“‘Are you sure your OB has heard the heartbeat on the Doppler? Maybe she is just hiding!’ I knew then, they were buying time.”
‘She calmly said, ‘You’re a complicated case.’ I replied, ‘I know,’ with laughter. ‘No, the babies, this is a really complicated pregnancy.’ In that moment, my world shattered. I knew.’
‘I’m finally happy, and now I’m going to die?’ I was losing blood from somewhere. My heart sank. I was terrified. All I could think about were my children and my husband.’
“My periods were out of control, I did nothing but bleed constantly. I would fill overnight pads within an hour. I stayed in pain, it was unbearable. My husband came home on his lunch and found me doubled over in the floor, unable to move.”
‘I got a message from a complete stranger offering to be a surrogate for us. I was in shock. I had no idea where she lived, who she was, nothing. I was nervous to tell my husband.’
“She was 26 years old. I felt such a strong connection with her even though we were only communicating through messages. Secretly, I knew in my heart we would go down this path.”
‘This led us to a dark, silent hospital room on Halloween. We were supposed to be prepping a nursery and picking out names.’
“Instead, we hastened to name an already much-loved child that was not ours to keep. Every alarm bell in my body went off.”
‘Something strange happened. I began to cramp severely. I passed an object – I had no idea what was. I was a virgin, but it was like I had miscarried. The object was clear and full of veins.’
“This is very uncommon for your age. We normally don’t see anything like this in people under the age of 50. You need to have all the kids you want before we remove it. We will leave it in until you can’t handle the pain from it anymore.”
‘I am 31 years old and I am getting a hysterectomy. I waited 10 YEARS before I did anything. I finally had enough.’
“All the doctors told me I was too young to make any rash decisions.”
‘All 3 of your eggs made it to embryo stage!’ I hung up the phone. ‘Did she just tell me I was going to have triplets?’
“I wish I could tell you that this was it, that we finally had our fairy tale ending. I thought we would get a break, that we had finally ‘arrived.’ I was wrong.”
The Mysterious Illness That Changed My Life
“Hmm. My story. I never know where to begin. Should I reveal the ending at the beginning? Because really, there is no ending when it comes to chronic illness.”
‘I went from dancing in the bathroom with my boyfriend because we were pregnant, to bleeding to death in a hospital because my pregnancy tried to kill me in a matter of 2 days!’
“My heart sank, I could literally see all my dreams go up in smoke. I was sobbing uncontrollably. The poor nurse looked at me, and squeezed my hand as hard as she could.”
‘Every time I looked in the mirror I saw the girl with Endometriosis. The girl whose brother died. The girl who had given up. I was done being that girl. I wanted to feel beautiful again. ‘
“I grieved the loss of my baby I will never feel growing inside me. I was angry at God for taking my brother so soon. I was done being that girl. I wanted to feel beautiful again.”
