Well, I'm finally ready to write about it. It's been a little over a month since the surgery and the scars, both physically and emotionally, are begininng to heal and even fade a little. I've avoided doing this because while I knew it would be theraputic I just couldn't "go there yet." I also wanted to write this to thank so many of the friends that prayed so fervently for us during this time period in our lives. I don't think I'll ever be able to express the gratitude for the support the good people of Kingsport, TN gave us and your prayers, kind words, encouragement, and friendship have meant the world to me. We miss you SO MUCH and are hoping to find friends even half as wonderful here in Louisiana as you all were to us in TN. ....You left very big shoes to fill!
*DISCLAIMER*: This is going to get pretty personal, so if you're not into that sort of thing, you should probably google "the bloggess" or "PIWTPITT" - they're hilariously funny and most of the time light hearted.
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Do you have a list of questions? You know, those questions that no human could ever answer - they're the "God only knows" questions - and I mean that quite literally. I've added to mine recently. A lot. Until recently, it's been things like "what age will you be when you get to heaven?" "will you be the young version of yourself? will you be the age you died, forever young or forever old?"... or there's the "how will my family members recognize me?" "Will my husband on earth still be my husband in heaven?" All very valid questions [I thought] but most recently I have added "Do mis-carried babies have a spot in heaven, and will I ever get to meet mine if they do?" There are all sorts of things that I wonder that relate to that question, for instance - if the pregnancy was so early the baby didn't even have a heartbeat yet does that mean yes or no? I could go on and on and on, but I just wish that I had some answers. Well, I don't have answers, but I do have one thing to cling to - my faith in God. Knowing that He has all of the answers and all of the plans and that in His perfect time He will reveal them is what has kept me going through the most difficult time period in my life, to date.
About seven years ago I began having a pain in my lower right side. For the life of me I could not remember doing something to cause that pain. Nothing came to mind when I thought back to see if maybe I'd lifted something incorrectly or twisted in some weird way, so after some time I decided to see a doctor about it. I went, and the doctor suggested I have my first x-ray and the first of many results that would show nothing out of the ordinary. Do you know how frustrating it is to finally do something you think will help you to feel better only to be told there is nothing wrong? I would liken it to seven years of squeaky brakes that the mechanic just couldn't find anything wrong with. Except for these squeaky brakes aren't in your car, they're in your body... and they continue to hurt you off and on, sometimes much more severe than others. Sometimes so much that the physical exhaustion of it all would leak over into your mental and emotional well-being. I began questioning my sanity and whether or not this was really something serious or something that I was just making up ["oh my gosh - is there something mentally wrong with me??"] This happened SO. MANY. TIMES. over the last seven years. Ultra-sounds, x-rays, Cat Scans, drinking barium [UGH!!] and countless other doctor's visits all to be told there was nothing the doctors could find and the pain would go on and on and on...... A few different doctors mentioned that it sounded like endometriosis, which to the lay person is just painful scar tissue that can cause infertility in women. I had some symptoms of that, but I never truly believed [deep down] that endometriosis was the root cause of this pain. There would be periods of time where my side wouldn't hurt - maybe even a month or so at the time. But when it was on and truly flaring up, it was dibilitating.
Going on about a year now, my husband and I have been trying to start a new phase in our lives and become parents. To be perfectly honest we both have had the baby bug for quite some time (only to be enhanced by my adorable niece Lila!) but were trying to hold off as long as we could to give us time to just be married and learn about each other... travel... and just do married couple things. We both knew it was something we wanted for ourselves and as a couple we decided last October we would officially start giving it a shot.
A few months into unsuccessfully trying I decided to see my doctor to make sure I was healthy and in the best shape possible to start this next phase. To my surprise, I ended up needing some fertility assistance to jump start the process. If you're a woman and you've ever had to go down that road, it can feel SO lonely and can make you feel as if you are somehow broken. I felt broken. This medication has the potential for all sorts of side effects; some aggravating physical and in my case both physical and emotional. I could only stand these side effects for two months before waving the white flag. I went back to my doctor and with no pregnancy success and side effects that resembled a menopausal woman, I told her I was done. Dr. Steven's informed me that the meds I had been taking [Clomid] were the only thing that she could prescribe, but that there was a fertility specialist in town that offered a different course of action. The new doctor would be able to prescribe a different fertility pill that was supposed to come with less side effects and my interest was perked. The hubbs and I decided we had nothing to lose by seeing Dr. Assad [specialist] so we made an appointment to have a chat with him to see what our options were.
