A Little Rant...

I try to keep a positive attitude about my condition, but sometimes it gets to me.  I never want this blog to be a “bitch fest” or have a “poor me” vibe, because that’s definitely not how I feel.  I know I have a great life and I also know I am not dying from MRKH, but sometimes I just want to scream. 

Lately I have been complaining to my husband about things that bother me (after all, isn’t that why you get married?), and he is wonderful.  He listens to me, gives me advice when I ask for it, and lends his shoulder for me to cry on.  He has also told me on a number of occasions that I should blog more because there are people out there at feel the same way as me, but like I mentioned before I never wanted this to be a place where I complain.

So here I go…I’m going to complain / vent for the next couple paragraph. 

I do not want to spend an ENTIRE party talking about leaky vagina's, breast feeding, formulas, fertility meds, trying to get pregnant, morning sickness, ultrasounds (which by the way, all look the same!)…You get the point.  I don’t want to sound like I don’t care about these things, because I do, however, I don’t not want to spend my Saturday evening in a group talking about these things.  I have absolutely nothing to contribute to these conversations and they sometimes make me sad ( I mean, I want a leaky vagina some day). I love having these conversations in one on one setting, with my friends, not at a party (ALL NIGHT LONG).  See the difference?

Baby showers…Please have alcohol.

I don’t really care to hear “you are so lucky that you don’t have your period”, “You will get to have a baby without going through the 9 months of pregnancy”, “At least your body wont change because of a baby”, “your boobs wont sag”…blah blah blah. I would rather be able to have a baby when I want, without having to spend tens of thousands of dollars and have my life and my family’s life looked at through a microscope.

The most challenging part of being in my 30’s has been dealing with MRKH.  I had always thought that it would get easier because things seem to get easier with time, but this does not follow that rule.  My friends are getting pregnant on purpose, and kids are everywhere.  I cant help but think constantly about how I cant give that to Jason right now.  I know he wants to be a dad, and he will be an amazing one when it happens. When life is ready for us to extend our family, it will be an amazing journey for us.

My 30’s have been pretty awesome. I have a great life, great family / friends, been on some amazing vacations.  I have a house I cherish, a pretty sweet husband, a dog and a cat who I love dearly and most importantly I am healthy and happy.  

Missing Uterus - Not So Rare

Here is an interesting article I found.  Good information on MRKH.

Finally, A Decision

Jason and I have spent the last 2 years or so exploring options and gather information.  Once I found out that I had working eggs and ovaries, and Jason had working “stuff”, we were pretty sure we were going to give the surrogacy thing a shot.   The problem is I am a little different from most women going through the surrogacy process.  Let me try to explain…

Apparently, a woman’s cycle is the center of the universe when it comes to this stuff… who knew!?!  The problem being, I don’t have a period so the only way they can tell when I am in the middle of my cycle is to do blood work every 3 days.   I can handle blood work, that’s the least of my problems.  The problems for me included:

1.     .  Driving 45 minutes 3 times a week to get my blood tested.
2.     My insurance not covering any of it ($275.00 per appointment).
3.      I began to have little faith in the clinic I was attending. 

I will explain a little more about number 3.  My frustration started when I went into this clinic and they asked me every time “when was the last time you had your period?”  Then I would have to explain the situation AGAIN.  Is it too much to ask to put a little note in your chart, and maybe take 2 seconds to read it before calling me back?  Then, when I was at my last appointment the nurse said something to me that made me question if we were making the right decision. She said “after we figure out when you are on your cycle, you will need to start taking hormones and then we will need to see if we can find your ovaries on the ultrasound, this processes could take a while.”   If you remember from a previous post, they could not find my ovaries on the ultrasound, only on the MRI.  So when I asked her what would happen if I go through all of this and they cannot locate them on the ultrasound, she said “then there is no way we can take your eggs out.”  As soon as she said that I basically stopped listening.  She mentioned something about still being able to use Jason’s “stuff” and use someone else’s eggs, but we had decided a long time ago that if the child wouldn't be both of ours we would look at other options.  We decided there is too much risk in this process.  The hormones would be really hard on my body and the process is VERY, VERY expensive!  Not to mention, if we did all of those things and it didn't work, we just wasted a year or maybe more.  The chances for us were not great.

So….We have decided to give adoption a shot. It will also be expensive, emotional, frustrating at times, and challenging, but I think we are up for it.  There are so many kids out there that need a loving home, and we just want to be able to provide that.  Jason is wonderful and constantly reminds me that we don’t need a biological child to make us parents.   And, although we are both amazing people, have you seen my legs? Or Jason’s patchy beard hair?  Why would we want to pass those genes down?!  J  Wish us luck! 

Last 2 months - With Pictures

A lot has happened in the last 2 months, and I have been horrible about blogging!  I will try to summarize.

• We had an amazing vacation! We drove from Boston to Georgia and then back up to Boston.  We spent a ton of time driving and creating memories, which is exactly what I was hoping for.  We saw so many cool things I cannot even begin talk about it because I won’t know where to stop!  Awesome time with family and friends! 
  
• I went to Arizona a few weeks ago with my friend Haley and we had a blast laying in the sun and doing girly things. 
  
• I FINALLY graduated from college!  I am officially a Central Washington University Alumnus! 
  
