Our Baby Journey.
Swipes dust. Teehee. It has been a month now since I last blog. Yet, my New Zealand entry is still unfinished. It has been almost a year since we've been to New Zealand! How crazy is that? Time passes sooooooooo quickly!
But heyyy, I'm still blogging. At least. Right ?
Sooooo, my post title is terribly misleading. I know. I purposely does it.
For enlightenment, we weren't pregnant. Yet. However, our journey has started years back. Safe to say, almost 3 and half years back. For the first few month of marriage, I was scared of the thought of pregnancy. I wasn't ready to have a child, while my husband was staying so far away with me. What more I was living with his parents at the time. I didn't know who they were, they didn't know who I was. For our first 6 months into marriage, we held it back. We were young, we didn't thought the journey would a long and various heartbreaks away.
By the time we were ready, we kept on trying. And tried. But to no avail. There were few moments where my menses were late and I was beyond excited. There was this one time, my menses were late by almost 3 weeks and I couldn't wait to get a pregnancy test. I actually went out to Watsons and get myself a set of ClearBlue tests. The girl at the cashier couldn't shed off her weird stare at me but I couldn't care less. I had a short stature and people often incorrectly guessed my age. They thought I am younger. Long story short, I went back home & ripped off the pack and get tested.
It was a negative.
And it has been a negative since the last 3 and half years.
There were a few times I actually cried myself to sleep seeing friends who were just got married 3 months ago, announcing their pregnancy. There were times I was very emotionally unstable that I had muted or unfollowed certain people who keep updating about their pregnancy journey/newborn child. It's not their fault. Who here is not excited to have their own child? Much less expected first born? But it was too much for me. At the time, I had went for many appointments, went through many cycles of hormones which drives me crazy & gaining weight uncontrollably. I even go and search for supplements, googled various positions and tips for pregnancy. But somehow it wasn't working.
Things seemed to cool down when I had the chance to do my master's degree in the UK. My husband and I, we agreed to just enjoy the opportunity and I actually had forgotten about this for a short while. I focused on losing weight, running, and eating healthily. We decided to travel as much as while we still can.
But things started to spiral down ever since I was diagnosed with endometriosis and a retroverted uterus last December. I had finally decided to find out what was wrong with me. Why couldn't we be easily pregnant. Prior to diagnosis, my menses cramp & weird discharges started escalating. So I was given hormone treatment, again. And the nurses, also some people with same experiences were telling, 'Get pregnant, it's the only way to treat your endometriosis!'. Seriously, what do you think have I been doing since the last 3 years then?
Aunties would come and tell, 'I got married at 16, at 17 I was already pregnant!', or 'Whaaa? You've been married for four year and no child?! You shouldn't wait that long, go get tested, etc etc etc'. Nonetheless, I kept my ear deaf. Couldn't deal with these people. It was an emotional roller-coaster for me. I was the one diagnosed and other people didn't help either. I was on borderline depressed because there is actually something very wrong with me. I cried myself to sleep every night since I was diagnosed at that time. People didn't know. They just know how to judge. At that time that my husband has just started his houseman-ship too. He wasn't as much as emotionally available for me either. With the hormones I was taking, everything was just too much. It was not a steady period for us.
Fast forward to March, when my current hormone treatment ended, I had scheduled another appointment with my ObsGyn. That time, she found 2 cysts at my left ovary. It wasn't the end of the world for me. I was already unstable you see. She suggested that I followed up to where my husband is working since the cost of removing it at the hospital I was checking-up was too much. So I did. I set an appointment, and the earliest date for screening was in July. It was a long wait, and more hormonal treatment. When the date arrived, I went for another checkup and the cyst is still there. And they found another condition. I had endometriosis and cyst on my left ovary. But on my right side, they found I had PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome). Another condition that made pregnancy a little bit challenging to achieve. But there wasn't much to be done except remove the cyst first.
So they booked me in for laparoscope KIV laparotomy in August. A 'scope' is where you'll be poked and a camera will be inserted to observe the actual condition inside. A 'tomy' is when they had to cut you up a little bit bigger to remove whatever that has been troubling you. In my case, the cyst.
And last week, I had my laparoscope. And everything went well, alhamdulillah. I was put to sleep during the operation and wasn't able to leave the bed for the first night post-surgery. The overall experience of waiting before surgery, being in the operation theatre are... Interesting. Nonetheless, the doctors decided they needed no laparotomy. But I still had 2 small incisions down at my left abdomen and a poked belly button. My cyst was removed. Upon surgery, they found out that my fallopian tubes were both blocked and they had pressured it open. My doctor has a theory maybe that is why I haven't been able to get pregnant yet. My tubes were blocked before. And I am recovering pretty quick since I wouldn't take pain a reason for lying still in bed.
Even with my cyst removed, I am still put under intervention for pregnancy by the team that treated me. Since I had other conditions too. I am on bed rest most of the time. Certain people would still come and say things to me. It doesn't bother me much at first but they just would not give me a break. One thing that confuses me, the pressure they put on me was JUST TOO MUCH. While nobody, not a single person ever said to my husband to take care of me well. I actually had a breakdown last night in front him saying it's not fair that people would just come up and say mean things to me because I'm the wife experiencing all these but no one says anything to the husband. I wasn't strong, I am far away from an alimah. I am human too. It isn't fair because marriage takes two. Why put too much pressure on only one side?
In fact, I think most women who are waiting just like me would agree, that there are very few people who would actually come up to the husband and said things like what those aunties said to me. If women are strong enough to handle all these bad mouthes alone, we would all be able to get pregnant without a man just like Maryam AS did with Allah's will. But we weren't. Because we are not strong and He knows these kind of things need not be handled by ourselves alone. But people are mean and vile. It's not enough that one person that has just undergo surgery, still recovering from painful wound - they need to make it worse. I just wish for them to realise you know? Sometimes you just want that person to snap out of it and realise what they are saying are complete gibberish. I did not in any way ask for this to happen. I just want to be like my friends. So easily get pregnant without any difficulties. Unfortunately, I wasn't one of those lucky people chosen by Allah. But I guess some people enjoy damaging others. Like Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan said in one of his lectures, 'Those with damaged hearts only find and do damage in what is in their surrounding'.
I'm not taking my whole journey as a painful experience. In fact, it is a wonderful experience. I began to finally appreciate the hardship in conceiving. I get to see the love from unexpected friends. I know now who are the real ones and who weren't.
I am thankful now that Allah has chosen me and my husband to venture on this journey. We might not be blessed with a child yet, but we were blessed with other things. But we hoped, with my recent surgery, it is another milestone for us. Maybe it will not happen soon, maybe it will take more time than the past, but it's okay. Through this, I learnt to be patient. Maybe some things are not yet meant for us, because He simply knows it. All we had to is just pray and wait. When the time comes, it will happen regardless.
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