We got to Dr. Assad's office for our information session and in discussing my medical history the side pain issue came up. Dr. Assad listened intently and to my surprise, honed in on the side pain part. Up until now it had been something dismissed by most doctors I'd seen and I assumed he would care more about what we wanted to do as far as fertility. In seven years, he was the first to really pay attention to the fact that I was having so much pain and so our conversation became more focused on what to do about that first, then worry about having a baby. He said that we needed to give it a couple of months and during those months record all of the times and details surrounding when the pain happened. Dr. Assad's inital diagnosis was that he thought it would be endometriosis, and that he would be able to do a laparoscopic surgery to remove it. Removing it would be wonderful for 2 reasons: I would finally be rid of this pain and clearing out the endo would mean my chances of becoming a mother would increase dramatically. It would mean surgery, but I would have done just about anything for just one of those reasons. Both? ... I said bring it on.
During those months of recording the Waugh's had some other life events going on. My husband was interviewing with a company that he had admired for years and it was looking more and more like he was going to be offered a position with them. Well, they offered it to him and it was one of those opportunities that you would always wonder "what if" about... so together we decided this was going to be a new adventure for us and we started planning for our move from Tennessee to Louisiana. "BUT WAIT - - I JUST found a doctor that was willing to help me with this seven year old pain issue!!" I was beyond devastated at the thought of having to give up the only doctor that had put together a plan to help me. I had suffered SO long with this issue and was SO close to having it resolved. Surely there was another option. Surely!...?!....?
I went to see Dr. Assad again and told him that on top of our medical issues, we now had another issue. This issue was a race against the clock. I had a month. One month until we were to be moving 14 hours from his office and I wasn't willing to give up on our plan. Of course there would be other doctors, doctors in Louisiana that I'm sure would be capable of handling my case. But this was a gut-wrenching feeling for me - one that told me he was it. I trusted him and he knew my file. This was going to happen. At my appointment his nurse told me that he had just had a surgery cancellation for the upcoming Tuesday and that if I wanted it, it was mine. ....Did I want it? YES I wanted it! I quickly signed up to be pain free by the following week and was thrilled. At this point I knew that God had to have His hands in this. The only week that would fit into my work schedule before we moved and also give me enough time to heal before having to pack up and somebody had cancelled - leaving one spot open for me. I just knew this was it. This was the end of my struggle and Louisiana would mean we could start fresh.
If you've had surgery you know that there are some pre-op tests that have to be run. You have to give bloodwork, sign documents, give emergency contact lists, and so on. My surgery was to be on Tuesday so on Monday I more than willingly gave 7 viles of my blood to the lab and signed away on those documents. Another perk of having surgery scheduled is the fasting. 3:00pm was my scheduled surgery time and it was 10:00 on Tuesday. I was trying SO hard not to focus on eating [but barely making it!] when my cell phone rang and it was Dr. Assad's office. I thought it was strange to be getting a call from them but assumed that it was just more instructions for the upcoming surgery. Only 5 more hours to go! 7 years of pain was only 5 hours away from being GONE. But wait .... the nurse on the other line had news. She said "Mrs. Waugh, are you sitting down?" I was not, but quickly found myself needing to be as she informed me they would not be able to do my surgery that day because my pre-op labs had shown that I was pregnant!!!!!!! "OH!!" the sheer excitement and at the same time "oh!" the disappointment that I would be stuck with this side pain for a minimum of 9 more months. Who cares.... I was finally pregnant and I would find a way to deal with the pain for forever. "there's more".... uh oh - "the HCG levels are really low so we're not sure if this is just an early detection or if it's an ectopic pregnancy." My brain quickly thinks - "what in the world is ectopic? Surely it's just early detection!!" And I convinced myself then that it was and that we would be welcoming baby Waugh into the family in 9 months. I was instructed to come back in the next day for more bloodwork so they could see what the levels were doing. This was a process they would go on to repeat a few more times and each time the news was less and less hopeful. My heart continued to sink. I wanted to be pregnant SO badly. I wanted to be pregnant for my husband equally as badly, if not more than I wanted it for me. The possibility of it brought a hope in both of us I'd never experienced and I so wanted it to be our time.
