While I was sick Menopausal New Mom was kind enough to tag me as a Theta Mom (The True, Authentic Mom). Menopausal New Mom shared with us why she thought she was a Theta Mom so please check out her post here. I want you to know that I was very touched by her request. I’m supposed to share five reasons that I believe have shaped me into a Theta Mom.
Here they are:

1.  When Pumpkin was 12 months old, she began to get sick and stayed sick. I was literally terrified. My precious little baby was capable of having hand, foot and mouth, strep throat and ear infection at the same time and act like it was an every day occurrence. Did I accept the doctors telling me it was normal? No, I did not because there was something wrong with my baby. I wanted to solve the issue. We realized that she couldn’t stay in preschool with her being so ill. I chose to stop working outside the house and come home. I didn’t work for over two years as we fought to make her better. She had her adenoids, tonsils, and tubes removed by the time she was 18 months old. She saw top specialists. She had more blood work and tests than you can imagine. Still I didn’t stop.

My baby girl was almost 2 years old before she weighed 20 lbs. We were told that she probably had cystic fibrosis. Let me tell you hearing those words were like a cut to our hearts. I was so upset but then I kicked myself in the butt and said get up and find a way. I did my research on the internet. None of it was good but I was determined that my daughter would live a happy normal life. We would just change things to accommodate the illness. The illness would not be her life. It would simply be part of it. The doctors were wrong. She did not have it. She had a very bad immune system which really wasn’t surprising since her biological mother did not tell good care of herself while she was pregnant. We fought for several years with her health. But today she is a healthy seven year old girl. She is rarely sick. During her illness, Pumpkin barely spoke. While she was sick, she would bang her head against the wall. We tried to stop her whenever we saw it. But we knew something was wrong because of it. It was so frustrating for me to see her frustration by it. I just wanted her to be able to communicate with me. By the time she was 2 years old, she spoke 10 words. She now suffers from a speech issues but we are working on that as well.

2. I carry a backpack with me as a purse so that I am always prepared. In the backpack, I have toys, crayons, paper, coloring book, snacks, drinks, and wipes. I used to try to carry a book or magazine with me but I never got to look at it. I stopped carrying them because I would want to look at it and my job was to entertain the kids. Period. I take an extra suitcase on vacation full of toys. It is so much fun packing for them on trips. Ok I have all their clothes ready. Now how many toys do we pack away?

3. I tried to maintain that relationship with their birth mother. I had known Marsha since she was 4 years old. I watched her grow up. I loved her as much as if she was my own during those years. She was the first child that I attached myself to when I found out that I would not be able to have kids. So you can see how hard it would be to walk away from her. You see, Marsha was willing to see Pumpkin only when she could show her off to her newest boyfriend. Marsha was not stable enough for me to have around the kids. She was getting into drugs and the wrong people. I could not provide a stable environment with her in it. She would call to talk with me about this and that but never bring up Pumpkin. So being Pumpkin’s mother first, I chose to stop any communication. She has never called since. I still miss her today. But for the safety of Pumpkin, I removed her involvement in our lives.

At one point, I was going to her Myspace and her aunt’s Myspace to get pictures of their siblings. Monkeyboy included. We found out about Monkeyboy going into foster care through the aunt’s Myspace. She was begging for people to call and tell foster care that it was wrong. I didn’t think twice about calling to tell them that if Monkeyboy was not returned to the aunt that we would take him. I thought of Pumpkin’s and Monkeyboy’s well being first. They were my first priority. I didn’t think about what my husband would say. I didn’t think about how this would affect my family’s financials. I simply thought about how this would affect Pumpkin (an ultimately Monkeyboy) if we did not try to get her brother out of foster care. If we let him fall into the system, I knew in my heart that Pumpkin would wonder why we had not tried to get him. I knew that Pumpkin would look for him for the rest of her life. So we went after him.

Getting Monkeyboy from foster care means that I had to change my entire life again. I had to quit working from home. He needed that extra attention. And as a busy little toddler he was so very active. There was no way I could work.

