The Struggle
I want to be a mom. I want to have a family. My own family. Me, Jake, and Little One.
Don't get me wrong....it's still a while before we really start thinking about that....like, I don't know....after we get married! Ha! Which isn't next month or anything. :)
For some reason, the want/passion/desire to make a family intensely increased over the past couple of weeks. And I'm just not able to shake it.
With all of that comes some pretty realistic understandings. I have Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). I got it from my mom. (Thanks, mom.) She passed away almost 14 years ago by an aneurysm that burst, which consequently is something that sometimes goes along with this disease. Something else I have to keep a watch on is my blood pressure, which actually has been just steadily rising over the past year or so. I definitely keep regular visits with my kidney doctors.
Pregnancy does some pretty weird things to a gal's body, so I hear. Hormones make every thing change! (Some times for the better!) It could also be detrimental though. Blood pressure changes. My blood pressure is already high...my doctor is wanting to put me on some sort of medicine for that, which could also be harmful for a pregnancy and a baby. For someone with kidney problems, your kidney function could go down, putting you closer to kidney failure. Kidney infections and bladder infections could occur more often. My problem is that my kidneys are HUGE. And I have cysts growing all over them. On my left kidney, there are hundreds of small cysts. On my right one, I have a smaller number of exponentially larger cysts, of which I already had to have a few surgically removed due to the intense pressure they were putting on my liver. The cysts are always growing. It already effects everything, every organ in my body without having a baby in there growing steadily for 9 months.
So what do I do?
My OB/Gyn says that I should absolutely go for it. And he will keep an eye on everything and put me in with a high-risk doctor. My kidney doctor says that if I do want to have a baby, the time is now, before things get worse...and they will get worse...he just doesn't know when.
This disease is very strange. There's no cure...not even a treatment as of right now (other than narcotics for pain) even though there has been research to support the slowing of kidney/cyst growth and volume. But the pain, physical and emotional, is what gets me down.
I've always been the type of girl who takes unfavorable circumstances and turns them into some way to glorify God. Why is this one different? Why can't I just be content with everything God has blessed me with? Why can't I have what I want?
I have always said that I wasn't gonna let some dumb health problem run my life. Wasn't gonna let that be the deciding factor in my dreams, my hopes. Wasn't gonna let a doctor give me a time line of events. I'm gonna do what I wanna do with my future when I get there.....
Now here I am. Jake says that it's 20000% ok with him if I can't give him a baby. So that's not the issue. He loves me. He's here. He's not going anywhere. I'm perfectly content with growing old with him too....just us and our dogs! In his words, "God gave us the gift of each other....Anything else is just pure, undeserved grace...We're lucky to have one another...All I know to do is let Him handle it."
And so...after a morning (I'm sure there will be many more) of tears and prayer, I've decided that I can't control what's going on inside me. No reason to blame anyone. Maybe God wants us to use this to be able to adopt some sweet baby who couldn't be loved by anyone other than Jake and me. Maybe He's got plans for us to minister to a million kids...and not just one. Who knows. :)
You always want what you can't have, right? It almost feels like we'll be missing out on something wonderful that people can't even explain....But I know that God has something for us beyond our wildest dreams...far better than anything we could imagine....
So that's the hope I'm clinging to today.
God's the hope I'm resting in always.
xoxo
maranda
