Under the knife...

So this Friday... I'm having surgery. I just had my pre-op appointment this morning, so I'm feeling a little less anxious than before - now that I know exactly where to go the day-of and what to expect, etc... but still - the idea of being put to sleep is scary! It's like you lose a good 2 or 3 hours of your life! My husband had hernia surgery earlier this year - and that was the first experience with surgery of any kind for both of us. If someone had told us this past Christmas that we both would be having surgery this year, I would have laughed. What in the world?

My husband's came about rather fast. He developed a hernia and well, it had to be taken care of. It was rather quick - he went to the doctor one day and literally the next day he was under the knife! It was so fast that neither of us really had time to process it. It wasn't so much of an emergency as it just worked out that way. He went through a lot of pain during recovery, so when we learned I needed surgery, he was rather hesitant because he just didn't want me to have to go through what he had just gone through. My situation is a little different though...

We have been trying to get pregnant for about a year and a half now. I started to get suspicious that something was up after about six months of trying. I think during the second six months was when I began to get pretty frustrated. There were several times when I really thought I was pregnant, but sure enough I wasn't. Perhaps I was but miscarried really early - who knows. I started reading into fertility statistics online and reading horrible stories and numbers and percentages... and finally I just had to stop myself. The internet is so great for so many things... but self-diagnosing on the web is not a good idea! There's a lot of great information out there, but I decided to just stop and to just roll with it. As much as we wanted a baby, there's only so much we can do ourselves - we're not the ones ultimately in control here! And through all of this, I think that has been the biggest lesson learned. Lots of prayer, lots of patience, and lots of prayers for more patience. Honestly, without my faith I have no idea how I would've handled all this. Like I said, I went through this period of real frustration, but I've really come to a point now where I'm just pretty laid back about the whole thing. It's gonna happen when it's meant to happen. And maybe God has an entirely different plan for us - who knows... but anyway...

After about a year of trying, we started initial fertility testing with my OB/GYN - whom I love. She is great. She experienced problems with infertility as well, so she's been where I've been and where I'm about to go. Well we did a bunch of bloodwork, my husband had his boys tested, and I also had an HSG. Don't ask me to spell out the formal name for that procedure - but it's a dye test to see if your tubes are open and to examine the shape of your uterus, etc. Well I'm lying there on the exam table looking at the image of my uterus on the screen and the radiologist informs me that I have uterine horns, which could mean a couple of different things. Either way - it meant my uterus was abnormal and some kind of "procedure" would have to be performed before I could carry a baby full term. My doctor later ordered an MRI to further examine the uterine abnormality. The MRI films (which are freaking weird, by the way!!) showed that I have a septum - a wall of tissue down the middle of my uterus. So the surgery I'm having Friday is to remove this wall of tissue. The MRI also revealed an ovarian cyst, which will also be dealt with AND, just for kicks, the surgeon (my fertility specialist) will check for and remove any endometriosis found. A 3-for-1 special! I DO love a bargain.

It's funny how we suddenly have all these medical bills rolling in this year. OK not funny - they're not exactly fun... but I just would never had seen all this coming! I'm looking forward to getting past the surgery and finding out more. It's hard to say what the next steps are until the doctor gets in there and really sees what we're dealing with. I'm still very young, so age is not a huge factor yet, but I'm definitely ready to move forward. We've been married for almost 5 years and we feel like we're ready to take that next step and start a family. But you know, although we've been wanting this for so long, we're having a blast with it just being us right now. I cherish the time we have together just being us - able to do whatever we want. We can pick up and go meet friends for dinner at the drop of a hat... we can fly out of town for the weekend without looking back... all things that will come to a hault (or at least require more advance planning!) once we have little tots running around. So while we're looking very much forward to those days, we're doing just fine with our two doggies and us. While my previous posts have been pretty light and fun, I look forward to using this blog to share our journey into parenthood. :-)