To "Stop Trying"

I have been thinking lots about all the ways that Dan and I tried to have a child.  All the ways and times we tried to conceive our child biologically.  Then came the hyst.  Yes, I asked for it, and yes, we both looked forward to it.  But I have just recently begun to see it for another thing that it was.  It was not just a radical treatment for the Endometriosis, it was not just another diagnosis, the Adenomyosis.  In a way it was the point that ever couple on this journey must somehow reach.  It was our decision to stop.  To stop trying.  To end fertility treatments.  To officially look for another way.

I am by no means saying that we tried everything we could have.  Money and pain were the biggest things stopping us from continuing the journey.  If I hadn't been in so much pain all the time, we would have saved the money and tried an IVF cycle or another IUI or SOMETHING.  But I couldn't do anymore.  WE couldn't do it anymore.  I was literally living on Percocet, while on the couch feeling sorry for myself.  There just was nothing else to do.

I know there are women out there that have tried these treatments numerous times without results.  I am by no means saying that my choice was any harder or easier than theirs.  It was just different.  It came to us in a different way, in a different form.  The mindset that all of us infertile people are the same is something that has been explored before on other blogs, and I must say that lumping us all together into one big basket with the black I pasted on the side is just as unfair as looking at a group of people with AIDS or cancer and saying that they are all the same, and have been on the same journey, and reach their choices the same way.  We are all unique, and we are all on relatively the same journey, but we are individuals.  One of the things that we all have in common though is that every couple, no matter if the end comes with a child or a choice to stop, has to reach that point of "enough is enough."  Every couple has to stop at some point.  Sometimes it is chosen by the couple, in a situation where they feel they have tried everything they can do.  And sometimes it comes in the form of a medical condition, like with us, where I needed the hysterectomy to survive.

I am not saying that keeping my uterus and ovaries would have literally killed me.  I could have lived with them still inside me.  I could have continued to breathe while sitting on that couch or lying in bed for the rest of my life; but how would that have been any different from someone leaving me in a coma with no function for the rest of my life?  I see it the same.  So I had to have it.  I had to lose those things to find me again.  But it was also our choice to stop trying.  It was also that point that everyone on this journey eventually reaches...that point when they are done.

It's an odd feeling.  I am no longer TTC.  We are no longer trying.  I no longer have a use for the very expensive ovulation predictor or pregnancy tests or even the big bottle of folic acid (other than the obvious staying healthy on this new journey).

In a way I feel robbed.  I didn't get to sit down with my husband and have that long talk about what to do next.  I did get to sit down with him and talk about how we were going to deal with the loss of my organs, but I didn't really get the choice of "stop and pursue adoption or continue trying."  That important choice was made for me, made by my stupid body that never really worked the way it was supposed to work.

I don't regret the hyst.  Well, I don't regret it right now!  I go through regret times and happy times, and I think thats normal.  I think that if I didn't think about my loss AND think about my gains in equal form right now, this soon after, I would either be crazy or on drugs, and I am pretty sure I am neither.

Mostly I just want to let everyone out there know, in case it isn't obvious.

Dan and I are no longer trying to get pregnant.  We are exploring other options.  I will never be pregnant.


(BIG duh....but I still strangely feel the need to have that moment that others get.  That moment where they share their choice to stop with the world.)

“Although we've come to the end of the road, still I can't let you go, it's unnatural, you belong to me, I belong to you .”

More Than One Loss

When you are getting ready for a hysterectomy, there are these papers you have to sign. Papers, that say in every way possible what you already know before you are reading them...you will never carry a child. You will never give birth. The have you sign these papers in about 800 spots to make sure that you realize what you are getting into before you actually do it, and of course to make sure you don't sue them when you wake up without the parts they went in to remove. They have to assume that every patient is stupid to the fact, and they have to cover their own asses.

