Heal me...

A few days ago we took an emergency trip up the canyon. By emergency I mean... emergency. I was loosing it. I needed to breath, I needed to get away for a minute. I needed to escape reality and do something that makes me feel alive. So my wise and well seasoned (in my craziness) husband who was driving the car headed for my favorite canyon so that our little family could walk in the trees for a while.

It's been a rough two weeks over in our neck of the woods. I've been debating whether or not to share this on my blog... I still don't know if I should or not, because this is so personal. But those of you who know me best know that I am an open book... and mostly because so many of you know that we've been trying to have another baby and also know that we've started getting some help with that and have been asking me how it's going.

Two weeks ago I found out I was pregnant with an ectopic pregnancy. I was completely shocked.
 I had a normal period two weeks before. Completely normal. So normal that I took my clomid prescription to the pharmacy and started my first dose of fertility meds. Never even beginning to suspect that I was already pregnant. Two weeks later after some funny stuff happening (I wont go into detail there) a blood test confirmed that I was pregnant. About 5-6 weeks pregnant at that.

Excuse me? Really? How on earth...

It's been a long two weeks of blood tests, four ultrasounds, etc etc to try and figure out what's going on here. Thankfully (did I really just say that?) the pregnancy miscarried itself. I don't need surgery, or even a shot of chemotherapy to terminate the pregnancy (yes, that is really how they terminate ectopic pregnancies most of the time... you can imagine how I feel about that). It just did it on it's own. Blessing? I've been having my blood tested a few times a week to be sure that my HCG count keeps going down. I have to keep doing this until it reaches 0. Today it's 26... so hopefully this part will be over soon.

On top of having the ectopic pregnancy I've had some bad consequences from taking Clomid. I had a rare reaction to the clomid called Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome. I currently have three cysts on my right ovary that are doubling in size every week. Just to put this in perspective, a normal healthy ovary is about 3 cm to 5 cm. Between the three cysts I have about 16-18 cm worth of cysts on my ovary, the largest one as of Tuesday was 8 cm. We are just keeping an eye on these via ultrasound. I'm suppose to be taking it easy (but not too easy, not bed rest... but I probably shouldn't be hiking either... whoops) until these start to clear up, but there is no sign of that happening any time soon.

So ectopic pregnancy. Check. Ovary the size of a large grapefruit and still growing. Check. Depressing outlook on future possible pregnancies. Check.

I was also officially diagnosed with PCOS, which is probably why I've been having a hard time getting pregnant in the first place and why I ended up with the hyperstimulation problem. But because of my reaction to clomid I can no longer take that fertility drug ever again. I'm also not a candidate for any injectable fertility drugs, or IVF to try and get pregnant. Usually they see hyperstimulation syndrome with people who have been taking injectable drugs with IVF. It's super rare to have this happen with oral clomid (lucky me). So for me to take anything stronger would have very bad consequences to my poor ovaries.

In the end, I'm ticked off. I'm mad. I'm sad. I'm frustrated. I'm mostly mad. I wish this wouldn't have happened at all. I really didn't want to have an ectopic pregnancy on my already messed up fertility record. That's a big strike against future fertility. And learning that I can not do future fertility treatments is a big bummer for a girl who has a hard time getting pregnant.

I keep thinking that my boy needs to have some siblings. My husband who comes from a large family and loves kids needs to be able to have more kids. These thoughts really put a lot of pressure on me to make this happen for my family. But I can't make this happen, I can't make myself have a baby. But maybe we don't need to have lots of kids to have a happy, wonderful family life. Maybe what we really need is a happy and healthy mom/wife on board.

Our hike was so healing for me. My poor attitude turned completely around and I ended up having a lovely and wonderful day with these two boys. We can weather any storm together. But I need to get my head on straight here and dive deep into practicing some serious self love for this body that seems to struggle so much sometimes.

So that is the new game plan. Get Meg's body healthy through lots and lots of self love so that I can heal. Not to try and "get pregnant," cause that went so well after all. To me self love means eating healthy, getting sleep, destressing my life as much as possible, laughing with my boys, surrounding myself with good positive people who help me feel good about myself, and spending lots and lots of time with the trees... cause that's been proven to be the best drug around for me. (Any other suggestions on how I can spoil myself right now in self love would be appreciated).

I really don't know why I'm putting all this out there. But here it is. Please don't feel bad for me. You can feel bad for my ovary if you want because geez that thing is not happy right now. I guess I just wanted people in my life to know what was going on. I can't feel sorry for myself for too long because, well.... see for yourself.

 With this charming little boy to keep me running all day long I have a hard time not counting my blessings at some point in the day. I am truly, truly blessed to have these boys and am thankful that they put up with all my little shenanigans.