Surgery Results and Endometriosis

It has almost been about 24 hours since I got home from the surgical center. I didn't sleep all that great last night but I did get some sleep. I also took a great almost 3 hour nap today! 
My pain is minimal and I can actually only feel one of the incision sites. I have two but one is in the same location as my c-section scar and that's pretty numb all the time, definitely more so now. I have some gas that is settling in my diaphragm and shoulders which happens after a laparoscopy. It is feeling better as time passes. When they told me I was going to feel like I had been kicked in the stomach they weren't kidding. It is a mixed feeling of sore after a workout, what I imagine being punched in the stomach feels like and exhaustion. Really not that bad. I can walk around the house slowly and feel like I want to go somewhere but I'm not going to push it. They gave me pain meds and anti nausea meds but ibuprofen is really taking care of most of my discomfort. If my child wasn't such a clown I'd probably be in even less pain but his constant craziness is making me laugh and it hurts! 

Anyway on to the findings during surgery as I have been told by mom and Andrew. I go back in 10 days to hear all the information for myself but for now this is what I know. My doctor didn't give an exact stage of endometriosis but said it was "text book" endometriosis but because of the location of the endometriosis it is called adenomyosis. I found this definition of adenomyosis on the mayo clinic website. 'Adenomyosis (ad-uh-no-my-O-sis) occurs when endometrial tissue, which normally lines the uterus, exists within and grows into the muscular wall of the uterus.' He also removed a polyp from inside my uterus. He found that I have been ovulating and that my ovaries and fallopian tubes are working properly. Yay! I will undergo an injection treatment for 6 months to get clear up the endometriosis he couldn't remove due to its location in my uterine wall. I will get the treatment in my doctors office once a month for 6 months then we should be able to conceive. He said that my bladder was being squished because of all the endometriosis but that the endometriosis wasn't attached to my bladder. Another yay! I imagine that I will begin the treatment at the end of this month. I mean that's what I hope because yesterday when I was drugged up 6 months didn't seem like that long but today it does. Haha

Something that I was thinking about last night as I was trying to fall asleep is the number of people who struggle with infertility. Also accepting that struggling with infertility doesn't necessarily mean that you are infertile. I really struggled with this for a long time. I felt that saying I was struggling with infertility meant that I was infertile and that having another baby wasn't possible for us. When I stepped back, did more research and read a few books I was able to change my attitude and approach to this situation. I was also able to accept my struggle with infertility, that I wasn't being given a label of infertile. It was such a relief when I realized this and it has helped me so much. Please don't get me wrong, this realization didn't come over night. I has taken me a VERY long time to work up the courage to talk about it, share it and even face it head on. I am here now and feel better than I have in over a year about all of this. 

Just before going into surgery yesterday.

My current care takers enjoying an ice cream break today!

For all my friends who are struggling keep your heads high and remember to choose joy!

I have endometriosis

I have endometriosis. I had no idea that I even had it until Andrew and I started trying to have a second baby. It's annoying that it took us trying to conceive to find out but the bright side is we found out. I will be having surgery tomorrow to find out how sever the endometriosis really is. I also will be having a polyp removed from my uterus and they are going to run a dye through my ovaries and fallopian tubes to test function. The surgery should take about two hours and is out patient. Recovery time is just a few days. 

I keep having people asking me how I'm feeling about having the surgery. Honestly I am so excited! I am a little nervous but that comes along with any surgery. I am mostly excited. I am so thankful that we found a doctor who was willing to look at the whole picture and listen to my concerns about my body. He did a thorough exam and listened to my complaints and worries. He had a great possible cause (endometriosis) for the delay in conception. He also had a plan of action that should remedy the problem, a laparoscopy and hysteroscopy, which will happen tomorrow. I am excited to be taking action finally.

I say finally because we have been on this journey for 18+ months now. For the last year I have gone to the doctor every 3 months or even every month to figure out why it was taking us so long to conceive again. I knew that there was something going on with my body that wasn't right but my (old) doctor kept assuring me that everything was fine with my body. It has been a long process and it still isn't over but at least now we have a plan of action (3 doctors later). Even better than the plan is the fact that we are acting now! 

I have had such a hard time with this whole process for many reasons but I have also learned a lot throughout it. As a matter of fact I'm very sure that my learning isn't over. I know I'm going to learn so much more after surgery and as we continue on this journey to complete our family. Shoot I'm going to feel better than I have in years because I should be pain free! 

I have documented this entire journey and will share parts of it in the future but for now this is a great start. It is no longer a secret about what is going on with me. Not that it is anybody else's business anyway but more that I don't have to walk around with the weight of this on my shoulders. I have a medical condition just like so many other people do. I fortunately don't have anything near a severe as many other people deal with everyday. I hope that anyone struggling with infertility or struggling to conceive knows that they are not alone. There are so many other people out there that are struggling with similar or the same issues. If you are struggling with infertility or even having a hard time conceiving I want you to know that you aren't alone. 