What they don't tell you is this. The whole not having kids thing? Just the tip of the iceberg. They don't tell you that even if you wake up without pain and feeling better than you have literally felt in years that you will be different. Everyone always tells you as a woman without a uterus and/or ovaries that you are the same person, but in all reality...in all seriousness, you, along with the world around you, are changed in a way that cannot even be put into words. But for those out there facing the choice, thinking about the choice, or even living in a world after the choice, I am going to try.

For anyone that has lived in pain for a long time there begins a certain routine, a certain dynamic in a family, in a marriage. When I person is sick for a very long time, not only do they get used to being the sick person needing the help, but those around them become used to being the ones providing it. My husband waited on me hand and foot for pretty much our whole marriage up till this point. He cooked me meals and helped me to the tub and shaved my legs. He did all the driving and all the paperwork for bills and all the work. He did everything. And I let him, because there was no other choice for either of us. I was the sick one, and he was the caregiver.

Now I am not the sick one. I don't need help to the tub and I can make my own meals and its finally been long enough without meds that I can get in my car and drive away, alone. Whether or not he is meaning to he is making me feel like I am still sick. He is treating me like a child who can't cut the crusts off her own sandwich and it is driving me insane. No one ever told me, there was no piece of paper to sign, telling me that there would be this shift in my marriage. And it scares me. It scares us. Are we still us like this? Are we still Sara and Dan if Sara is independent and Dan can have parts of his life not revolve around caring for me? Will he still love me when I can work and get a job and FINALLY go back to school? Will I be the same person, uterus or no, when its ME who is able to walk away from a fight and not him? It's like building a marriage all over again, and its hard. We are only two weeks into it and even though I am ashamed to say it, I see no point in not being honest with my readers and I will say that we are falling apart. He sees the surgery as something that had to happen. I see it as something that I allowed to happen. I won't go into more details than that in respect for his privacy, But things have been said in the past couple days that really make me wonder if I didn't sign away my marriage when I signed away my uterus. And it scares me.

When I look in the mirror I look the same, except that something is different in my eyes. I am not the only one who sees it, but I am the only one who knows what it is. The children I will never have had names. They had futures. They had hobbies and blue eyes and quirks and little pieces of Dan and little pieces of me and they were OURS. The were just as real to me as the wind or the rain or the Spring. And they are dead now. Is it wrong that I want to mourn them? Is it wrong that I believe I will see them again one day? Does it make me crazy to write letters and poems to them knowing that they will never actually read them? Am I insane for hating myself a little because one little part of me, deep, deep down, things that I killed my children?

My body betrayed me. You read these stories about adrenaline and people running faster than they should be able to or lifting cars of their wife or any number of impossible feats that were possible because the human body is amazing, and has this primal desire to SURVIVE. These people can do all these things because the body goes into overdrive and does what it has to do in order to survive. And here I am, and I can't even have a child. I never could. I never could give the children in my heart life and I never ever will. I will never give birth to a child. My body was meant to do something, BUILT to do something, and it failed. It failed me. It betrayed me. It was supposed to do something and it didn't. If this was any kind of business I would fire it, because it cannot be counted upon.

There is a difference, I think, in infertile and barren. To me, infertile means that you actually have the parts and something just isn't working right. Barren means you don't have the parts, therefore it is 100% impossible to bear children. I spent years of my life as an infertile woman, and now I am barren. And its a transition. I am physically unable to get pregnant. For the rest of my life. Forever and ever. I will never feel my child kick, I will never feel them enter the world. I will never get to do those things. Because I asked for this. I was selfish and I wanted my life back and I wanted to get off the couch and I wanted to DO something that didn't involve large doses of percocet and constantly buying pads. In a book I read once, and still refer to sometimes, they talk about the "little deaths." (BTW, for those who are interested, my friend Sonja recommended the book and its called "Unsung Lullabies," totally worth the read if you are struggling with infertility) Before this surgery I would have my period, these little deaths, and even though it hurt like hell that it meant I wasn't pregnant, at least it reminded me that I was whole. I was still able to bleed. I still had that part of me. I never realized how important that was until now. No more little deaths for me...only the big one that will never go away.

