A Truthful Mama Tells it Like it Is

Surgery Day! I had a rough night. The cleanse made me feel super nauseous. Having an empty stomach, starving, and only being able to drink made me feel icky. Plus having to poop every 5 minutes was not fun.  I finished my cleanse around 6 PM. Everything that was coming out was just clear liquid. The nurse told me when that starts to happen, and if I have more of the gatorade / miralax mixture left, I don't need to finish it. So I left about 1/4 unused. I went to bed at 7:30 PM because I was so exhausted. At midnight I woke up with my tummy rumbling so I rushed to the bathroom. I was confused because that time it wasn't clear liquid, it was green with fecal matter. I thought I had screwed up the cleanse and I had surgery in a few hours. What if my bowels aren't all the way cleaned out and he's not able to work on my bowels like needed?! I had a few more "stools" like this. I called the after hours number and Dr. Arrington called me right away. I felt so bad w...

Many have been following my journey with endometriosis lately. If you're unaware of what this surgery is, refer to my previous post: " What Endometriosis Feels Like.... for me." This post is all about the preparation: how I came in contact with this surgeon, how I went about booking flights, hotels, etc., what I ate during my bowel preparation, and everything leading up to the surgery. I'm sharing this very personal information because I don't want others to suffer like I have. Just having a diagnosis gave me hope. Learning about solutions to heal my body from being in a constant state of pain made me eager. My daughters are at risk of developing this awful disease. So here I am ready for surgery, 3 months after stumbling upon this life-changing information and I'm trying my best to document all of it. Because living life with 17 years of unexplained pain is not OK. First, I've had some people ask me how I even scheduled surgery with this out of stat...

Endometriosis:  Endometriosis  occurs when tissue that should line the inside of your uterus, the endometrium, grows outside of it instead. ... Surrounding areas may become inflamed or swollen, and scar tissue and lesions can develop. The most common site for  endometriosis  is on your ovaries. -webmd Endometriosis is known as the 'invisible disease" because it does not show up in blood work, on ultrasounds, in colonoscopies, during pap smears, etc. Most doctors are not qualified to go much further than diagnosing. The only way to see it is to do a laparoscopy where the surgeon opens you up through the abdomen. More sophisticated surgeons /radiologists can diagnose endometriosis from a MRI but they have to be very knowledgeable on what they're looking for. Most OB/GYN's and radiologists miss it completely. Many women, myself included, have been mis-diagnosed for years because endometriosis can spread to places other than just your ovaries, causing a variety ...

I suffer from mom-comparison. It’s a thing. And when I googled it, just now, there’s 53.4 million results… I can only assume you do too. Why am I soooo tired? Others moms are up in the night and they can still function. Why is my house such a mess all the time? Other moms take time to clean their house during nap time. I can’t survive without a nap during that time, or at least a pretend nap where I lay on the couch and try to shut my brain off. My husband does the night time feedings for our newborn because I’m so exhausted, even with 8 hours of sleep. How do all of the moms of the girls in my daughter’s preschool class have time to do elaborate hairstyles each morning… by 9 AM?! The answer is simple: they don’t have an autoimmune disease. I know because I was that mom… the one who did my daughter’s hair each and every morning. The one who had exercised, read scriptures, eaten a healthy breakfast, and showered before my baby woke at 7 AM. The one who had cleaned the house and alr...

T'is the season to be jolly... I've been doing a lot of running around lately; shopping for presents and food, going to the post office, and all the other errands that come with the preparation of celebrating this special holiday. And so is everyone else. This time of year is crazy, just straight chaos. But I want to talk about something in particular. Over and over I've been astonished by parking spot thieves. You know who I'm talking about. You're sitting there with your blinker on waiting for a car to back out and out of nowhere some sly, selfish, son of b**** slides into your spot. Or maybe you both get there at the same time and look at each other as if politely saying "Oh, excuse me, I thought this spot was free." and they say "No, go ahead, you take it." Except they don't say that... they glance at you quickly and speed in pretending they didn't even see you. Well.... I've got something to say to you parking spot thieves....

I thought this was interesting. I found this comparison between the 5 steps of dealing with death and the steps of PPD on  this blog . She puts it best and I don't want to plagiarize so just click the link and go directly there. You can also copy and paste this into your web browser if the link doesn't work: http://postpartumprogress.org/2011/02/the-six-stages-of-postpartum-depression/ http://postpartumprogress.org/2011/02/the-six-stages-of-postpartum-depression/