I want to leave you to consider how you are tackling the circumstances that you are facing today. I encourage you to stay positive and see the good in every situation. I encourage you to understand the implications of how your choices determine your day. 

With joy in my heart and a focus on the positive I'm off to finish cleaning my house so that my caretakers over the next few days only have to focus on playing with Blake and keeping him happy!

Our Love Story

Yesterday marked year twelve that Andrew and I have been together. My friend coined it our date-a-versary! (Thanks Cass I love that word!) I still can't believe that first date is still a fresh seeming memory. Thinking about it yesterday made me think why not share our love story. 

It all started with a few notes back and forth in high school. Do high school kids even wrote notes to each other anymore? If they don't they should! I still have some of our notes. One specifically says "are we going to do this or what?" referring to going to dinner I think. We did obviously go to dinner with our friends Brett and Cassidy who had actually gone on their first date just a week before us. I know for sure that I talked more to Brett during that date than I did to Andrew. We were the talkers of the group so we just talked and then realized that could have been a bad thing. I'm confident now it wasn't considering Brett and Cassidy are married too! 

Have you ever heard the saying 'opposites attract'? Well in our case it's so true. Have you ever heard that the more time people spend together the more alike they become? Also so VERY true for us. I was a softball player.  Andrew was super smart, in a band, and loved by everyone. There was more to both of us but you get the point. Different. We had the same group of friends and hung out in group settings for two years before we even went on a date. Now. We say the same things and look at each other like the other one is cthe crazy one. We enjoy many more of the same things. We also have our differences that make us individual but we have rubbed off on each other over time. 

Something that many people probably don't know is that we were both pretty straight forward about our expectations for this relationship that seemed to be forming. Neither one of us were looking for anything serious but were up to seeing where this lead us. (All this time later but nothing serious in the beginning who would have thought!) We also said things like if one person cheats it's over, no "breaks" because those never work anyway, and I'm sure other crazy specific stuff that has slipped my mind since then.  Who does that? Us apparently and you know what it worked and still works. 

When the time came to go to college he went to OU and I went to UCO. I never even considered trying to go to OU. I had my mind made up about what I wanted to do with my life and UCO was the place for me to go. He was the same way. I figured if we could make it through football season of our freshman year of college we would some day be married. Guess what people we made it! It wasn't always easy being at two different colleges but we made it work. Actually by the time we graduated from college and moved away together we didn't know what to do being together so much. It was strange for us. 

College graduation rolled around and I frantically researched how to get certified to teach in other states.  Andrew interviewed for jobs in TX and all over OK. He accepted a job in Tulsa and soon after I did too. We found a house to live in and with the help of family and friends made the move up the turnpike. (We actually still love in the house same house today.) Just months after moving and getting used to being around each other all the time Andrew left for a field assignment for work. He was gone for months and I was stuck in a new town where I knew very few people. Lucky for me a fellow new teacher at my school lived close by and we hung out a lot. My mentor teacher and neighbors were also very helpful during this time. After being gone for 5 months or something like that he came back. While he was away it was like college all over again except our times we saw each other were longer inbetween. 

We lived in Tulsa for amost two years before we got married. I was actually ready to pack up and move if he didn't make the marriage thing official. Clearly he did. We got engaged in November of 2008  and married in March of 2009. No need for a long engagement because we had been together for so long already. Before we got married though we bought a house together. October of 2008 actually we bought the house we had been renting. 

The summer of 2010 Andrew went to work in PA for a few months. I went to visit him there and got an in for a new teaching job. I ended up getting the job and changed school districts and grades. It was the best and worst thing. Andrew came back from his field assignment after the school year had started. I was having a hard time figuring out why this new school and grade was kicking my butt so bad. Then I realized it wasn't the new school or grade but instead the baby that was growing inside me. Just like that we were on to the next step in our lives ready or not. 

A few job changes later for Andrew and a new job for me here we are. Our boy is smart, healthy and the best thing we have ever done. He is simultaneously the most fun and hardest work there is. His looks, attitude, learning style, and demeanor are such a great mixture of us. 

Some other random facts about us. We don't celebrate or even remember dates that most people typically do. I had to ask him what year we got married...oops. We do celebrate our anniversary every year. We have a bottle of champagne ontop of our fridge that we bought to drink on celebration of buying our house. It's still sitting there, maybe we will buy a new bottle and actually drink it when we buy a new house someday. We live in the moment enjoying the here and now not dwelling on the past. 

I look forward to many more years filled with fun planned and spontaneous adventures! 

~Vanessa~