There are so many aspects and things to re-learn and learn for the first time that I could never list them all here, at least not in one post. I won't say that I regret my choice, just that there is more to it than anyone ever told me. When I signed those pieces of paper saying I understood what I was asking them to do...I really didn't . I really didn't understand the very long journey this will be..long even not in pain. And I am not cured. There is no cure for Endometriosis, not even cutting everything away. I was reminded of it this week when my Sonja came out of her surgery only to hear that her Endo was back and that she would be taking birth control pills...over a year after her hyst. This was a gamble, and maybe it worked and maybe it didn't. But I guess I did what I had to do. I only wish that that little piece of paper I signed my name to had told me....there is more than one loss in this.

Menopause at 26

I would have never thought that I would be going through this at my age. Well, at least not before 5 or 6 years ago. Since I was 21 or so I pretty much knew it would be much earlier than God intended. In fact for the last year or so I pretty much BEGGED for it.

And here I am. Sixteen days post hyst and menopausal and 26 years old. I NEVER thought that this would be has miserable as it is. Shall we look at all my symptoms one by one?

MOOD SWINGS
You can ask my husband, my dog, or my family who has pretty much disowned me whether or not I am over exaggerating when I say that I am a total bitch these days. I cry at the drop of a hat, I can't stand anything going wrong, and even though I don't want to be, I am yelling all the time about everything. I hate the world and I hate God and I hate my body and I hate hate hate. Bless Dan for putting up with me these days.

Night Sweats
When I finally do get to sleep, usually after three or four cold showers, I wake up a few hours later just soaking wet from sweat. My hair is sticky and my back is wet and I literally stink. Along with that comes the inevitable stains on my sheets...as if they weren't ruined enough from the bleeding all the time before the surgery. So yeah, night sweats? NOT fun.

Hot flashes
Ok, so its Spring in Iowa, which in most places would mean cool nights and nice days, except we live where there is no spring, only winter and summer. And it is full on summer....85 degrees till the sun goes down, then we get a little break and fall down to 70. Put on top of this the fact that randomly throughout the day for no particular reason I break into a sweat and become literally so hot I think I have just caught a plague or something....it pretty much sucks. I tried just the air conditioning...no good. Fans? No good. Air conditioning and two fans with a constant ice pack on the back of my neck while drinking iced water all day like its going out of style? Slightly bearable.

Distorted self-image
So I know that I am still the same person and Dan still finds me attractive and all that...but I can't seem to look at myself in the mirror for longer than to brush my teeth and hair. I hate my body for betraying me and I hate myself for accepting it and giving up the fight. I am hoping that this will change in time, or at least get easier, but if it doesn't you can expect many more blogs about the horrors of self-loathing.

I kid you not I have a new respect for anyone, any age, who has ever had to live through this. That being said, surgical menopause is harder than biological, ask any doctor. (I have to say this because there are certain people out there who seem to think that just because they had hot flashes once a week for 10 after giving birth four times that means they know what I am going through.) It is the second hardest thing I have ever had to do, the first being accepting that I would never have biological children and that I needed this hyst to get better. I know that it has only been two weeks and that it will take a long time, years even, to be completely ok with it...and I may never be completely ok with it, but I am hoping that one day I will be able to completely accept it.

As most of you will notice the blog has taken a large overhaul and re-doing, and I plan to post more often if the hopes of helping others who are going through the same thing I am. I also plan to add other things, such as a spin on wordless Wednesdays and maybe book reviews or something like that. If anyone has any ideas or suggestion I am totally open to them! I am also going to try to start tagging my posts so that new readers can easily find something they might be looking for. I am hoping to increase my readership with these things, because, lets face it, more followers makes anyone happy!

I might post again later tonight, maybe with the firsts of the series I am thinking about...maybe not. Depends if I am actually able to sleep later or not. In the mean time I hope everyone out in blogger land is well and that those that are in pain get some relief.