Physical and Emotional Healing!

This last year has been the best year of my life, but has also been the most trying both emotionally and physically. Being married to my best friend and love of my life is such a blessing. I am completely obsessed with him and he makes me want to be a better person on a daily basis. I have found the person that I can completely be myself with and he not only accepts me, but loves me (quirks and all!). He has supported me through every thing and I feel so lucky to have him.

We have been trying to have a baby now for a year. I have always had problems with my "woman parts" but would have never guessed how bad it actually was! I was diagnosed with endometriosis at a very young age and struggled with horrible cramps that would keep me out of school on a monthly basis. I started birth control around age 13 and have been on them until a year ago. I was also diagnosed with PCOS at age 18. At that point in my life, I was too young to care what that meant and wasn't planning on having kids any time soon. PCOS is a genetic disorder where my hormones are completely out of whack and it causes my ovaries to stop ovulating. Both of my ovaries are full of tiny little cysts that send messages to my pancreas and tell it to create more insulin than what my body actually needs. Therefore, I gained a significant amount of weight over the last few years with no way to get rid of it. No matter how much I exercised or ate right I was still GAINING weight! It was incredibly frustrating and I was to the point of giving up. Then I met Leo. He fell in love with the person inside me and it didn't matter to him if I was a few pounds overweight. When we decided to start trying to get pregnant, it was an exciting and also scary time of my life. I knew it would probably be difficult to get pregnant, but I had no idea how hard it would actually be. My periods were very regular (or so I thought) and I could always feel myself ovulate (again, or so I thought). I knew it would take a while for my body to regulate after being on birth control for so long, so we were being patient.

August 8th 2011, Leo and I were planning on going to a movie. We made it halfway there and all the sudden I had a horrible pain in my lower left side. It was excruciating and I was terrified. I was trying to tough it out because Leo was freaking out, but I made it to a Target and went inside to use the bathroom. I realized I was losing a lot of blood and we went straight to the ER. I was thinking it was my appendix...but had no idea. I will never forget this moment...I was laying on a table while a nurse was doing an internal ultra sound when she got a phone call. She just said "wow..really? Ok, I'll tell her" and hung up. She looked at me and said "your pregnancy test came back positive"...Leo and I looked at each other and we were so excited because we weren't even sure we could get pregnant. But, obviously something was wrong. After many many blood tests, pain killers and doctors in and out of my room, they could only guess one thing. A tubal pregnancy. I had no idea what that was. They could find no baby in my uterus and with the amount of blood I was losing, all they could do was guess. They said they could do an exploratory surgery and if it was in fact a tubal, they would take it out. I was so scared and asked if I could go home and think about it. They said yes, but if I had any pain at all, I had to come back immediately for surgery. We came home and spent the weekend trying to keep our hopes up. On Monday I had to go in and have my HCG levels checked. I made it through the blood test, but had this horrible feeling that something was wrong and since I was already at the hospital, I should just go in. The pain and bleeding had stopped over the weekend, but I knew in my heart something wasn't right. I checked myself back into the hospital and within the hour, I was being wheeled away for emergency surgery.

Surprisingly, I was not nervous at all. Leo on the other hand was terrified. I had come to terms with the fact that this baby wasn't going to happen and this surgery was necessary. I woke up in the recovery room and the doctor was right by my side, smiling. He said he was able to save my right tube, but I had a pregnancy in my tube the size of a golf ball. He said it was a miracle that my tube didn't burst. But, the reason I had lost so much blood was because my tube had actually detached itself from my uterus. I had been bleeding internally for a few days. It was crazy to think that I could have died from this! He was able to re-attach it and save my tube. I am so thankful that I had such a great surgeon!

By the time we got home from the hospital, my amazing mom had already landed at the SLC airport and was waiting to be picked up. I slept on the couch while Leo went and got her. She stayed with us for the next week helping out around the house. She was such a blessing to have around and I am so thankful for her every day! I believe that God spared me from knowing I was pregnant. I would have been completely crushed if I would have thought I was pregnant for 8 weeks and then found out the baby could never survive. Although this was a horrible experience to go through, I really think it was a blessing in disguise. I still think about this experience every day, but I believe I am a better person for it. I know it has brought Leo and I closer together and I am also thankful for that!

My doctor said it was ok to keep trying a month after my surgery. We found out we were pregnant again in October. I was both excited and terrified. Would this one be another tubal? Would the baby be ok? We bought the book "what to expect when you're expecting" the night we found out. I was so excited, I read the whole thing that night. The next morning around 8am I started having horrible cramping. Again, I was losing a lot of blood, but the pain was different. I ended up miscarrying later that morning. I would take the pain of a tubal pregnancy over a miscarriage any day! It was horrible and I hope I never have to go through that again. This pregnancy was emotionally draining. Not only was I pregnant again, but it had made it through the tube and was where it was supposed to be! At least its a step in the right direction, right?

After the miscarriage, I became depressed. I would wake up every morning, turn on the TV and torture myself by watching "A Baby Story" I would sit and cry for hours wondering why God wouldn't let me have a baby of my own. I was so heart broken and I started to wonder if Leo would stop loving me if I couldn't give him a baby. It was a hard couple months after October. I have slowly started to heal and Leo and I have become even closer than before.

This month I had a check up with my gynecologist and told her about my difficulties losing weight, my depression and my irregular periods. She wanted to do a progesterone and glucose test. Turns out, I am not ovulating (like I thought I was) and my glucose was very high. Because I have been off of birth control for a year, my PCOS has gotten out of control. I started on a high dose of Metformin...which is actually for diabetics, but has shown a high success rate at treating PCOS also. After being on the medication for 2 weeks, I am a new woman! I wake up every morning with energy. It's a fantastic feeling!! I go for a 3 mile walk every day now and no longer crave the sugary, carb loaded foods I did before. This medicine is supposed to work miracles for PCOS and I should be ovulating regularly within 3 months. It will also help me lose weight, help my hormones and mood swings (leo is so thankful) and help with my depression. It's amazing how something as small as an ovary can completely change your life. Apparently women with PCOS have a very high rate of miscarriages. It's such a relief to know what's been wrong with me and that it can be fixed. I am really praying that my dream of becoming a mom will come true very soon!

I realize that this blog is a novel, but I think it's been an important part of my life recently and writing about it helps me to leave the past behind me and move onto something bigger and better! Leo and I's 1 year wedding anniversary is coming up soon. It is insane how fast this year has gone by. Thank you to my friends and family who have helped us through this hard time in our lives. And, thank you to my wonderful husband, whom I love with all my heart! You will make an amazing father one day :)