Re-published from Slate & Stylish: 4/25/2013
Growing up in the house that my dad built, we had this little garden, rather this row of flowers that grew in our front yard that my mom and dad had nicely landscaped. Every year they planted these bright orange and yellows flowers, I have not idea what kind of flowers they were (I think maybe mums), I just remember them being very bright and I loved see them everyday! I have always had a fascination with bright colors, probably because with my eye condition, I can only really see bright colors. Makes sense I think.
I continue to love bright colors, I wear them often, I decorate with them, I am drawn to them in almost any situation. They make me feel colorful, bright, hopeful and energized, I'm a big fan of loud colors!
Yesterday was one of the darkest days of my life...
We had an appointment with our fertility doctor yesterday. It was THEE appointment to determine whether we would continue trying to get pregnant on our own (with medication), through Artificial Insemination or through In-vetro Fertilization (IVF) (
We talked about this in a previous post)..
We first met with a financial counselor and that alone made me nauseous beyond words. These prices they were telling us seemed unreal to me. I heard $2,000, $12,000, $20,000....I felt like I was in some surreal movie where OTHER people had this kind of money and can fork it over. I know you can't put a price on children but when it comes down to it, that's your only option, you still have to have that kind of money somewhere, it just seemed so
unfair and unreasonable to me.
After our money meeting, we sat out in the waiting room. We talked about trying on our own for a few more months so we could begin saving, we talked about trying Artificial Insemination first (because it's significantly a cheaper route), we talked about all these options. Then it was time to go back for my test...
It was a test to see if my fallopian tubes were open. Now, I'm going to explain the procedure so if you don't want to hear this, skip to the next paragraph, BUT, I am going to share it because I know I would have rather liked knowing what I was getting into before this happened. It's simple, it's basically an x-ray where they inject your fallopian tubes with a dye and see if the dye pushes through them.
Kind of like a plumbing test but for your body. In order to do this they stick a catheter into each tube, then they push the dye through. It's a pretty simple procedure and relatively painless UNLESS your fallopian tubes do not work. I handled the first stages quite well, but when they pushed the dye through I suddenly had excruciating pain run through me. I started sweating and crying and told the doctor I was about to faint, cause I was, I know the sensation all too well. So they immediately stopped, they were nearly done with the procedure at that point anyway...
I laid on the table in tears shocked by the whole situation and what I was going through, I remembered the doctor telling me that it would hurt worse if the tubes were closed, but maybe I was just a big baby...
After looking at the pictures for a few minutes (maybe only a few seconds it just seemed like forever) she told me that neither of my tubes work and worse off, she didn't get the pictures she wanted so we were going to do it again. The second time I stayed strong, physically at least, but cried through the whole thing. She re-affirmed to be after round two that neither were working. I was like a robot was talking to me, I heard what she said but I couldn't understand what she was saying. I felt queasy again... I had been told many, many times that as long as one tube was working there was hope I could pregnant on my own.
Knowing full well what that meant for me, I still asked her, "So what does that mean for me getting pregnant?" She said, "It means you can't possibly get pregnant on your own and artificial insemination is no longer an option." I knew I had problems going into my appointment but I had hope and now that was all washed away, with concrete evidence.
My world was just black and white now. Nothing seemed to have color at all. I was wearing a bright blue dress yesterday and putting it back on, it was every shade of black to me.
GQ wasn't in the room with me because he wasn't allowed due to it being an X Ray. He came in and said nothing, just saw the pain in my face. He just held me while I cried, still not knowing exactly why I was crying. The doctor then showed him the images and in a very round about way told him what that meant. I felt like all I could see in that room was he and I and a lot of emptiness.
NOW, the great news here is we still have the option of IVF, that does not require you to have tubes at all and I've never been more thankful for science in my life; knowing that it's possible to create a baby is miraculous to me! But I'm still pretty peeved that THIS is our only option...
Today I woke up seeing a bit more color than yesterday but the world appears differently to me now. Having someone look you directly in the eyes and telling you that you it's impossible to create life on your own is surreal...and heart-wrenching. BUT it's reality for us and we know there is another option. Yet I don't know if I will ever really get over the fact that my body was not made to do this simple thing that millions of women can do.
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| Orange and Yellow Mums |
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My hope is that someday I can have a child and we will be able to plant them a super bright garden like my dad did for us, full of yellow and orange flowers and hope!
