All I want for Christmas

We have been quiet about surrogacy lately because honestly we have given up a little bit. We still have a tiny bit of hope left but not like we did 6 months ago. We feel defeated. Looking back at my blog in January (and then in June) we were so full of hope and optimism and now honestly we don't even talk about it. We don't bring up having a baby at all.

I am on 2 surrogacy boards on Facebook and I have been approached by a couple different women to potentially be our surrogate. One I turned down because she lived too far away (and her fb profile was too minimal to seem like a real person) and 2 others didn't have insurance. The other thing is how much some of these women ask for in terms of compensation. We don't have a spare $30,000 plus a c section fee plus a multiples fee plus a clothing fee plus travel and on and on. I'm not saying that these women don't deserve compensation but after you add up all of those fees they can make almost $50,000. Then I'm wondering what is the original $30,000 for? 

This month has also been hard because when we thought we had a surrogate lined up in June we imagined that the transfer would be around October and if it worked we could announce around Christmas or Mackenzie's birthday in January. I was really looking forward to telling her that she was going to be a big sister for her birthday. She told me again this week that she wished she had a brother or sister. I can't imagine why she thinks we haven't had a baby yet. She knows that I was sick and had to take medicine that made my hair fall out but she doesn't know that I can't carry any more babies. I think it would break her heart. Her hope is keeping our hope alive. 

The other reason we haven't really talked about surrogacy is because I STILL have not completely healed from my reconstruction surgery. I have been on 2 different antibiotics and 2 different ointments. Last week my surgeon wanted to open my incision and reclose it in the office. I politely declined and asked if we could try the 2nd ointment first. Luckily it seems to be working. The other bad part is that my surgeon is moving to NJ and next week is his last week in the office. I felt like we were breaking up at my appointment this week. He's been such a calm and empathetic voice for the last 3 years and I'm really going to miss him. Although- you know- I wish we never met! 

I am feeling a little pressure because I need to start Lupron shots (to go into menopause) but I need to first be completely healed  before I can even think about doing an egg retrieval. I feel like a mess. And these are the moments I get really angry. I know that life is unfair sometimes but how unfair does it have to be? Sometimes I feel like I used up all of my luck in my first 27 years and then it ran out. It's really hard to watch others announce their pregnancy and then even harder to hear people complain about being pregnant or about what their kids are doing that's annoying. I would love to be annoyed by a 2 year old right now instead of begging strangers to carry our child. 

The other day I opened my email and saw I had a comment on my blog. I was excited to see what it said until I read it. 

First I'm guessing this person just read that one blog and not any others as this has been addressed. Second- how insensitive. Is adoption the only alternative to women who can't carry their own child? The comment makes it sound like I can go to our local kid adoption center and pick out whichever kid I want. Adoption is hard and expensive and while we are moving forward with surrogacy it doesn't mean that we would never consider adoption. In fact we have. Many times. I even recently looked into more agencies. But right now we just can't imagine a world that doesn't have another biological child of ours in it. Is that selfish? Maybe. But that is our choice. 

Please share this with anyone who you think might be able to be our surrogate. Or anyone who would also want to share it. At some point we are going to have to make some tough decisions if we can't find a surrogate but we aren't ready to give up just yet. Maybe 2016 will be the year of the baby. 

Post surgery

Yesterday marked 1 month since my reconstruction surgery. It's going okay so far. The immediate recovery was a million times easier than my mastectomy surgery which everyone told me. I went for a post-op check up a week after surgery and it was good. I broke out all over my torso immediately after surgery  and I think it's from the orange stuff they put on you before surgery. It went away by the following week.

Last Wednesday I called my doctor because it looked red around my steri-strips in my incision on my cancer side and I was worried it was getting infected. They told me to come right in and the PA looked at it. She took off the steri-strips and looked a little concerned. It wasn't infected but radiation causes all sorts of wound problems. So I got another antibiotic and told to use Neosporin on that incision. The other side looks fine. 

I went back yesterday. I was supposed to go this Friday but my doctors office called yesterday to say they wanted to see me sooner. I guess the PA and my doctor were talking about me Tuesday and my doctor was concerned enough that he wanted to see me sooner. Luckily the PA was in the room with the doctor and she thought it looked much better. My doctor changed me to a prescription ointment and extended my 2nd antibiotic. He thinks that incision will be healed in about another week. I'm just hoping none of this pushes back when my restrictions get lifted on the 14th. 

I luckily haven't been in much pain. Last week I was in a little pain which another reason why I called the doctor but otherwise it hasn't been bad. I'm just looking forward to feeling normal and being able to do things like raise my arms over my head and sleep on my side. 

It's been a pretty emotional month. In my last blog I said that its brought back a lot of thoughts of cancer. Obviously I wouldn't be having this surgery if I never had cancer. But more than that sometimes I feel like cancer keeps butting in my life. It's like cancer sees I'm doing well so it throws something new at me. I wish I could get a restraining order. Last week I was really frustrated because one of the reasons I out this surgery off for so long is because I didn't want to have to deal with all of this again. So it felt like a punishment or something that I was having complications. It's bad enough that I'm permanently disfigured and have permanent discoloration from radiation but then to have my wound not heal too? I shouldn't have been surprised. After all I am usually in the small percentage that things happen to. But I'm feeling better after seeing my doctor yesterday and my incision finally look like it's starting to heal.  

On a different note, Tuesday was my head shaving cancerversary.

Bottom left and top left: 12/1/12 before and after, top middle: 12/1/13, top right: 12/1/14, bottom right: 12/1/15

I was reading my old blogs about shaving my head on Tuesday and it just seems so strange that those blogs are about me. I actually liked having a bald head once I finally had it shaved. Although I hated wearing a wig. Most days after work I'd take it off in the car on the way home from work- it makes your head so hot! And when your hair is falling out it is SO itchy! But hopefully I never have to experience that again! Growing your hair out is such a pain! I love looking back at old pictures from 2 years ago to see how crazy my hair looked while it was growing back out.