Are you sure??

On July 23rd, as you may remember, I had surgery.  To "treat" endometriosis.  There was a complication this time - the first time ever - that rendered my bladder defunct.  Or something similar.  Regardless, for 48 hours, it took a lot of work and pain and fluid to get my bladder to give up any of its contents.  ANY of it.  Never mind emptying.  That was entirely out of the question.  I literally begged the nurses to get the doctor to let me go home.  They did.  Not sure how, but they did.  Doctor called the next morning, and was unhappy with the fact that things were not working yet.  I was unhappy too - do you have any idea how much an overly-filled bladder hurts??

Sunday morning, I could barely move, it was so full and so sore.  I didn't really think three hours would make much difference in the grand scheme of bladder-life, so I sent my husband to church.  Asked him to have our Pastor wear a prayer-cloth and bring it home for me.  When my husband got home, I took the cloth, tucked it in my waist band and went back to sleep.  I did so with the expectation that I would wake up and have him take me to the hospital.  Very faith-filled thoughts, huh?

Regardless, I woke up two hours later and my bladder let loose.  It felt amazing.  As in I cannot begin to describe the relief.  I'm not sure how much fluid it takes to change the level of water in a toilette that much.  I do know that when I left the hospital, my final bladder scan showed about 1200 ml's of urine (the max in a healthy bladder is supposed to be between 200 and 600).  They didn't tell us this - I looked it up in my on-line health record.  I also know that there is no way it ever dropped below that.  The tiny amounts I could squeeze out were barely a drop in the bucket. 

All of that... and then the "miraculous urination."  And even with that... I hurt.  Really hurt.  My bladder, which is functioning at half-thickness in many locations after as much endo as could be removed, was.  My uterus, which was stuck to things and covered in endo.  My ovaries, which had worked their way into my peritoneum (abdominal lining) again.  My intestines.  Stomach.  Liver.  These are the things I can distinctly feel.

Why?  Why do we do this instead of choosing to remove my reproductive organs and hit the remaining endo with chemotherapy?  Which could actually let me live the rest of my life with much less pain?  Why are we trying to figure out a way to pay for expensive "reproductive assistance" this winter?  Why do I want to go through the pain that will be involved in conception, the discomfort of pregnancy, hours of labor... when adoption is right there in front of us?  Why am I not terrified of the possibility of my heart going completely nuts while pregnant?  (My chart, by the way, states that I have SVT and AV-Nodal Re-entrant Tachycardia.  Both.  Listed as separate problems.  I guess they still haven't really made up their minds).  Or of scar tissue impeding delivery and requiring a c-section?

A good friend asked this today.  Part of my answer isn't really fit to share here on this blog.  But part of it is.  The part that says... I want the opportunity to be part of that kind of miracle.  The miracle that takes two microscopic pieces of two totally separate people, and out of that, an entirely new person grows.  The miracle that places a soul and a spirit inside that body.  I want to hear the screaming that heralds new life - new life that came from within my womb.  I want to grow impatient, large, and clumsy while this new life grows inside of me.  I want to do this thing, this amazing, entirely unique, miraculous, unparalleled thing that is called giving birth.  I want to add life to this planet I live on.  To contribute.

And this is all just the reasons I want to actually give birth.  There are so many other reasons to be a parent.  Which is a separate post and, at least in my heart, a separate dream.  I mean, yes, giving birth does have a tendency to lead to parenthood... but parenthood can be reached without the birth part.  Well, at least without me doing the birth part.