Our Ending...

I knew I should not have been so bold as to name my blog From Pam&John to Mom&Dad.

I would have failed if I had tried to predict the ending to my infertility journey. Never did I see this coming.

A little refresher, I have polycystic ovarian syndrome, which leads to all sorts of lovely things and to me the worst was infertility. Not anymore. I never thought I'd say that. What's worse than infertility? Cancer. Uterine cancer. I've been told since my PCOS diagnosis that the two largest risks were diabetes and uterine cancer. It never sank in. Every gyne told me it was important to have a cycle every 6 to 8 weeks. None of them explained why completely. Maybe I should have known better, but I didn't. All my mind could focus on was babies. When were we going to be parents? How long would it take? Would we be able to have more than 1 child?Ah but don't be greedy Pam, that one that God is going to give you will be perfect. So I had surgery. Dr. Stalling in Peoria was great. I had a laparotomy, hystosalpingogram, and ovarian wedge resection. It took quite a while as I had severe scar tissue. Dr. S had to detach my colon from my uterus among other things. This was 2012. I was so excited. My ovaries were ready to work again. Yay! I did the injections of progesterone in oil, charted just how I was taught had intercourse on the right days. Hmm, why no baby? I didn't know the answer but I wasn't giving up. After all my theme song through this was I Wont Give Up by Jason Mraz. I remember laying in the hospital all drugged up and in pain listening on repeat. (I haven't listened to it in years. Of it comes on I change the station) So, more of the same. Cysts were coming back, pain, vaginal ultrasounds on my period. Not what I wanted to be doing but hey I was going to get pregnant. It was just a matter of time. Til we gave in and gave up. It wasn't happening. I was overwhelmed and at a loss. My brother and his wife had given birth to a gorgeous baby boy but he was 6 weeks early. I kinda put my efforts into him and other things of course. Now he's over 2 yrs old and my whole world has changed. I have you ladies and this blog to partially thank for that. I've been on a spiritual journey along with my baby journey. I've always known God. Believed but never went to church. I was raised Baptist but not satisfied each time I went to service. Well, I started RCIA in September 2015. My whole life changed. I am so thankful for the Catholic church. To continue in the proper time lines I will veer off a little here. In November of 2015 I decided weight loss surgery was my next step. Then I would feel better and probably get pregnant fast. I wanted surgery for many reasons but pregnancy was at the top of my list. Meanwhile I have some abnormal bleeding but hey that's the story of my life. This bleeding never went away. So back to the gyne I go. She of course wants to do a saline vaginal ultrasound which I'm okay with. But the biopsy made me cringe. This gyne had given me two biopsies prior. They were horrible. She really made sure to get a good sample. 2 samples each time. Anxiety set in. I kept thinking to myself she's ridiculous. Always wanting to biopsy me and I do it and it's always negative. Forget her. I scheduled it just like she told me too. 1 week later I'm on the table and I have a full blown panic attack. She stopped. We rescheduled for the following week and she gave me 1 mg of Xanax. John took me. I let her complete the test. The week of Christmas I get the news. You most likely have cancer and the recommends course of treatment is a total hysterectomy. And we also noticed on the ultrasound your fallopian tubes are enlarged. Which could be a sign of ovarian cancer, we now know that ovarian cancer can start in the tubes. Ahh, wait? What? You're telling me i need a hysterectomy? All my mind could think was Uhhh, I can't process this, I'm having weight loss surgery and going to have a baby. Even though I knew right then and there I was having a hysterectomy. Because my life is more important than the risk if cancer. Although oddly I wasn't scared to hear you may have cancer. It was overshadowed by you'll never carry a child. I cried. And cried. Scheduled a d & c which was possibly going to give me a solid answer on if it was cancer or pre-cancer. No such luck for me. I had my total hysterectomy on February 17th 2016. We decided as long as there were no signs of ovarian cancer I would keep my ovaries since I'm 39 and still have years left before menopause. Well at my 2 week post op appointment I was telling my surgeon how easy the recovery was and how thankful I was. He listened and when it was his turn he told me he was still recovering from preforming my surgery. It took him a little over an hour to get through the scar tissue wrapped around my uterus. He never dealt with that much. He then removed my uterus, cervix and fallopian tubes. He told me even if he wanted to remove my ovaries he didn't think he could get through the scar tissue. Both ovaries are adhered to my abdominal wall. He told me if I ever have to have them removed to make sure the surgeon is aware. Holy smokes. I was floored. I was also told it was in the precancerous stages. Thank God. No further treatment was needed. But now I have to reconcile in my brain and heart that I'll never carry a child in my womb because I no longer have one. Devastating. Being in RCIA and becoming Catholic was such a blessing. The pain was still God awful but I had amazing people supporting me. I was able to go through all the Rites and important things. My surgery barely caused a hiccup. I was baptized, confirmed and took my first Eucharist at the Easter Vigil. It was such an amazing experience. The whole week was. I also because my 2 year old nephews God Mother. My brother went through the process with 2 of his older children and the little guy was baptized as well. It was such a blessing in my life at such a difficult time in my life. I have since had the weight loss surgery. I'm still working on me! Leading up to the surgery I had little crying spells. I couldn't figure it out until the night before it hit me. I was getting so close to the past decision I made based on infertility. I just couldn't handle it for a while there that I would never carry a child. What kind of woman am I? Damaged. I went and spoke to our priest. I love him. He gave me great advice. It is okay to cry. Pray for peace. Don't stop praying and eating. Meaning keep doing everything you've always done. But add praying for peace and cry if you need to. Well I told him I don't like to pray and ask for things for myself. He made it clear to me that it's okay to do that and that I have to do that. He also told me the story about St. John of darkness. I walked out feeling better and I'm still getting better. I'm not going to lie I'm still angry and sad. But I'll get through it.

I'll leave you with a pic of me and my Godson, Oliver. He only falls asleep if he is on someone.