The struggle is real, lets get serious, so is the snuggle. The girls and I took a little adventure (by this I mean a 20 minute drive) to our friend Kaitlyn’s house to visit with her and little Elly (3 weeks old). It was such a great visit and I got so many baby snuggles it was fantastic.
Now, I don’t know if the struggle is here because I no longer have ovaries and my brain/body are all like “we want another baby, we want another baby”, or if I actually want another baby, but seriously, that struggle is real. I will have to continue living vicariously through all of our friends babies since birthing my own (I enjoyed this process, NO I didn’t have an epidural or pain meds for either birth), I enjoyed the whole process. The “fun times” to get pregnant, the pregnancy minus the obscene length of time I had morning sickness (23 weeks, 17 weeks), but I never grew huge baby bellies, didn’t gain a lot of weight (just baby weight), and my pregnancies both went really well and I quite enjoyed it.
A family is something I have dreamed of having my ENTIRE life. I dreamt about little girls – and luckily I am blessed with two little girls – about a husband, a house, pets, and enjoying our life going on adventures and spending a lot of time outdoors or camping. I know that I am beyond blessed to have two amazing little girls in my life to complete our family, and I am so very thankful that Burkitts Lymphoma came after we were blessed with our little family. I know that I wouldn’t be doing well mentally or emotionally if I had lost my ovaries to Burkitts Lymphoma without having children. Our journey to have Hailey was long enough as it is – 3.5 years, OBGYN, fertility specialists, and a ridiculous amount of tests – and here we are, with two beautiful little girls, minimal intervention from a fertility specialist (thankfully), and our family is complete! We have Hailey and Hadley, our two legged red headed girls, Dacia – our big four legged fur baby who is German Shepherd, Black Lab & Wolf Cross, Sadie – our small, incredibly yappy four legged fur baby who is Miniature Pinscher, and Oreo – our long haired black cat with a white stripe down his belly (hence the Oreo name). Poor Wade and Oreo are completely outnumbered by women in the house, but truthfully, I think they’re okay with it.
Surviving; Life, Cancer & Beyond 