We spent the weekend hoping, wishing, and praying for a miracle that just a little more time would show that baby Waugh was just new and that my HCG levels would normalize. Monday brought news that it was not to be. Not now anyway. The levels had not risen enough to be a normal pregnancy and this baby had gotten stuck in my fallopian tube. We were instructed that the safest course of action would be for me to have an injection of methotrexate; which is used in ectopic/tubal pregnancies to save the mother from a ruptured fallopian tube because the baby would continue to grow in the tube, but would never live because eventually the tube will rupture. I went in on a Tuesday - a week from the origianlly scheduled endometriosis surgery for the methotrexate injection. I really struggled with doing this... it just felt so wrong. I knew it was the best thing for me if I wanted to live to try again someday, but injecting myself with something I knew would remove the chance of baby Waugh still felt like giving up. It felt like I had aborted this pregnancy and aborted the hope for a miracle that I was clinging so hard to.
The injection I received on Tuesday was supposed to come with a few side effects but I was instructed that if at any time I felt faint or had any neck and shoulder pain, I needed to get to an emergency room. Wednesday came and went and for the most part, I just felt uncomfortable with some cramping. I went to bed Wednesday night and only slept a few hours before waking up to the most severe cramp I've ever felt. It put my side pain to shame and I tried to make my way to the bathroom without waking up my husband. Surely this was just a side effect of the methotrexate injection?? Wasn't it? Once in the bathroom I began to feel weak and ended up laying on the cold floor. I yelled for the hubby and we decided I should try the pain pills the doctor had prescribed and give it a few hours. The pain pills worked pretty fast and I was back asleep within half an hour. I slept until the morning and at 8am the hubby woke me up to see how I was feeling. I could hardly move. I have no idea why the pain hadn't woken me up but standing up wasn't an option any longer. I was weak, faint, and oh-my-gosh the cramping. We called Dr. Assad's office and he told us to get there immediately- that it sounded like the injection had failed and that my tubal pregnancy had ruptured my tube. I was scared, but so weak that I found myself just going through the motions. My husband was such a rock for me and I will never forget how strong he was during this time. We made it the 30 minute trek to Dr. Assad's office and he did an ultrasound that confirmed his suspicions and our next move was to the hospital where he would perform a laparoscopic surgery to remove my left tube.
I've only ever had my wisdom teeth removed. No broken bones, no crazy stories that ended up with a need for stitches so this was much bigger than I could wrap my head around. I was given an IV and within the hour I found myself on my way into the operating room. [The O.R.?!?! pleassseee tell me there's another option?] But there I was- on the table, this was really happening. 3 short breaths later I was out and Dr. Assad was in to save me from internal bleeding that could have been fatal. While I was under the knife he was able to remove the pregnancy, the tube, AND he was able to remove MY SIDE PAIN!!!!!! 3 tiny little incisions and I was not only alive but alive without side pain!! He'd found some adhesions that I won't pretend to understand, the important part is that he removed them and to this day I am side pain free.
So here I am - a month and some change later and I am more convinced than ever that God has a reason for everything. And more convinced than ever that His timing is perfect. When He is ready for us to become parents, we will become parents. I feel broken now, but not the kind of broken that I felt when I was taking the fertility medication. It's my plans that are broken - and it has never felt so freeing. Looking back at what happened- the new job, the need to move for the new job, the scheduled surgery being moved up because of the impending move, the original surgery being cancelled because of the pregnancy, and then the emergency surgery to save my life .... it's hard to put into words the gratitude I have for God's perfect plan. I call myself an event planner by trade, but my plans feel like a joke now and while it takes SO much faith, it's a challenge I'm up for. I've been given a second chance and I intend to let God lead the way.
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