Tuesday, October 9, 2007

What is this lump?

I went to the dr's today because I have a lump on the lower left side of my abdomen. It's very tender and has been there since baby #5. I had assumed that it was due to just not being stitched up evenly after the last c-section. However, it seems to be growing and has become very tender.

The dr was unavailable and so I saw the nurse practitioner. She felt it and said it just appeared to be a split abdominal muscle. However, since I'm tender from the left side to the middle she ordered an ultrasound for when we return from visiting my family.
I had noticed a lump on my lower left side. At first, it was a vain thing for me. I just didn't like that the lump prevented me from having a nice flat tummy. I had assumed that it was due to just not being stitched up evenly after the 4th c-section. It had been there since shortly after Deborah's delivery, but sometime in the late summer of '07 it had started to become very tender at times and it seemed to be growing.

Unfortunately, Dr. Shows was unavailable and so I saw the Nurse Practitioner. I've never been fond of seeing Nurse Practitioners. It's nothing personal. It has just always been my experience that they examine me and then require me to come in again to see the doctor. If I had known I'd only be seen by the NP, I would have waited.

She looked at the lump, felt it and said it just appeared to be a split abdominal muscle. However, since I was tender from the left side to the middle she ordered an ultrasound. Unfortunately, they couldn't get me in for an ultrasound until after I returned from my planned trip to Indiana.

After a wonderful trip and a great experience at the Louisville Temple with my sister, parents, aunts and uncles, the time finally rolled around for my ultrasound. On Wednesday, October 24, 2007, I had an ultrasound done at Dr Show's office.

The Ultrasound technician did an intravaginal ultrasound. OUCH! While I was laying on the table, the ultrasound tech said that both of my tubes were filled with fluid, a condition called "Hydrosalpinx". Then she said, "You won't have any more children without doing IVF."

WHAT? I suppose she assumed that because I have 5 children that she could just drop this news on me without softening it any way. But it really came as a HUGE shock and a great disappointment. We had been trying to conceive #6 as we KNEW .... or at least thought we knew ... that there was one more child to come to our family.

On Thursday, October 25th, I saw Dr. Shows to review the tests results. She confirmed that with hydrosalpinx my only hope for getting pregnant would be to have the assistance of a fertility specialists. She gave me the name of a dr whose office is within a mile from my home.

She also pushed and prodded on the lump. It hurt. She thought it might be a hernia and recommended that I see a surgeon.

After leaving her office, I felt very confused. Why did Dwight and I both receive the personal revelation that we were to have one more child if that was not an option? The thought came that perhaps we needed to adopt, but it really just didn't seem to be the answer. I decided I would continue to pray about it as I needed to understand whether we had misunderstood the personal revelation, or if something had changed, or if the Lord just had something special in mind for our family.