{all this for a baby part 1}

Before I get into what I've been up to lately, I wanted to say thank you for all of your sweet, encouraging, supportive, and loving comments. The love that's been felt is overwhelming we're so grateful for your prayers and sweet words! Mom's surgery went well, but the battle isn't over yet. I've learned that in life, nothing is as ever as easy as it seems. At least in my life. Like, you can't just go on a nice 'n easy road trip and go camping. Nope. In my family, the transmission on the minivan goes out in 90 degree weather in Fresno, causing a 2 day detour in the camping trip. You can't just go in for an easy lumpectomy and be cancer free. And you (and by you, I mean I) can't just make whoopee and get pregnant.

*sigh* There's always something!

The road to getting pregnant has been a winding, uphill battle filled with lots of mood swings (my poor husband), pain, and tears. It is seriously the most frustrating thing I've ever dealt with. Why is it so easy for some people to get and stay pregnant and impossible for others? I could talk about that until I'm blue in the face, but for now, I'll just share a few experiences as of late...

When I first met with my fertility doctor (Dr. Blauer- he's amazing!) he mapped out this big plan for us to follow in hopes of me getting preggers. One of the stops on the plan was to get an ultrasound on day 4 of my cycle. Now, I've never had an ultrasound, but I've seen movies and I basically knew how it worked. You pull up your shirt, they squirt gel on your stomach, and rub a microphone on your belly, right? Boy was I wrong!

When it was my turn the nurse took me back to the exam room. She had a thick, hispanic accent and I didn't really understand when she said, "Okay, so you gottatamponin?"

"Umm...what?"

"A tampon. You gotta tampon in?"

"Oh...umm. Yes. I'm still on my period."

"Thas good. Okay, so go ahead and take it out an put it in there." She pointed to a trash can with a hazard sign on it. I stood there with a stupefied look on my face. Seriously?! Just take it out right here!? She must have read the shock on my face because then she said, "Oooh...okay, you can a use the bathroom if you want."

I used the bathroom and figured that when they did the ultrasound, they didn't want anything in me. "I guess that's normal," I thought. Then I came back into the exam room and the nurse said, "Okay, so go ahead and undress from the waist down and Ima gonna be right back."

That's when a bit of panic set in and my mind screamed "WHA!?" I wasn't expecting to take my pants off. Is this how they're doing ultrasounds these days? My mind was whirling. I had just taken off my undies and hadn't even had a chance to sit on the exam table and cover myself, when the nurse walked back in, seeing me in all my nakie glory. I gasped and quickly crossed my legs and used my hands to cover myself. She scrambled back out of the room, closed the door, and then knocked and re-entered, giving me just enough time to cover myself with the giant paper towel they give you (that barely covers).

The nurse was probably a bit embarrassed (not half as much as I was) because she started talking fast and gave a nervous laugh. "Haha- sorry! Sometimes I tell people, 'Okay, you undress and I be back!' and then I forget how long and come back too quick and is like 'Hello! Oops!"

Yeah- oops! At this point, I was sitting right next to the ultrasound machine and was face to face with a wand that had a giant condom over it. Suddenly, everything made sense and panic set it. "Ohmuhgosh....this is a vaginal ultrasound!?" Surprise! I had no idea. No warning. And I hadn't really prepared for it. Not just mentally prepared, but prepared, prepared if you know what I mean.

By then it was too late for any preparations...mentally or not. The doctor came in & pulled out the stirrups to set my feet in. My heart was beating faster and I felt like the room was spinning. I has worn shoes that day with no socks (hello stinky feet), and of course I'd taken my shoes off when she told me to undress from the waist down, so placing my feet in the stirrups by the doctors face was the last thing I wanted to do, let alone have my who-ha in plain sight too.

Apparently, I was sitting too far back on the exam table because the nurse kept saying, "Okay, scooch down....a little further...a little more...keep coming..." and I moved down until I felt like I was going to slide off the table. I kept thinking, "Why don't they just make the tables small, with a big X where your bum is supposed to go? Why make a big table when you're only utilizing 1/3 of it?"

Before I knew it, I was looking at a screen that showed my uterus and ovaries. I honestly couldn't tell what I was looking at, but the doctor tried my best to point out what we were looking at.

"Here's your uterus," he'd say, pointing to a blob on the screen. "It's a bit tilted, but that's pretty common....Oh! Here are your ovaries!" and I'd see another blurb on the screen. "Hmmm...see these?" I squinted at the screen. I wanted to say no, because I really had no clue what I was looking at, but I said, "Uh...yeah!" as convincingly as I could. "Those are cysts. You have about 25 on each ovary." That explains the PCOS, I guess.

He moved the wand around this way and that, pointed out more blurbs, measured this and that, and then it was over. When they left the room, I got up, got dressed, and couldn't look anyone in the eye. To be honest, I'm not sure if the cysts are a problem. I don't even really know why they scheduled the ultrasound. I plan on asking more questions the next time I see him, but at the time, I was still in shock.

A week later, I was at the doctors again...this time for the HSG test. More on that later. The moral of this story? Be prepared! Not just for natural disasters, but for gynecological surprises too!

{cancer is a bitch}

A little over a year ago my mom and I made a quick trip down to Hurricane Utah to spend a few days with my Grandparents. My Grandma had just had her yearly mammogram and when the results came back, they wanted to do a biopsy, which she had done a few days before we got there. The night we arrived, the phone rang. Grandma took the call in her bedroom and I stood in the kitchen, watching my mom who stood at the door. When she came out to the dining room, where we were clearing the table, she simply said, "I have breast cancer."

Grandpa literally reeled, dropped the bowl of salad in his hand to the floor and braced himself with both hands. A lump rose in my throat and I froze. I had no idea what to say & looked to my mom for support. Soon Grandma was had surgery, chemo, radiation, and now she's better.

*phew*

Then 6 months ago, when my mom went in for her mammogram they saw some "calcifications". They wanted to keep an eye on them and scheduled another mammo in 6 months. The new mammo was a couple of weeks ago, where they saw that nothing had changed. Calcifications still there. The Dr. that read this mammo said he wanted to check them out & scheduled a biopsy. In my mom's own words, "...I found my self with my left breast hanging through a hole, like I was ice-fishing with booby-bate. I just hope, with the metal markers now in both of the girls, I don't set off any alarms." (love her sense of humor!)

After the biopsy it was time to wait. Then yesterday, a few minutes before work ended, I got a call from my mom. "Hey! Come over to the house after work!" She sounded normal & happy. "Okay! ...Why?"
"I have something to tell you." She still sounded normal and honestly, I didn't think anything of it until I pulled up into the driveway and saw my brothers cars there too.

I walked in and she said, "I have cancer". Then she half laughed and started to cry, which made me start crying too. We both did the chuckle/cry which is when you are crying, but you feel like such a boob and don't want to be crying, so you kind of chuckle too while thinking, "Is this really happening?"

And that is what I was thinking. Is this really happening? It seem so surreal. You can read my mom's own words here. They caught it early, and if there's a "good" kind of cancer this is it. Very treatable and I'm sure she'll be fine. I just need to keep telling myself that. I can't let myself think anything other than that, or I fly into hysterics. She will be fine.

Tomorrow she's scheduled for surgery and I know I'll be spending a lot of time on my knees tonight and tomorrow. I believe that He hears our prayers, and I believe in faith to be healed. I know she'll be okay. She will be fine.

Still, cancer is a bitch.