Moments of Clarity

Honestly, I know this needs to be written, documented, but I have little idea about where to start.

Warning: I will be giving some explicit details.

At this point, whether you are a friend or you've read through my posts you know last year I battled Breast Cancer. Having gone through Chemotherapy I knew that there would be some long-lasting effects. Not forever, but for at least a year or two after I would deal with some lingering things. While I was doing Chemo, while it is not a perk it was nice that I didn't have to deal with it on top of everything else, but I didn't have my period for almost a year. Yay! However, once it finally came back last fall, I had my period for three weeks. Boo! So after having a regular period for about a year, I thought it was weird that I had been bleeding for fourteen days, but didn't think much of it because it might be a lingering effect of Chemo. It wasn't until Sunday night where I passed tissue and started crying hysterically and freaking out that it was time to go to the ER.

We were only at the ER for about an hour, after doing the first round of blood work and peeing in a cup, before Tyler and I were told the news that I was pregnant. We were ecstatic by the news but knew that all the bleeding that I was doing probably wasn't a good sign. They did an ultrasound and more blood work and found that I was probably only one to two weeks pregnant. At this point, I was so early that a drug store pregnancy test wouldn't be able to pick it up. Selfishly, it makes me wonder if I would have just waited three more days, when the bleeding officially stopped, I probably would have never known and would have never gone through the kind of heartache that I am experiencing now. Shortly, I was released from the ER, but that wasn't without severe anxiety and a series of more blood work and doctor appointments that I still had to follow up with. We had to wait three days, three awesome yet horrible days, to figure out if it was some sort of fluke and the baby was fine, if I miscarried, or if it was an Ectopic pregnancy and I would need immediate surgery because my life was in danger. And, honestly, I wish to have gone through cancer again than to find out anything other than the baby was fine.

But it wasn't.

Being the avid reader that I am I always try to relate a book to the post I'm attempting to write, and the one that comes to mind is "Little Do We Know" by Tamara Ireland Stone. This book is about how a singular moment can change everything. A moment is neither good nor bad, but everything can change in a single moment. I looked it up, and a moment is made up of ninety seconds. That is a minute and a half. That's enough time to tell someone there are pregnant and have them be unexplainably happy and enough time to tell someone they've miscarried and feel like they've been mortally wounded. It only takes twenty-five seconds between pulling the trigger and the bullet firing. It only takes a moment to say something that you will never be able to take back. It only takes a moment to say 'I do'. Those are only a few examples.

Back in January of 2019, after going to pre-surgeries, and meeting with my doctors. I was referred to a fertility doctor. Tyler and I tried to get pregnant for about a year before, and with not knowing the extent that Chemo would affect me, they thought I should at least go through a consultation. After only about ten minutes, we realized it wasn't for us, and frankly just not possible. Upfront they said that you would have to postpone all cancer treatments until this was done and that they needed $10,000 upfront. Knowing that we didn't have that kind of money, knowing that no one was certain that we couldn't get pregnant, and knowing that we also liked the idea of adoption we decided that they did not have my well-being in mind and decided against fertility treatments. Finally, we thought it fitting to just leave it up to God, thankful at the time that we didn't have any kids while I was going through cancer, knowing that God had timed it that way for that reason.

Fast-forward a year post-cancer and we thought we would start trying again, but incredibly doubtful that anything would happen. Now, without a doubt we know we serve a God that answers prayers. Not always in the way we want or expect, but we know having a child biologically is possible when before we thought it was anything but possible. That doesn't make the pain any less, but it makes it a little more bearable. Though we will never be able to meet this little one, I categorize him/her as our miracle baby. Letting us know that anything is possible.

#cancer #aboutme