Living With No Regrets

After reading Shannon's comment to my blog entry below about sugar, my immediate reaction was "Oh God, maybe I need to lighten up on things like sugar and just enjoy life a bit more. I sound completely neurotic!! What is chemo doing to me??? Am I going off the deep end??" But the more that I thought about it, the more I realized that I can't lighten up on this. The stakes are too high -- I can't take any chances!!

When Pete and I were trying to get pregnant with Kyle we had one heartbreak after another for about three years. We went through two rounds of IVF that enabled us to transfer about 10 embryos. And of the embryos that we transfered, we got pregnant twice (once with twins). But, sadly, we miscarried all three babies. After the last miscarriage, we took some time off to regroup emotionally and try to sort through our options. After many tearful discussions, we finally agreed that we had the financial means and emotional strength to attempt one more round of IVF. But since this was our last attempt, we also knew that we had to do everything in our power to make it work so that we could always know in our hearts that we had tried our best. So I researched about 15 different fertility clinics around the country and narrowed our choices down to three. We then interviewed doctors at the three clinics, asking them a multitude of questions about our situation....What did they think was causing our miscarriages? What treatment did they propose we try next? What made their clinic better than other clinics? What did they think my chances were of getting and staying pregnant again? What else, if anything, should we be doing to improve our odds of success? In the end, we chose to go to a clinic in Colorado because the work that they were doing around reproductive endocrinology was the most cutting edge. I also did a lot of research on nutrition and modified my diet tremendously. And I found an acupuncturist that was highly experienced in treating fertility-related issues and worked with him regularly. So in the end, I made these and other changes knowing that we were only going to try one more time and knowing that I never wanted to look back and wonder "What if?", as in " What if I had only done X...would I have another child today?"

Luckily, we all know how the story ends: I got pregnant and we now have a beautiful child named Kyle. It was not an easy pregnancy. I was actually pregnant with triplets at first, but lost two of the babies around week 10 which landed me on bed rest for about 5 weeks so that we wouldn't lose Kyle as well. But in the end, we had our beautiful baby boy.

We will never know exactly what made this pregnancy work when the others failed. Was it the new clinic? Was it the acupuncture? Was is the changes in my diet? Or was it some other factor -- like the hand of God -- that we will never understand? This will remain a mystery forever. All I know is that when Pete and I flew home after undergoing our last and final IVF (but before we knew for sure that we were pregnant) we both looked at each other and agreed that if it didn't work, it wasn't meant to be. We had truly done everything humanly possible and we could have no regrets. At that point, we turned our fate over to God.

This is exactly how I feel about the changes that I am making today. I don't know what the outcome of this crazy life journey is going to be, but I do know that I don't ever want to look back with any regrets. I can't bear the thought of having my cancer come back and having to explain to my children that I could have possibly done something to prevent it. If this is my time to go, I want my children to know that I went out kicking and screaming and fighting!! I want my husband to see with his own two eyes how I love him with all my heart and how much I love the life that we have created together and how I am willing to do anything, anything to get this cancer out of our lives. The stakes that I am facing right now are as high as they get: will I live through this cancer or won't I? While there is much that is unknown, what I do know is that there are some things that I can control (such as diet, exercise, acupuncture, following the treatment plan laid out by my doctors, etc). And in the end, if making these changes doesn't provide me the outcome for which I am hoping and praying, then maybe it wasn't meant to be. After I have done everything I can humanly do, I must turn my fate over to God.