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.

My Photobook

I use Shutterfly for my photo books and they allow me to post code to invite you to look at my book. I've tried Snapfish and haven't been nearly as happy with it. This book turned out really well, despite a few spelling mistakes I caught late and a couple mis-cropped pictures, and it only took about a month to pull together.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Getting Out Of Town

So today we decided to try to get something resembling a vacation out of the last 36 hours of our pager-free time. We had to stay in town until my blood draw this morning, but we left for Chicago after church and took advantage of some free childcare (thanks Aunt Michelle and Uncle Bryan) and the opportunity to eat at our favorite restaurant, Roy's. One of the things we miss most about living in a bigger city is the availability of swanky restaurants! When we lived in Phoenix, we celebrated our anniversary nearly every year at Roy's. Our 8th anniversary is on Tuesday, so we celebrated a little early this year. :)
They stopped doing rolls and started having edemame instead. Surprisingly, we both liked it!

Our anniversary tradition is looking through the yearly album that I make. This year I finished just in time and it arrived on Friday so we had it to go through. We added our own little notes here and there and enjoyed looking over the past year together.

The traditional anniversary picture. We look about the same every year... :)

Another weird thing we do is take pictures of the food. This was Brad's veggie sushi... neither of us was brave enough to try the one with the green mush on top.

Best part of the night- chocolate souffle with merlot plus an extra strawberry cheesecake. Yummy!!

So it turned out to be a good day. Tomorrow we're going to try to do a low-key version of the Brookfield Zoo. I still can't really walk around much, but if we plan it right, we'll just visit a few of the areas and I can sit down in between short walks. I'm hoping that won't be pushing it... but we really wanted to try to do something special as a family.

Physically I am doing somewhat better. My hcg was actually down today which was as good as we could have hoped for. The real test will be on Thursday; they assess whether the medicine worked by looking for a 15% decrease between day 4 and day 7. I am very tired a lot of the time and still having quite a bit of pain and nausea, but I was grateful for the first hopeful sign of resolution in 3 weeks. Emotionally, I've been having a pretty hard time, but tonight was actually really fun, and I was glad to see that fun things are still fun, even when something hard is going on. I'll blog about this later when I feel like the words are ready to come. But thanks for all your prayers. I think we will eventually come out on the other side of all this, and hopefully be stronger and better for it.

The Beach

Took the girls to the beach tonight. They had such a great time it was hard to stay too sad in the presence of so much joy.

Nora was much more interested in the 58 degree water than either of us thought she would be.

We had to go back and get her swimsuit.

Carolyn was our little waterbug. She's never been this brave in the water before! We really had to keep an eye on her. But it's fun to watch her grow and try new things.

She went right in and paddled out as far as we would let her go!

She had a ball swimming back and forth and in and out.

She wanted Brad to pretend to be Nemo's Daddy and tell her when to come back. This worked well because we wanted to wear her out coming in and out!

She was happier than I've seen her in awhile. It's hard to say how much kids really pick up on stuff that's going on around them- but probably more than we give them credit for. She knows that Mommy's tummy hurts, but she's really confused about why it doesn't just STOP hurting when she gives it a kiss. It's hard to have to tell her that sometimes there aren't any easy or quick answers. We don't want to give her too much information, but we don't want her to worry either, so we just tell her that Mommy is getting better, but it just takes awhile.

It was fun to see her just enjoy being a kiddo tonight.

Nora played in the water for awhile, then decided to explore the sand- she took a nosedive and got just COVERED in sand!

After she was brushed off she was content to sit in my lap for awhile... balm to an aching mommy's soul. :)

Sure do love these beautiful girls.

Stay-Cation Day Two

So today was day Two of the "wish we had different circumstances so we could go on our long-planned vacation" experience. Overall, I've felt better today than yesterday, though still very tired and emotionally kind of depressed. I'm hoping that someday we look back on some of these pictures and laugh at this weekend of trying so hard to make the best of something when we all wished we were someplace else!

I haven't felt up to cooking much so we've been eating out a lot.

No one complains about lunch at Pizza Hut.

We've discovered Nora's love for silverware. She'll eat almost anything if it's speared on a fork and handed to her that way. Of course sometimes she puts the wrong end in her mouth...

Tonight we went for a crowd pleaser and took the kids to Logan's (aka the Peanut Restaurant).

Nora discovered the bucket of peanuts...

But with only 8 teeth and no molars no one was dumb enough to let her actually eat any.

After the P.R. we stopped by Captain Sundae, an old college hangout for us and enjoyed some ice cream together.

Carolyn was really into the pink ice cream (you can even see little droplets of it on her eyelashes!)

She shared quite a bit with her sister... obviously.

After this we took the girls to the beach, which was actually really fun and deserves its own post.

[trying to] Make the Best

I'm not gonna lie... the past couple days have been tough. Both physically and emotionally draining. I have so many emotions and thoughts swirling around that I feel kind of dizzy still... a little shellshocked that all this is unfolding in this way, and terribly insecure because nothing has happened the way "they" said it would or should. So I feel pretty confused and blind as to what comes next and my natural tendency to worry has been running pretty strong. One day soon the impulse will strike me that I need to blog about all that, the urge to write will become oppressive until I actually sit down and to it, and once I do, I know I will feel better. But right now I don't feel able to do that... so I guess I'll have to deal with the clouded thoughts awhile longer.

Today we tried to resolve to see the mercies in our life, large and small, and to make the best of what we've been given in this day. We are supposed to be on vacation in Door County, Wisconsin with some dear friends we knew from Phoenix. It's terribly disappointing to be stuck in town so we can stay close to the hospital and the lab, but here we are. So we're trying to have a bit of a "staycation" as much as we can with my physical limitations. I slept through most of the day today and by dinner time was finally feeling better enough to get out. We drove out to Grand Haven and had some dinner and then went for a (slow) walk on the boardwalk.

Nora and I walked with the stroller.

Carolyn and Daddy ran back and forth, burning off some of her excess energy.

Carolyn liked to stop to "rest" on all these little blue posts in the sidewalk.

We tried for a family picture.

A few times.

Finally had someone take it for us. Maybe this won't be the "one" for the Christmas cards... but it documents the here and now. Here we were, our little family of four, maybe a little sore and sad this particular day, but overwhelmingly grateful to be wherever we are together.

#2

looks like option #2.

feel dreadful, going to bed. appreciate your prayers and support.