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Head Versus Heart

An Internal Battle with Motherhood

By Lilithea AdasiaPublished 6 years ago 8 min read
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Have you ever had something on your mind and needed to get it out? Well, that is where I am at right now. I have something in my head I need to share. It needs to come out before I crumble. Hard part about it is finding someone to talk to, so here I am. I was hoping to find someone not related to me, someone who won't tell me what they think I want to hear, but the truth. Someone not afraid to shake me out of this. I so hate when my heart and my head go to battle. I have no clue which to follow.

I have been with my partner for almost 11 years. We spent a good chunk of it trying to start a family. We tried everything, including fertility treatments. I got pregnant a few times, but they never made it to taking their first breath or letting out their first cry. It was hard, but we got through it like the amazing team we are. He is my rock and held me up, even shined his light at the end of my darkening tunnel to keep my spirits up. Others were not so supportive and at times have asked some rather hurtful questions or made remarks that cut to the core. We even had a doctor give up on us, leaving us to find another one willing to help. After a while we decided to try a different approach; we were not going to even try. If it happened, it happened. After all, how many couples find themselves pregnant after they stop timing and counting, planning their sex around a schedule, or some who have even given up and gone for adoption?

My tunnel to motherhood, my long time dream of being a mother, went dark and no one could light it up. My body is failing me. It is unable to do the most basic and simple task that so many accomplish by accident. I had surgery to reconstruct both my knees. A year after the second surgery when I was almost fully recovered, I was diagnosed with a rare type of Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The doctors got together and tried their best to plan a care path that would least affect my fertility as it was so frail already and they saw the fertility treatments in my chart. The chemo did its job, I am officially in remission, and hopefully will be until they give me the all clear in about ten years. Yeah, that is right, this cancer came with a ten year window of being able to come back and not just come back but come back anywhere in my body it finds comfortable. Chemo was hell. I can tell you right now we are not like they show us in the commercials. Not a single one of us in there are energetic, smiling, or playing around. Nope, we are in our chairs, crammed into treatment/infusion rooms like sardines. They encourage you to bring your support crew with you, but there is nowhere to put them. You can, however, hold the hand of the person next to you while you both cry silently, letting the tears fall on their own slowly. My first chemo day of all my treatment was the day before Thanksgiving. Oh how the smells of all the food confused my body. I had days I could barely walk, days I just slept through, and the purple streamers that swirled around the shower drain as I washed my hair. Once it started coming out in globs, we went to the hair saloon. The chemo around Christmas almost killed me. I remember even sending a friend a text asking if I could die yet. I went four days without keeping anything down and even if I had nothing in me, my stomach would still try to purge something from my body. Finally on Christmas night after a few days of nothing but blips of Christmas movies my Mother In Law was watching as I was in and out on the couch, I was able to eat something and keep it down. I forced it with everything I had to keep it down as I was not in the mood to be taken to the hospital.

Good did come of this, however. I was exposed to some cracks in the system. I got to see behind the curtain, and it was not a happy sight. Before chemo started, I was encouraged to seek out fertility saving procedures. Upon calling my insurance company, my dream of carrying a child within me was shattered and the dust thrown out into the wind. No matter what they did, my insurance would not cover any fertility saving measures and not only that but they were classified as elective. I sought out help in other forms. I mean there had to be an organization out there to help those of us afflicted with cancer to save our dreams of someday being a parent. I found two. I should say I found none, as neither one of them would have been able the help with even a quarter of the costs. They may have been able to cover the cost of medication, leaving about 50 thousand for people in need to come up with on their own. With that Lilly's Family Circle was starting to form in my brain.

LFC was formed to help the families affected by cancer heal and grow. To do this we have a few outreach projects that we do in attempt of getting our name out there in the community. The "Tiny Warrior Task Force" is in charge of going into Children's Hospital and visiting the children that have been admitted to the hospital for their care. They go in with treats, toys, activities, and with the hopes of getting a smile. The "Lilly Packs" are a project I set up for the adults in treatment centers. They are hand crocheted satchels with comfort items in them, a few items to make their visit a little more tolerable and perhaps something they need and forgot at home. Last we have "Tonka's Closet"—this was named after my loving pup and is a clothing bank free to those in need. It has clothes and small household items. While working on the last one and sorting though donations is where my head and heart began to collide in a battle I could not discuss vocally.

My partner and I had a discussion a few weeks back. I told him that with all my health issues and the fact that we don't fully understand the damage the chemo may have caused, I was worried about being a biological mother. I was giving up on being the natural mother. I was giving up on the morning sickness, the little flutters and movements, the ultra sounds, the argument between the two of us about finding out the sex. I was afraid of passing on all my medical issues as it seemed I had inherited mine from my mother and father. I was perfectly fine with this decision. I was doing what mother is supposed to due, protecting my child. Even though it is a child that will never be born. We could still try for a surrogate or adoption. I had already planned on becoming a foster mother some day. My brain and heart were content with this choice, until yesterday.

We had received a nice amount of donations for Tonka's Closet. Being busy with other things I put the boxes and bags off to the side for a few days. Yesterday, I had time to start sorting through them all. It started slow. I caught myself looking over cute tiny pieces of clothing. Some of the most adorable outfits and shoes. Soon my heart was getting my brain to imagine what my little one would look like in some of it. Next I knew I was applying logic to myself in order to stop from putting some of my nieces clothes my sister brought over to the side and building a "Hope Chest." The clothes all got sorted and placed in their correctly sorted storage box. Still my heart aches and desires the feeling of a tiny life growing inside me, while my brain is forcing all the logic it can to remind me of what could be at stake. My heart of course counters with the fact that we may luck out and have a perfectly healthy child that continues that health into adulthood. It teases with the thought of little flutters in my stomach as I first start to feel my little one. They battle back and forth continuously for now and probably will until I find a way to make them both happy and at peace. Time to find a distraction, time to find a place of peace until I can find an answer or way to, as I said, please both my head and heart.

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If you are interested or would like more information about Lilly's Family Circle please visit us on Facebook.

If you would like to support our cause and myself and are inspired to do so please feel free to leave a tip and/or share this article. Both ways support LFC and its mission.

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About the Creator

Lilithea Adasia

I am here, I am there, I am everywhere. Somethings will have you laughing & smiling, others have you reaching for the nearest tissue. In the end they are my stories, some are fiction some are not, which is which is for me to know.

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