She said that however, mine at this point was pretty severe. I had masked it for over a decade by using birth control and she wanted to have a MRI and ultrasound done to see the damage done to my reproductive organs, especially my ovaries. This was about a six month process to get this all done, begin some treatment, and get all the results back.
After lots of questions and research, I learned the most devastating news yet. Getting pregnant in the coming years would be extremely difficult and next to impossible. They would know more once they got the results back from the tests. The encouraged us to begin fertility treatments because if anything extensive has to be done, it would take well over a year to begin. Together, Ron and I decided that we would go as far medication and shots, but wouldn't pursue anything further because of costs. About four months into our treatments we received our test results back that I don't release eggs on my own and that there had been extensive damage done to my ovaries because of bursting cysts over the period of 10 years. She also notified me that during the ultrasound the found a huge cyst a little larger than a softball on my ovary that needed to be removed via surgery. Great.
Fast forward six months, we had now been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant for two years, about to have surgery to remove a cyst and were exploring adoption through foster care as a solution to our growing need for kids. I had a successful surgery to remove the cyst that they have estimated had been growing for well over 5 years. After the surgery, Ron and I decided to hold off on fertility treatments any longer because of both the cost and emotional turmoil. We utilized the last two months of treatments that we had. We began to accept that I would never have a child through pregnancy. That was ok, and we were beginning to embrace adoption and foster care and knew we could grow our family in a different way.
It still didn't rid of the sadness, defeat, and little bit of anger. We had done everything right--yet were being what felt like, punished. We watched as everyone around us were getting pregnant and tried to hide our jealousy...then guilt, because this was such a joyous time for these people. Why should we be greedy enough to not celebrate. We began to devote all our time, energy, and joy onto our foster son, Christopher. He gave us hope and and we just loved on this sweet boy constantly that often those feelings dissipated for weeks a time. On the outside, everyone would see that Ron and I were saving this boy's life and were being 'heros' which we don't see ourselves as, at all, but instead this little boy was just healing our hearts completely.
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