Ayliea and Max
When I turned 30, my husband and I finished building our home and I went off the pill because we were ready to have children. I have a sister who has been in and out of drug rehab and has two children; they were 3 and 4 ˝ years old at that time. Since I did not get pregnant right away, but was awarded partial custody of her children, I figured God meant for me to be available to help take care of her kids.
Fast-forward ten years: My nephew Sean came to live with us permanently at age 14, and I still wasn’t too upset about not being able to have children. My husband and I had come to terms with the fact that we could not have children of our own. We felt that taking care of my nephew was what we were supposed to do.
I never even knew I had endometriosis until right before Sean came to live with us. A week after I had my laparoscopy in January 2004, Sean moved in. Around that time I began going through endometriosis treatment.
Everything was fine until March 2004. I ended up spending 12 hours in the hospital with a burst ovarian cyst. The E.R. doctor was about as sensitive as a post. He actually told me “It’s only a small cyst, it shouldn’t hurt that bad.”
I went to my GYN the very next day to ask her about treatment for the other small cyst they found that had not burst. I also wanted to go ahead with the Lupron treatment she had suggested to completely get rid of the remaining endometriosis that was attached to my bowels that they could not get with surgery. I had initially hesitated because of the side effects of Lupron (it puts you in a menopausal state and can cause hot flashes and mood swings). After six months of Lupron treatments, two months after my regular cycles returned, I missed my period. I though it was just the Lupron still screwing up my cycles, but since I was more than a week late, and had been on antibiotics for a sinus infection, I called my GP and asked him if it was safe to be taking the antibiotics, if I might be pregnant. He told me to stop taking the antibiotics immediately, and go get a home pregnancy test.
I did both, and my initial reaction to the positive pregnancy test was disbelief. After ten years of no birth control, no initial symptoms of endometriosis, and no pregnancies, I was shocked. I showed my husband the test results and he said “take another one just to be sure.” He couldn’t believe it either. I took the second test the next morning, and it was also positive! I called the doctor to go in and have a blood test done and get some advice. I did not have morning sickness, and had only a little breast tenderness. After learning that everything should be all right with my pregnancy, I scheduled my first prenatal with the OB/GYN recommended by my GP.
My husband went with me to the first appointment because they were going to do an ultrasound. I was just nine weeks along at the time, but because of my age they wanted to make sure everything looked all right. The baby was so tiny and at that stage only looked like a little tadpole, but we were so excited and happy that after all these years we were going to be parents. We told all our family and of course they were thrilled. My mother-in-law (Lillie, whom our daughter was named after) was so joyful; she had wanted us to have children for so long and thought we’d make great parents.