Now, onto the childbearing portion of my story.
Since I was a little girl, as I'm sure I'm not alone, I always wanted to be a mom. After Bryce and I were married, it was no different. After trying and trying numerous times to get pregnant – it just wasn't happening. After countless doctor's appointments, tests, lab work, fertility boosting medications, and the like... it was finally discovered that because of the polycystic ovarian syndrome combined with the systemic lupus – it had created an environment that wasn't built for carrying a child on my own.
I seem to think that ended up working for the best, if I'm being honest. I honestly love kids and would have loved to have been a parent, but I don't think with my health in the status it is, Bryce would have been left with much of the caretaking... and that is if I were to even pull through the pregnancy and delivery process, as I was informed this would be highly risky, as well.
I'd have to come off the chemo medication, taking me out of remission, my body is already fighting itself, I couldn't imagine fighting off a miniature me, as well. I'm stubborn like a bull and I'm certain my spawn would be, too.
As I previously mentioned, I truly love all my nieces and nephews. Only seven of the eighteen may be blood-related to me, but they will always be my nieces and nephews that I love so much.
Just because we weren't having any success in having children on our own, didn't mean that we couldn't apply that love towards something else in our lives. You already heard about Zoie, the chihuahua we already had when we got married. Bryce then got me another chihuahua that was rare to his litter, much like Zoie was with hers. When we arrived at the woman's house, we saw Zeus's brothers and sisters, they were adorable, just not what we were looking for. We told her we were looking for a short-haired chihuahua, as I'm asthmatic, and she excused herself to a back room before coming back shortly after, holding another puppy. This would ultimately become Zeus. He was completely different from his litter, his siblings were long-haired and he was the only short-haired. We fell in love with him immediately. The woman told us that he wasn't with his siblings because she was planning on keeping him, but would let us have him. She would have to finish weening him off the mother he was currently nursing from, as his biological mother had been attacked and killed by a neighbor dog shortly after she gave birth to Zeus and his siblings. Zoie and Zeus didn't waste any time, we made plans to have them both fixed – thinking we had plenty of time in the short time we had to wait for the appointment. In that time span, we were awakened by a high-pitched screeching in the middle of the night. We rushed up to turn the light on, only to discover that not only had Zeus penetrated Zoie, but he was now stuck. Not only was he stuck, she decided she was finished when she yanked him off the bed while still stuck inside her. We immediately called the after hours vet clinic and asked what to do, when we were instructed to, and I quote, "turn the light off... and let them finish."
We had five itty-bitty, teeny-tiny puppies just less than a few months later. She was so proud when we came to pick them up from the vet, we had taken her just to be safe with her size and all. Mommy and all five puppies were happy and healthy, Zoie strutting her stuff out of the carrier, showing off her new little bundles.
One of my cousins ended up with one of the puppies, another one adopted by a family friend, one died suddenly at around six months old, and we kept the twins. Bryce and I call them the twins because these two were virtually very similar in appearance when they were born, and all the babies were the perfect blend of both Zoie and Zeus's rare colorations. Phoenix and Pennie having the same pattern as Zeus, like a miniature cow, with their spots being fawn in color, like Zoie's main color. They also had the same fawn markings on both ears that Zeus and Zoie both have, with a fawn diamond where Zoie had a white one on the head in between their ears. Zeus has a big upside-down Mickey Mouse-shaped spot blended with a heart-shaped spot. On Phoenix, the male "twin," his personality is a carbon copy of Zoie's, his spot like Zeus's, only no heart blended into it, just one spot shaped exactly like upside-down Mickey Mouse ears, Pennie's personality resembling that of Zeus. These have been our babies ever since then, treating them like our children. Zoie passed away unexpectedly from severe anemia, thought to be genetic, the vet was unable to obtain so much as a single drop of blood from her just before she passed away. We still have Zeus, and their babies, Pennie and Phoenix, all of them, unfortunately, getting up there in age.
Does anyone else spot a child or an animal in a movie or television show you just started watching, and must immediately pause it to check online to make sure nothing happens to the child or animal before you continue? Yeah. I keep websites like doesthedogdie.com favorited in my phone browser – they come in handy if you're like that, also.
It's so weird. Things like that can freak me out, and then there are other times on movies and shows where it shows full-on gore and morbid stuff... yet I'm fine. As long as it isn't happening to a child or an animal... I don't know. I think I've always been that way because I feel children and animals don't have a means of asking for help, ya know?
I don't know... maybe I'm just weird. I love some good head-banging rock music, yet there are times when I can get overstimulated, what I call my sensory overload, with simple talking or just scattered sounds, in general. Maybe the rock music could be just me being used to chaos, who knows?
I think we've already established that I'm an open book, there are things that happened a lot more dramatic than I explained, but it isn't relevant to the story. With that comes the finality of my dreams of ever becoming a mother. After my cancer diagnosis, I decided to get an endometrial ablation. I was having bad anemia issues, myself, requiring a few iron infusions. Even though anemia in general is typical of the type of leukemia I have, we suspected that my periods, which we've already discussed in detail, could be to blame.
In the middle of the endometrial ablation procedure, not only did I try ripping out my I.V. while under sedation, but the machine performing the procedure kept giving an error message. An error message popping up on the screen is something my doctor said she had never experienced in her career doing the procedure. She called the manufacturer for more information while I was still under, only to find out from them that meant that the mechanism didn't have room to expand all the way to do its job while inside and was unable to continue with that procedure. After speaking through the options with my health care provider, and after a lot of discussion regarding the topic with my family getting their thoughts, I opted for a partial hysterectomy, keeping my ovaries to prevent early menopause.
After the hysterectomy had time to do its thing, my health improved somewhat, my weight shed fifty pounds in just one month, and an additional thirty to forty pounds dropped throughout the following months.
I have always struggled with my weight. Even when I thought I was relatively skinny, per sé, I always considered myself somewhat overweight. I'm gonna quote Sabrina Carpenter and ask that you please, please, please, be kind to others. Prior to the partial hysterectomy, my body was so up and down, right and left, scattered every which way cattywampus. Not only was my body causing weight gain due to my health concerns, it also made it extremely difficult for me to lose it. I have always tried to actively lose weight, but I remember before the surgery, there was a two month time frame where I was going hard core, full force with it.
For breakfast, I'd have a protein shake, opting for either another protein shake or a salad for lunch, then I'd eat a healthy dinner in moderation consisting of a lean protein, and plenty of fibrous, nutritious vegetables. During this time, I drank only water and kept my diet strictly gluten-free.
For exercise, I worked out twice a day, six days a week. I followed along to a High-Intensity Interval Training program that I bought, working out even when it said to take the day off.
At the end of these two months, I weighed myself, only to discover I had gained three pounds after doing everything right. So, please be kind to people, you never know their circumstances.
Not only this, but my oncologist informed me that my anemia was gone, and my doctor rheumatologist changed me to a different lupus medication around this time. This meant I felt a lot better in the end... downside is, that I now knew for certain that having my own kids will now be out of the question.
The good thing is, I have plenty of nieces and nephews that I hold special places in my heart for, and I can always send them right back home to mom and dad when they start driving me crazy... sounds like a double win to me!
I kid. But in all seriousness, if I love you – I'm gonna love the heck outta your kid, too.