• We spent a weekend on the Oregon coast visiting our friends Natalie and Mike.  They are great hosts, and friends!
• My grandpa was really sick and in the hospital, but seems to be doing better now.  We are looking forward to celebrating his 88^th birthday this weekend.
• We spent some time working on our property in Randle with some of our great friends!  We brought a tractor out there and built a road to the river. It’s pretty awesome.
  
• We have been doing Boot Camp between 4-5 days a week for the last couple months; it kicks our butt, but it so good for us. 
• Jason is enrolled at Washington State University for Fall quarter. I am super excited for him.
• We bought a new truck.
  
• Jason’s Sperm analysis test came back, and everything was normal.
• Jason and I had our 3^rd wedding anniversary. Time flies when you are in love J  

I think that just about summarizes it all. I am sure I am missing a thing or two…

Miss Michigan Interview

Here is a great interview done by Miss Michigan.  Check it out here.  She does a great job explaining some of the challenges MRKH women face.

Totally Unrelated, but Had to Share!

If you like love at all, you must watch this video done by a great friend of mine.  He is amazing!

 Plus, I'm in it :) 

Check it out here!

Happy infertility awareness week!

I don't have a lot of new info to share but I wanted to say I am grateful for the people in my life.  This weird "condition" that I have has really given me the opportunity to reconnect with old friends, make new friends, and hear stories of others that have had or currently have fertility problems. I feel blessed that these people are in my life.

For the most part, I feel my life is pretty normal but there are days when I feel like the strangest person on the planet. Although I am not sure if that has to do with my missing uterus or not.  Most days I am totally ok with MRKH, and other days I don't understand why a 15 year old can have a baby, or why the person who lives off of welfare has 5 kids.  But, I have come to the conclusion that if I let those things bother me, I will just go crazy! So I let them go and trust that the universe has something else amazing planned for me.  Also, without MRKH, who knows where I would be...maybe I would have been be the 15 year old with a kid or the lady living off welfare with her 5 kids.

In other news, miss Michigan has MRKH. I thought that was interesting. She's pretty amazing. You can read her sory or watch the interview where she talks about it here.

And finally....Jason just had his "stuff" tested last week. Results should be coming next week. I won't blog about his experience, but its pretty funny! I will ask him later if he will :)

Is April here yet? Thoughts. Funny Story

This has basically been a waiting game for us, and anyone who knows me, knows I am NOT good at waiting!  But, I sort of have a feeling I will be doing A LOT of waiting in the next year or so...  We are super excited for our vacation to the East Coast in March / April, but I am also anxious to get home and get this show on the road...basically I just want to find out if all of our "parts" work together and if this is even going to be a possibility scientifically (biologically?  I don't know), or financially. 

This whole MRKH thing is really strange to me.  I guess I dont really understand how the female body works and I am not really sure if its because I never learned or because I didnt pay attention, but my husband knows more about it than I do.  Any Dieringer School District / ARHS Alums care to weigh in on this?  Did we learn about this stuff? 

I think I have a full understanding that this MRKH thing effects Jason and me. However, I'm not going to lie, I have mostly felt like it affects me WAY more. That is, until the other day: Jason and I were driving in the car (going to dinner or something...it doesn’t matter), and he looked at me and said "You know what I've been thinking about lately?" of course I never know what he is thinking, so I responded "nope". Then he said "You know, in April, when I am going to have to go to the doctor to get my sperm (side note: from this point on I will call it "stuff" because I hate that other word) tested? I've been really worried about it because I don’t know how long I am supposed to take. What if I am in there for like 2 minutes and then all the ladies in the doctor’s office talk about how fast I was, or what if I am in there for 30 minutes and they are talking about how long it took me. How long should I be in there for? What if what I think is normal is really a short amount of time or a long amount of time? I want to be average. I don’t want the people at the doctor’s office to talk about me when I leave." I did not have an answer for him, but it made me laugh for a while.

Interesting article

I found this interesting article that is almost exactly what Jason and I are going through.  This article does a way better job explaining it!   Here it is!

Updates

I dont think I have given an update in a while, so here it goes...

I have been having lots of tests done;  ultrasounds, blood work, MRI's, more blood work...After my initial ultrasound when they couldn't find my ovaries, I started getting a little bit discouraged.  Its just a lot of information, and it was all happening so quickly.  I think I was just really overwhelmed. I am dealing with these tests and not having positive results, plus working, going to school, being married, coaching volleyball, the holiday's, and the normal stuff life throws at you.  Anyway, there is some good news...

I have ovaries, and they appear to be working. I also have eggs (although the count is a bit lower than they would like them to be, but not impossibly low), and I also have two working kidneys which a lot of women with MRKH do not have.  So, overall I feel really lucky, and pretty hopeful.  Although, a little bit freaked out about the thought of having to "hurry up" with this process due to my low(ish) egg count. 

Next steps:

I think we are going to wait until we get back from vacation in April to take our next steps, but they will be as follows:

1. Jason needs to get tested to make sure his "stuff" works

2. I will have more blood work done

3. I will have to take fertility medications (not a big fan of this idea)

4. Find someone to carry our baby.  We are currently accepting applications. :)    
5. Figure out how we will pay for all of this $$$$

A little bit about #4...We are not actually taking applications, but we are looking for someone who would be interested.  Our Dr Says its better when you know the person.  Ideally, the person will have already had the child(ren) that they want, and are willing to help us out.  He also prefers that they are in their late 20-30's. So, if you are interested, or know someone who might be...Just let me know!

A Picture I Like

I just saw this picture the other day and I really like it.  Just had to share.