I had my suppression check this morning.
So far, it looks like everything is going according to plan. I started my period today (right on schedule), and even though that has me feeling like crap; it’s a good thing. Like I said last time, I’m all about clearing out that dirty old uterus before it’s time for a baby to grow in there. I want those ice babies of mine to have a nice clean (soft, warm, bloody) bed to curl up into, you know?
For the record though (while we’re already discussing the nasty happenings from inside my body) I did come to the realization today that I could NEVER be an OB/GYN. I'm fine dealing with my own blood, but I about died of embarrassment today when the vagisound came out covered in the stuff. Granted, I know that OB’s see that kind of nastiness all the time, but I was humiliated! I can’t even explain why, except… it was gross! If I had seen a vagisound come out all bloody like that from someone else, I would have vomited and died. No doubt. It’s just wrong.
Back to the important stuff though. Those endometriomas were still growing, but from everything I’ve been told; they won’t hinder this cycle. I’m still waiting on confirmation from Seattle, but as of right now I should be reducing my Lupron amount by half starting tomorrow, and I’ll also begin with the estrogen patches. That means we’re moving on to the second part of this cycle, and that ladies and gentlemen is quite exciting!!
Four weeks from today, I will be in Seattle. Four weeks from today, I will be getting pregnant.
I wasn’t thinking about four weeks from today as I sat on that table though. I was thinking about two years ago. As my doctor (the one here in Alaska who I absolutely adore) was hemming and hawing over the fact that my endometriomas have grown even in the last few weeks, I was remembering that it was two years ago this month that this really all started. Two years ago this month when I was frantically taking pregnancy tests and trying to figure out where my period had gone.
Two years. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. In fact, most of it seems like a blur. As if in the blink of an eye, everything changed.
And in many ways, it did. My doctor was worrying over the size of my new endometriomas today (pointing out that the bad tissue growth I manage to achieve in a few months time would take most endo patients years), and I told her that I’m still just having a hard time with the fact that it was less than 3 years ago when I was healthy enough to donate my eggs. She told me once again that I’m one of the most aggressive cases she's ever seen, and again I could see the confusion in her eyes as well. The inability to understand how this all happened so fast. How we got to this point of facing down what will likely be my last cycle, already.
I used to be healthy, and now my life is dictated by doctor’s appointments and this overwhelming fear that I will never be a mommy. My whole life changed, in too short a period of time. This disease has controlled so much in the last two years. It has determined how and where I spend my money, how I interact within my relationships, how I live my life, and how I view those around me.
If you had told me two years ago that this is where I would be now, I would have laughed at you. But I realized something on that table today, looking at those endometriomas.
Regardless of what the outcome is here in this next month, the control endometriosis has had over my life has got to end. It’s hard to be in pain, it’s hard to feel sick, and it’s hard to face the gut wrenching fear that you may never carry a child. But enough is enough. It literally hit me like a ton of bricks today that I have allowed this disease to consume me. To control me. To define me.
And that's something I had always promised myself I would never do.
It’s hard. When you are fighting with everything you’ve got for baby, it is hard not to let it take over.
But one way or another, in the next month that has got to change. I’ve got to reclaim myself again. My life. I’ve got to learn how to be me, without thinking of who that is in relation to this disease.
It’s been two years. Two painful, heart wrenching, destructive years. I am a big believer that every fall is eventually followed by an upswing, and I can only hope that my upswing is coming in November, but even if it doesn’t… I have got to move on. I have got to start over. I have got to rebuild.
Endometriosis has had the last two years of my life.
It doesn’t get any more.
ADSPACE
