OY VEY

Dude, I can't believe I STILL have not gotten my test results from my doctor. She's driving me nuts! All she has to do, is hand the paper to her secretary, and her secretary can go ahead and fax those papers to me. It's been all week.

Whats really freaking me out, is that this week, my blood pressure has been pretty much out of control. My neph. told me to double my dose of procardia, (even tho she's probably going to take me off of it since we have officially decided to not get pregnant), but all week on 60mgs of bp medicine, and its still in the 145/115 range. Lets not leave out the fact that my ankles look completely ridiculous. I took a lasix pill last night, but I don't think it really helped.

I've been paranoid all day. Went to the bathroom, and hoped no one would glimpse me through a crack in the stall door, leaning over the toilet, examining the bubbles in my pee, or the light color. It was really light, like just tinted water. And yeah , there was foam, like soap bubbles.

Anyhew, I hope I'll from my Dr. soon with these test results, I think I'm just bugging myself out.

The waiting game

I always say that things are really about perspective. What's there is what you choose to see, and you can always choose to see bad or you can choose to see good. For a person to lose his legs can mean the end of his life, but for someone else who has no legs, that just IS his life. I think slowly, I'm starting to learn to embrace the concept of not experiencing pregnancy and birth. And really, it's not the end of the world, its actually the catalyst for a new world for me and my husband and whoever our baby is thats waiting for us out there. It's not what I envisioned, but its time for me to have a new vision, and run toward that.

What's harder to get a hold on, is this whole thing with my kidneys. Its like medical limbo, where apparently I'm not sick enough to be eligible for transplant, but at the same time, I feel like I'm struggling everyday with fatigue and food. I'm sooo tired, just ALL the time. At any point I could just lay down and go to sleep. It's frustrating not having energy, and to always have to push myself just to get through a basic day. I feel like I sleep for 12 hours a day, and still am always tired. My other struggle is with food. The salt restrictions are a real challenge. I'm way too tired to cook every single day, but when I'm out, in NYC, at work and everyone is having lunch at the cafes around, I really can't. And then I get depressed because I'm hungry, and then I just go and buy some pasta or something, but then my ankles and feet swell up. I'm looking a my feet now, with the tops bulging out of my ballet flats. I have nice feet normally, really I do! I feel like a person who is battling obesity, even though I get daily comments about how skinny I am. When I eat, I feel guilty, and even when I try to flavor my food with vinegar or lemon juice, it doesn't always come out that great and then I feel depressed.

I'm at the point where I'm hoping for kidney failure! Is that bad, I just want something to happen so I can get out of this rut. Whoever heard of feeling guilty or depressed when you eat? I'm tired of being tired. Hopefully, I'll be able to angle my thoughts to a positive perspective, I just have to find it.

I did go to the doctor this week, and they are supposed to fax me my lab report. So I'm just waiting, waiting, waiting, to see what kind of downward progress I made. How crazy is that?

Why don't you shut up

Generally, I don't talk to people about my health issues, and I most definitely don't talk about my ever-growing, intense desire to have a baby. A few people know, and I just want to say, if someone else says "why don't you adopt?" I will stab them in the eye with a pen. Of course I've thought about adoption, when anyone first finds out they can't have a kid, do you think they just go, oh, i guess we'll just never do anything. We'll just die childless. Adoption is like a fad right now, so why do people feel the need to tell me to "hey, did you think about adoption?" Of course I fucking think about adoption! Every celebrity in the world that is not already pregnant, is thinking about adoption. And then telling reporters that they are thinking about adoption. "I'm going green - I drive a hybrid and i buy expensive lightbulbs." "Oh? Well I'm thinking about adoption." Bastards. It's hard. Its a long drawn out process, where they peer into your life, and give you mounds of paper work. I read that it takes over a year in many cases.

Yes, I think about adoption, I want to adopt. I want a baby. But its really not that simple. Nothing ever is. Thanks a frikkin lot.

Bad weather

Have you ever been in New York city, or any city for that matter I guess, and you had to walk really far, but the weather was really bad? Like if it was really windy, or freezing cold, or raining like a motherfucker? And it seems like you are walking, and you're trying to walk fast because you want to just hurry up and get to where you're trying to go, or just get out of the crappy weather, and you just don't go anywhere. Its like the wind holds back your steps. Or like the rain falls on you footprints, and erases your progress. Even the cold freezes your muscles, so when it seems like you're walking regular, you're actually walking in slow motion. And then it seems like the rain won't ever stop, and you won't ever get to where you want to be.

Do you ever feel like that? Like you've spent all this time walking, but you've not actually gotten anywhere? And like you'll never make it to where you're trying to go, just spend the rest of your life walking against the wind.

Back and Forth

Sooooo, I visited my regular OB GYN earlier this week. And she seemed a little ticked off that I had gone for another opinion. Especially considering that the new doctor didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. She did a really good job of calming my week long freak-out. She said that the polyps were nothing, that I could still get pregnant with them there, and there was no need to do anything. Panic attack completely unnecessary. She said if I don't get pregnant, we would check it out in six months to see where they were at. No worries.

She said that I already knew the risks of getting pregnant, and thats just what they were, risks. Meaning, it could be bad, it could be fine. The only way to know is to actually do it. The guarantee is that I will likely be on bed rest and or in the hospital for much of the time.

So okay, we are covering much trodden ground here. My problem is that I keep going back and forth with what I want to do. This month has been kind of tough financially, and I'm feeling like hey, we can't handle a kid right now. Even though last month, I was totally ready to go.

