Long, Strange Trip
This is an archived blog from 2011. Return to the blog home to read other posts from In the Family Way.
Life is really starting to get hectic, now, with a growing to-do list and little time. We have nothing prepared and no idea where to start. Friends and coworkers have offered advice and books. My sister is helping me laugh and remember the joy amidst the chaos. Others are taking their time warming up to the idea that our family is growing through open adoption.
I snuck away from work on Friday for a "hair doctor" appointment. I don't know when I'll get another chance. Rob and I go to the same salon owned by our friends Mike and Jen. It was such a joy to share our news with them since they had been telling us for years that they thought we were going to be great parents.
I've never admitted that I've dreamed of becoming a parent. Literally dreamed. I remember the first dream that I had that left me knowing I wanted to be a mother. It was one of those dreams that felt so real that I had to question myself when I woke up. I was a junior in college and I was searching for a child—my child—that was lost. I woke up with a profound sense of loss but knew that someday I would be a mother.
Becoming a parent was never something I could take for granted or assume would happen, so I never thought or spoke about it much. It was complicated. It wouldn't be straightforward. And I didn't know if the person I married would want to jump through the hoops required.
I was 21 years old when it was confirmed that I couldn't have children. It was my senior year of college when I confessed to my roommates that I had some obvious reproductive problem that I couldn't explain. They snapped into action, holding my hand through months of exams and invasive tests with doctors and techs who treated me as a curiosity.
As I walked into that final appointment, deep down I already knew, or at least had prepared myself to hear it, but it stung to hear the words "you will never have children" from an insensitive doctor who wouldn't even look me in the eye. He couldn't—or wouldn't—tell me why, and he didn't discuss any specific test result, but he thought I needed surgery so he could see what was going on. I walked out of his office that day crushed and terrified. It would be another seven years before I stepped foot into another doctor's office.
I went on with my life but thought about my health issues every day. I didn't have a name for it, I didn't know anything, really. Seven years later, I dared to face it again. It took two more years of seeing a dozen doctors to confirm the rare genetic condition that I, with the help of the Web, had eventually self-diagnosed. It was a syndrome that left me with a useless reproductive system and a greatly increased risk of developing ovarian cancer. The same day, three weeks before my 30th birthday, I was given a definitive diagnosis, I was also told I had cancer.
It's been a very long road to get to this place, but I wouldn't change anything, except to have my parents here to share in the joy and the nerves. I knew that it all led me to where I am now, awaiting the birth of a child who was destined to be our son or daughter.
This song was playing in the salon on Friday as I told our news to Mike and Jen. It was the soundtrack to the dream I had in college many years ago. It reminded me that after a long, sometimes challenging journey, the wait is almost over.
This is an archived blog from 2011. Return to the blog home to read other posts from In the Family Way.