The Story

Well, we're back at home again after a quick trip to Chicago. Braved the zoo today and tried really hard to take it easy... might have pushed it a bit too hard, so I'm ready for bed now, but I wanted to do a quick update. I realize I maybe haven't been as specific about how things are going as I could have been, and I want everyone to know exactly where we are with things so that you can be praying for us. There have been so very many nice messages and comments and gestures, it is very appreciated.

So this is the story as I understand it at this point. It seems to change a lot, but hopefully we are on the right track of treatment now and things will be resolving soon.

I had a positive pregnancy test back on May 20. Initially it looked like it would be a simple miscarriage because my hcg was very low and so was my progesterone. This was pretty similar to our first miscarriage back in May 08. But instead of continuing to decrease as it was supposed to, the hcg continued to go up. After two consecutively higher readings, my doctor decided to do a d&c, assuming that there must be some part of the pregnancy stuck in my uterus. After the d&c I immediately began to feel better and thought that everything must be resolving, then a few days afterwards, I went for a walk with my family and by the time I got home was having severe cramping and pains. This continued on and off for a couple more days, at which point I called the doctor and said I was going to the ER if they weren't able to squeeze me in that day. They saved me an ER copay and evaluated me in the office instead.

That was last Wednesday, June 10. Turns out my hcg continued to go up despite the first d&c, and an ultrasound showed a 9cm cyst on my right ovary. No one really knows what this cyst is, but we think that's why I've had so much pain for the past week or so. They're reluctant to go in and do anything about the cyst because in the process of exploring what it is or removing it, I'd run the risk of bleeding so much that they'd have to take my ovary or of having scarring in my tube, neither of which is desirable since we WANTED to be pregnant in the first place.

So last Wednesday I had a second d&c which again showed that no pregnancy tissue was removed, and the current assumption is that I have had an ectopic pregnancy this entire time. Thankfully, the numbers themselves, though they had been going up, never got so high as to indicate a pregnancy of much size (they could not see where it is on ultrasound), so the hope is that surgery will be unnecessary and also that the potential for recurrence is as low as it can be, provided that the medication they gave me will work. After the d&c I cried for about 2 hours in the hospital, partly because I was in pain, and partly because I was just grieving for what it means that I now have this ectopic pregnancy in my medical history (in my mind at least, I really fear for what this will do for our future potential for more children), and also because the chemotherapy medication I had to have to treat it necessitated that I stop breastfeeding Nora immediately. I had planned to stop soon, but I had not wanted to stop in that abrupt way and certainly not until this situation was resolved. Thankfully, in another spot of grace, the transition at least for Nora seems to have been smoother than it could have been. She still asks morning and night but doesn't seem too upset when I give her a cup instead. I've been reasonably comfortable, and I think that once all the rest of this mess is done and over with I will feel glad to have a bit more freedom, though I think in some way I'll always miss the closeness of that bond.

The second d&c has been much harder to recover from. I still don't feel great. I get tired really easily and am still having quite a bit of pain. The cyst is much on my mind because no one really knows what caused it and what it is. We are all hopeful that as the pregnancy hormones go away that it too will resolve, but it has to be "followed" and I HATE being "followed." I feel really scared that there's something really sinister in there. I've struggled a lot with anxiety over the past several weeks and especially since last Wednesday- I tend to vacillate between fearing being totally infertile for the rest of my life, and having the world's most unusual ovarian cancer at the age of 29 and not even living to see the children I do have grow up. My mind has been a really scary place to be lately and to be honest, I don't really feel like I've dealt with this in the best way. I've been pretty depressed for the past few days and every time I think about what's going on. Poor Brad, I tend to pommel him with questions and he is very patient with me, but I know it's hard for him when I'm having a hard time.

Today I was reading another woman's blog about some hard stuff that's going on in her life, and relating to some of the things she's saying about waiting for test results. It's a tough place to be, the not knowing. In some ways it's easier to deal with a known bad situation than it is to deal with an open-ended bad situation you don't know the extent of. I will be waiting for awhile, I think. My first hcg test on Sunday post-medication was encouraging, but it will be Thursday's test that decides if I have to have another dose of medication. And it may be weeks or months before we have any information about the cyst, short of an emergency situation necessitating surgery. It's really hard to wait and not know. Like I know there's been a tornado of sorts in my body but I have yet to assess the damage.

I feel sort of betrayed by everything that has happened to me in the past few weeks. This is NOT how I thought things would go. Ever since I got pregnant with Nora, I have felt very strongly that it is right for our family to be in an open-hands-open-home place with regard to more children. We chose not to use birth control after Nora was born, knowing children to be a huge blessing and just desiring a quiver full of them- in the timing God chooses to give them. I still feel that way. But I feel sort of betrayed by the fact that by keeping that door "open," we also kept the door open to heartache like this. I would have been thrilled to death with an unexpected pregnancy- but an unexpected ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage and scary cyst- that's NOT what I planned on, not even something that had entered into my thinking when I thought about the "open door" policy.

I know in the depths of my soul that God IS sovereign, that He IS faithful, that He DOES have a good plan for my life... but sometimes the circumstances seem so big and so scary and so awful and so sad that I have a hard time believing it in the place in my heart that hurts. I felt a lot of these things two years ago when that little baby was taken from my womb after barely having a chance to start. And maybe I just need Him to show me AGAIN, that even now, even with this burden that seems too great to bear, even with all the infinitely scary possibilities, that all those things are as true today as they have been from the dawn of creation. I need to know this more than just at the rock bottom when the world crashes down around me; I need to have a sense of His goodness and the buoy of His hope for my life or I'll just sink in sadness and fears and anger.

It's been a tough week, especially. I haven't felt this down in a very long time, haven't struggled this much with all the worst parts of me in years. I feel in a lot of ways like I'm blundering around in the dark, just waiting for someone to turn the lights on. In the beginning, when we first learned about this pregnancy but did not yet know about the extent of problems it would cause, I remember feeling just this superb sense of hope, of confidence that everything would turn out okay in the end... and somehow in the last couple weeks I feel like I've lost that sense and I'm just stumbling around in a cloud, just waiting for the lightning flash and the thunder clap.

But to be fair, even the darkness of the past week has not been without glimmers of light. I still don't have answers to my current situation, but there have been touches of grace in so many ways. And for now, that will have to be enough.