My husband is in a ridiculous battle with his ex over their daughter (who lies and tells people their kid has cancer, just to keep the father away???), and I'm feeling like I'm being unfair to him by asking him to hold down the fort on his own while I'm bed ridden. But, I feel like everyday coming into work, I run into at least a dozen women with enormously protruding bellies, and it makes my heart ache.

I browsed through a couple of adoption sites, and it seems like a HUGE hassle to adopt!! I would love to, and I do intend to one day, but we have so much going on with my health, and his daughter, and finances, and work, it seems like the extra responsibility of filling out paper work, and having your life peered into would be too, TOO overwhelming. I know, versus being bedridden and facing esrd and dialysis? That we're ready for, or I should say I'm ready for. But this adoption stuff, it seems like too much right now. Besides, how hard is it to be stuck doing nothing for 7, or hopefully 9 months. Oh, the horror of not being able to get up at 5 am, to travel three hours, and get home at 9 pm!!

In any case, looking through those adoption sites, Iknow its something I definately want to do, but I can't accept that as a substitute to having a baby that I made, that we made together, ourselves. So I'm torn.

You are so cruel.

Back from the specialist...

So my husband and I went to see this doctor at Cornell Weill Medical Center, who specializes in hypertension and pregnancy, and who has a lot of experience dealing with pregnancy and kidney issues. I guess I thought that she would say "yes it will be hard, but this is what I do, we can get you through this." And I thought my husband would be reassured, and more confident to move forward with attempting to conceive. All of that backfired.

"If I were your mother," she said when I asked her what SHE would do, "I would not want you to go forward with pregnancy. Its not just you that we are concerned about, its this baby who would have to fight to survive if born too early."

What if, what if, what if! What if the baby is born too early? What if you have kidney failure during the pregnancy? What if your baby dies? I asked my husband what is wrong with me, that I find it so hard to accept what I'm being told. His response was that I only think about myself.

She said that we should try to drag out kidney function for as long as possible. THEN, when I have kidney failure down the road, I can go on dialysis, get a transplant, and then try to conceive. This logic doesn't make sense to me at all.

What if my kidneys last for another ten years? What if I can't get a match for a donor? What if I get a match and my body rejects the transplant? What if I have to be on dialysis for years after ESRD? What if I get MORE cysts and have to have my one good ovary removed? What if something else obscure and unforseen happens to me next?!?! GOD, what is kidney failure going to be like??!

I would like to have some control over something in my life. Just ONE thing instead of everyday just waiting to see what will happen next, and hearing from my doctors all the damn time "we can't say for sure."

When my mother was pregnant with me, her doctors told her to terminate the pregnancy at seven months. They told her that if she continued, she would lose her baby and die. Either that, or she could deliver while I was only three pounds. For her, it was her heart. They said that her heart would not be able to withstand the strain of delivery. She made arrangements for my older brother and sister and got her affairs in order. She told her doctors not to do anything. I was born three weeks early at seven pounds, thirteen ounces, my mother's heart stopped twice. I asked her if she knew what was ahead of her, would she have had me anyway. She said yes. She doesn't know that I want to have a baby.

My husband has a daughter, from a previous relationship. Believe me when I say, she looks NOTHING like him. But she's going to be ten soon, and as she gets older, I can actually see him in her. They both raise there eyebrows the exact same way. And every time I think about that my heart clamps up. It's not fair. We've been together for eight years, and he has always pressured me to have children, and all this time I was the one waiting until we were ready, more stable. It seems like he was able to staunch his desire for a baby pretty easily. I wish I knew how.
I have an appointment tomorrow with my regular OB GYN. We'll probably discuss this polyp, aka Nature's IUD. Aka, God's way of painting on my forehead, "YOU ARE NOT TO BRING ANY CHILDREN INTO THIS WORLD." Just in case if I get defiant and try to have a baby anyway.

My achy heart

I had a long talk with my husband about this new twist with the polyps. He wants to hold off on the baby thing for now. Wait until I get better. He said it might be a sign that this isn't the right time. I told him that if our baby was here, that we would do everything we could for it, despite the risks, and that our baby is somewhere waiting to come to us, so why wouldn't we work hard, despite the risks now? He said that I wasn't being fair to him, because he is the one that has to be helpless while I go through the hospital stays, and the scares, and the being sick. That I hadn't considered that maybe he wouldn't be able to handle that. Which he is right, which is true. He is so strong, he has a daughter that survived luekemia already, and he deals with those things much better than I would, but I think the prospect of seeing that in our future, and running toward it anyway, is scary for him.

I don't know, I couldn't even cry last night. It's so amazing to me how much my heart aches over all of this. I don't know if in my whole life I have ever been so sad. Its not a targeted pain, its just a overall, everyday gloom in my world. Its crazy. I keep up a good face though. People don't know. Not even my parents. I think my husband is the only one who really knows how much I'm falling apart inside.

I had my meeting with my managers yesterday, and they were just like, er ok. I did leave out the baby part though, but I explained to them that I was sick and that I would probably be running back and forth to the doctors a lot over the next few months. And if I miss meetings, or come late, or leave early, thats why. But I would do my best to NOT miss work. They didn't want to know details, they didn't want to know anything. But my one manager did take that opportunity to announce to us that his wife is pregnant. Ouch. You are so cruel.

I have a lot of hope riding on this meeting with this new specialist tomorrow. I keep googling her name to see her research and case studies. I think if anyone can help me get straight answers, she can. And then I meet with my regular OB GYN to see what to do about these polyps. My husband will be coming with me, so hopefully we can get on the same page, and it won't be me inundating him with second hand info. We'll see what happens.