A little Background History

Ok, some of you have asked about the tumor sooooooooo I decided I would do a post instead of tell each of you individually. This be a tad lengthy and I will probably ramble and be a little random. I tend to do that.

June 2005- Cory and I get married. I still had several years of college so Cory we decided to wait on getting pregnant until I had graduated. I knew in my heart and head that this was the smart thing to do but who wants smart?

2007- I had been seeing a nurse practitioner for my yearly examines and was going to see a OBGYN when it was time to start trying. During the exam with the np she asked me if I was pregnant. I knew I wasn't pregnant but was secretly hoping I was.  There was simply no way I could have been because of birth control among other varying factors. I asked why? She said that my uterus was the size of a 3 month pregnant women. So I took the pregnancy test only to find out that I was right. Not pregnant. She decided to set me up for a ultra sound the next week at the hospital. At the time I did not have insurance and we were broke! So my husband wanted me to call before I went to see how much it was going to cost. $12,000!!!! There was no way we could afford that. I had to go back to the np a couple of weeks later and she asked me about the results. I had to share with her why we had not done the ultra sound. She was not worried about it. Said I didn't have pain, symptoms and my grandmother had an enlarged uterus when she was young. Maybe that's what it was. She told me if anything changed I needed to get it done. SO she wasn't worried, I wasn't worried! I mean she was the np, not me. Surely she knew what she was talking about. I never did have any pain or anything that was weird, or so I thought.

August 2009- I knew we were going to be trying soon so I wanted to get established with an obgyn. During the appointment I shared with the Dr what had happened in 2007. He examined me and rushed me away to an ultra sound.

This girl (me) knew nothing about ultra sounds except for what you see on tv. That's all I knew. Boy was I in for a surprise! First she pulls out this wand and I'm thinking well what the heck is shew going to do with that?? Then she sticks it.......well you know. I was like omg! This is not what I thought it was going to be. Then half way through the ultra sound she asks me if Ive ever had an ultra sound? I'm like hello?? NO! Asking me that in the beginning would have been nice!

After she is done the Dr comes in to talk to me. First of all he scares the ever living day lights out of me. Tells me I have a tumor and that my uterus is now the size of a five month pregnant women. Does not explain the severity of this, throws out words like surgery and hysterectomy, and on top of it, makes me feel like an idiot. He was almost yelling at me "can't you feel that huge hard knot in your belly?" Yes I could. But I didn't know that's what that was. It had grown gradually and I had become use to it. I just thought I was getting fat. Now that I look back there were some things that weren't normal. I had to pee all the time, I mean ALL the time. But I drank a lot of water, a lot. So I just contributed it to that. In the end, sometimes I would have trouble getting a tampon in or out. I know that seems weird that I wouldn't think hmmmm there might be something wrong. But like I said things had gradually gotten bad and I had gradually gotten use to them. Plus my periods were extremely heavy for me. I was going through two boxes of tampons each period. For me that was a lot. But I just thought that was normal. For one I had heard of other people having heavy periods and who the heck sits around and talks about how much you bleed??? Not me. After I left the Dr's office I just started to bawl. No one was with me and I didn't know if I was going to die or not be able to have babies. I was scared! After talking to a lot of people, I decided to get a second opinion since this Dr was talking about a hysterectomy. 

October 2009- I go see the next Dr for a second opinion. I explain everything to him. He is completely calm and not worried about the tumor at all. He told me that he was dealt with this a lot, had pregnant women with tumors, etc. Boy do I feel better! He decides to let me try for a couple of months before we do anything at all to see if I can get pregnant. Didn't happen.

Dec '09-June '10- He decides to send me to a fertility specialists in St Louis since she deals with this all the time and is trained to deal with it. At this point they believe the tumor is approx 13 cm. Good grief! The size of a grapefruit! After my ultra sound she talks to us about our options. First she wanted us to try by ourselves. Not pregnant. Then she wanted to go through and make sure the reason I wasn't getting pregnant was not because of fertility reasons. Which she was hoping was my problem and not the tumor. After 15 tests she decided fertility was not my problem. The last test she wanted was an MRI. She previously thought that surgery to take the tumor out had a huge risk of having to do a hysterectomy because of the position of the tumor. After the MRI she was not worried about having to do a hysterectomy at all. Said there was a less then 5% chance that she would have to. She believed the problem was that the tumor was on the top and back of my uterus and was so heavy that it was pushing down and closing off my tubes. After the surgery I should have no problem.............unless I had scar tissue from the surgery. 

July 2010- This was one of the most crazy months of my life. We headed to Austin TX for my moms kidney transplant, then we headed to Mississippi to visit my grandparents and leave on a cruise. Immediately after the ship docked we drove to St. Louis for pre-op appointments on Friday and then the surgery to remove the tumor on Monday (myomectomy). The surgery went better then expected. The tumor was bigger then what they thought, a whopping 17 cm, the size of a large cantaloupe. I did not have to have a blood transfusion (and there was a huge chance I was going to) my uterus looked amazing. AND I did not have to have a hysterectomy! Now all I had to do was wait my three months and get pregnant. Sounded easy enough! NOT!

I never had pain because of the tumor. Ever. Or that I knew of. After the surgery we talked to the Dr about if the tumor would return, etc. She said she didn't think so but she also didn't know why I had it either. Tumors are common................in women who are twice my age and they usually have several tumors not one huge one. Their cure is quite simple, hysterectomy. I am young, healthy and in some what good shape. There should be no reason for me to have a tumor.

Januar2011-Present- It has been six months since my surgery and I am still not pregnant. I was a good girl and waited the three months. Fully expecting to get pregnant the next month, nope. Went to see my regular obgyn, he started me on clomid. I took it three times with no luck. Returned to my obgyn, he decided I would not take the clomid for 2 months, then if I'm still not pregnant I am having another surgery. Well he called it surgery but really its no big deal. He will go in through my belly button with a scope to see if there is any scar tissue, if there is he will remove it. And put dye through my tubes to make sure they are clear and not damaged bc of the surgery. If I do not get pregnant this month then I will have surgery at the end of the month.

I know I should not complain because fertility wise, we have not been trying that long. BUT when there should be nothing wrong with you and your still not getting pregnant its very aggravating.