Another bump in the road...

This isn't the long post I have been promising (still working on it), but is a blog post from my Facebook page with other big news...

I wasn't going to share this publicly, but I need all the prayer I can get right about now. Many of you know that we experienced our third miscarriage just a few months ago. What many of you DON'T know is that it was actually a partial molar pregnancy. If you are like most people, you probably have NO CLUE what that is. Here is a good link that explains it.

Immediately following the miscarriage, I had to have a chest x-ray and then weekly blood draws until my HCG (pregnancy hormone) levels were down to zero. I've been going back for monthly blood draws to make sure that the HCG levels remain at zero for at least a year. We were also heart-broken when we were told that we were not allowed to get pregnant for an entire year.

My bloodwork this past week has indicated a rise in HCG levels. This can mean one of two things: I have become pregnant while PREVENTING, which can be bad news (possible very high-risk pregnancy), OR the molar tissue has begun to spontaneously redevelop, which will require chemotherapy for treatment. Either way is not good. I was strictly forbidden from getting pregnant for 12 months, which is why we were preventing. If we have actually gotten pregnant, it has got to be an act of God Himself, because I cannot count the number of months we have spent trying to conceive throughout our marriage...and the FIRST month of PREVENTING pregnancy, we fall pregnant? How random is THAT?!? And truly not very likely.

But the alternative of the tissue metastasizing is also highly unlikely, with less than a 10% chance of recurrence. So this is a complete mystery to us. And here I sit, in the agony of not knowing WHAT is growing within my womb. Is it truly a miracle baby? Or is it the stupid tissue spreading again? Will I need chemo? And what will that mean? What if this disease spreads to the other parts of my body? What then? Will this make it even LONGER that we'll have to wait to have more children? And why? Why? WHY?

All I keep thinking is that the Lord must have some pretty freaking amazing plans for us. If we have to continue going through this crap...these trials. He must be refining us...getting us ready for something big. And so we roll with it again. While I am tempted to feel extremely frustrated and angry with my stupid body, I can't allow myself to be overwhelmed by those things. Instead, I will choose to be filled with the Spirit of God who gives me peace that passes ALL understanding. :) I don't need to know why these things are happening. I just need to accept them and allow these circumstances to hurl me into the loving arms of my Savior. Because He, alone, is my comfort...and the very reason that I do not and will not give up.

So basically, we are in waiting mode. The doctor is frustrated with us, thinking that we were irresponsible. But we truly were not. She made it perfectly clear that it could be life-threatening to me or the baby if we were to get pregnant. Apparently if the molar tissue begins to metastasize while I'm pregnant, we would be put into a situation in which we would have to choose between saving the baby's life or mine. (Do I allow cancer to spread throughout my body during the pregnancy or do I treat it with chemo and therefore kill the baby?) How crappy of a situation would THAT be? But it is NOT guaranteed. It is rare for the tissue to metastasize anyway. But it's also rare for us to get pregnant so easily...especially while preventing.

It is a mystery. And we are trying to make sense of it all. We will begin to find out more over the next couple of weeks, with more bloodwork and eventually early ultrasounds. But in the meantime, would you join us in prayer? I honestly don't know how or what to pray at this point. Mostly for joy and peace throughout this journey, I suppose would be the best. I confess that I shy away from praying for exactly what I want (for there to be a perfectly healthy baby that will grow to full-term without ANY complications throughout the entire pregnancy). :) As one of the proverbs says, "A hope deferred makes the heart sick." And I just have such a hard time hoping for something so deep and unlikely. (We've experienced THREE pregnancy losses up to now...so I kinda know what it's like to hope for something and then lose it.)

ANYway...this has gotten long. All of this to say...would you please join us in prayer?

Love you all!
Leslie

And an update from today: according the the doctor, my numbers seem to be within a healthy range for a normal pregnancy...NOT the cancerous tissue metastasizing. To me, this was the best possible news we could have gotten. The odds are in our favor to have a perfectly healthy pregnancy and baby. But they are going to be monitoring me like crazy throughout this pregnancy....beginning with an ultrasound this Thursday. I will update after we find out what that shows. :)