WHAT if...

What if I am 65 and look back and regret all the time I wasted on trying to get pregnant or
make a decision about donor egg or adoption.

Seriously, what if?  At this current rate I don't think it is out of the realm of possibility.
How can it be that 6 years have already come and gone and I am still not sure what to
do next?  I used to think I was going to be that person who adopted and never looked back.
Or better yet....the person who didn't care about having a family and just rolled with
the punches.  No kids....no problem.  Just become a heart surgeon or something.
Absorb yourself in a rewarding career.  Cure cancer.  Do something amazing with your
child free life.
Well guess what....I haven't adopted and I am in the same job and not much is happening.
Sometimes I find myself searching the internet for answers that are like a needle in a haystack.
What about this herb, this doc, this program.  I score the internet in search for one more story that will lead me to the answer to end my infertility.  As if cyberspace was Buddha or something.
Craziness!!!

What if I am 95 and sitting on my front porch next to my husband smiling and drinking lemonade on a hot summer day?
Well....that would be a pretty damn good day!

Check it out, learn, understand, realize, and empathize.
 a basic understanding of infertility: www.resolve.org/infertility101 
 the background of National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW): www.resolve.org/takecharge.*
 the original “what if” list: http://www.stirrup-queens.com/2010/04/bloggers-unite-project-if/.

"Let's start out at the very beginning...a very nice place to start...."

"When you sing you begin with doe, rae, me". When you dream you dream

of growing up, marrying, and having a baa, aa, by. Well I did anyways.

Dolls, babysitting, and nurturing pretty much sums up my childhood. Which actually is quite nice. I know I was blessed to have a loving upbringing. I am the youngest child in a large family. Without going into too much detail I found joy and self esteem in helping others care for their kids. I was a camp counselor, a teacher, and finally a wife. All seemed quite whimsical in a way.

I married my high school sweetheart. (Awwweeeee) His name is Brian.

So here goes..........

Flash forward to 1999. Sophomore year in college. I am diagnosed with advanced bone cancer.

I go through several rounds of chemo, radiation, and a stem cell transplant. My periods stop after the second round of chemo. I ask and plea (here starts my first plea bargaining) with God to live.  I tell God that if he lets me live I will do great things.  I will never complain about being fat again.  I will help the world be a better place.  Anything.  I just wasn't ready to die.   Oh and this is totally a side note God....but can you preserve my fertility too?
That was my plea.  I asked my nurse oncologist if I could please please save my eggs.  Anything.  She said no time.  Oh crap.  That's serious.  Ok.  No time.  I asked my radiation oncologist if the radiation to my pelvis will affect my fertility.  Probably not she said, but you never know.  Ok I said. (It's not like I could say no to my treatment.  It was saving my life.)  So I bought a fertility god bracelet from a store and wore it everyday in radiation in hopes that by some miracle the radiation would avoid my ovaries and I would somehow not become infertile.
Alas,  9 years in remission my prayers have been answered...I am alive!!!  Oh and add this side note...infertile, childless, barren, and all those words that come with it.
    Just so you know I am extremely grateful to be alive.  Grateful to God, to my docs and nurses, to my family and friends.  Grateful to be living each day and helping others as I promised.  I now am a nurse.
I decided to start this blog because some days I forget how blessed I am to be alive and I get stuck in a rut of....PUFFY EYES and Plea Bargains again.  But this time for the child I always dreamed of having. So here I am blogging.  Thanks for listening.