Hey all, it has been a hard few months for me. One reason I had even thought about doing a blog was because writing has always been therapeutic for me and I am much better at writing out my feelings rather than verbally expressing them. Unless it is someone I am completely close to and I only have few people that fall in that category. I have no issue talking about things AFTER I made it through something, but during, nope – CAN NOT DO IT. So I did share my cancer journey on my caring bridge but had my mom and my husband do most of the talking to others otherwise. But now , I have no issue talking about it. One thing though, that is hard for me to talk about is the aftermath of what this cancer took from me and my family. My fertility.
If I am completely honest, I always kind of saw myself with one child, a boy. I just knew I was going to have a boy. I had his name picked out when I was 15 years old. I even said when I was going into have the hysterectomy in July 2015 that it was ok, I got the perfect child already. I know at the time the only thing in my mind was to beat this cancer and do all I could to live and be here for my son and my husband. Now that the physical healing has gotten pretty much done (besides the annoying weight that steroids won’t let me budge), the emotional healing is a doozy. My oncologist even told me how cancer patients around the 2 year mark start to suffer PTSD and depression. Especially women who had to lose something so great, like female organs and the “what ifs”.
I don’t want people I know to feel this is directed at you at all but I have to be real in my feelings here. It is really hard to see so many people having babies. You are happy for them 100% but be lying if you didn’t ache every time you saw an announcement made. I had one friend who just had her baby a couple months ago, she was so incredibly sweet. She knew what it was like to struggle with this but she immediately thought of me when she found out she was pregnant and told me in the most real, honest and caring way. I told her she was crazy to worry about telling me but the fact that she really did care about me like that, just meant the world to me as I reflect back. I don’t think I have ever had anyone be that sweet and kind to me. Like I said she had her rainbow baby girl and my gosh she is the cutest thing. She also has a shop that has some rainbow baby items if anyone needs something check out Curly Qs Counter and use CQCBFF for a discount.
As October is Infant Loss Awareness month, it is an especially hard month. I will never know with my cancer if the miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy they treated me for was actually a baby or if it was stemming from Maverick’s pregnancy. But regardless I went through the emotions of the losses by doing the surgeries and the tears and the emotional heartache. 1 out of 4 women have experienced a loss. It is heartbreaking. Women who can not have babies but yearn for them like myself have to tell themselves everyday not to break down when they see the kids with all the siblings playing. They say time heals , but I say love is going to be the only thing that heals this ache in women who go through this. So this month I encourage you to show love in some way to a person you know who may need it. People always assume that you need to accept and move on, but really no mother can….and probably never will.
These are the only pictures I had of the few weeks I got to believe I was carrying a sibling for my baby boy. He and I surprised Daddy with him wearing this shirt and he would touch my tummy and say “baby”. He would of been the best big brother, probably the thing that hurts the most.
xo
Jess
My GorJess Life 