4. I can honestly say that I’m not a typical mother but then maybe I am. Maybe people just need to realize that motherhood has changed. I make mistakes. I laugh at them. I learn from them but I make them. For instance: when Pumpkin was 2 years old, we decorated her room. We allowed her to do some of the decorating with us. We decked her room out. I came up with a design in my head for the room. She was going to have a tea area in the park. Some place for a little girl to feel like a princess. We put down tiles on the floor to represent the tiles you would find outside. We painted the ceiling deep blue for the sky. We painted the main parts of the wall a light pink. We painted the trim green for grass. And then we went about drawing flowers and butterflies. Now here’s where we goofed, we allowed Pumpkin to put her hands and feet into the paint for prints on the wall. To this day, Pumpkin still tries to paint her walls every chance she gets. It doesn’t matter how many times we tell her she’s not suppose to do it. My husband had out filler which is what you use to fill holes in your walls. He left for 5 minutes. I do mean 5 minutes. She got into and put it all over her walls in that amount of time.

I am always learning something new that is best for my kids. I am always willing to share that information as well. Here as well as in stores I found out today. Motherhood is not cut and dry. Things are always changing and we must change with the time. The more I am a mommy the more that I realize how very blessed I am. There is nothing more rewarding to me than watching my children grows. I often wonder what they will be when they grow up. I’m always telling them that they can be anything they want to be. My kids have taught me things as well. They’ve taught me to be patient. They’ve taught me to look at the smallest things in life and enjoy them. They’ve taught me to cherish my inner child. They’ve taught me that my family is more important than anything that I could ever buy. I knew that before just not as firmly as I do now.

I have realized that being a mother doesn’t mean I have to live by someone else’s way it has to work for us. So if I feed my kids’ cereal at dinner, that’s all right by me. I’ve started new traditions with them. I have fun with my kids. I put them first. I do allow them to watch cartoons. I allow them to be a kid. I play with my kids. I get down on the floor and color with them. We play games. I read them books at night. We say our prayers together. 

5. I go out of my way not to teach my children fear. We decided early on not to teach them fear. You see, my husband’s sister is terrified of everything. She’s scared of going into her own basement. She’s scared of dogs. She’s scared of rain storms. As the kids have gotten older, I realized how easy it was to teach fear. We were going to the park. I asked the neighborhood girl to go with us. Pumpkin was jumping from one bench to the other. I was watching as a normal mommy would do. I was holding my breath because I knew that she could fall and get hurt. It’s the hardest thing I ever had to do. When all of a sudden, the neighborhood girl grabbed her and said, “No, don’t do that! You’ll get hurt.” She would never try again after that. She was taught to fear something. We never let on if we are scared of something. I’m terrified of spiders. The kids are not aware of that.

These are just a few of the reasons that I think I am a Theta Mom.  So am I?  The only thing that I can tell you is that I believe that I am doing what is best for my children.  Thats all that matters to me.

I would like to tag all of my readers. Even if you aren’t a mother, tell us what you think one is. Please let me know when you do so. I want to learn about you as well.

I remember feeling so completely lost. I wanted answers and no one could give them to me. I felt so frustrated and so incredibly helpless. But I couldn’t focus on this at all. By this point, I was married to my first husband, Michael. He was starting to get sicker. He went blind a month after we got married. At this point, his kidneys were beginning to fail. So he took priority over anything else.

This is the second part to My Female Problems Lead to Endometrosis, please feel free to read the first part  here.

Once again, I got sick. It was the worst time for me to get sick. My husband was getting sicker. There couldn’t have been a worse time for me to worry about this. Michael’s kidneys had failed him. I was basically going back and forth from work to the hospital and then home again. In the morning, I would start the progress all over.

I went looking for a new gynecologist. Even though I had all of my paperwork, he wanted to do an exploratory surgery. The gynecologist said that he needed to see what was going on inside me. I agreed. I was desperate and sick of having a period that lasted almost a month at a time. The gynecologist assured me that it would only be a couple of days in the hospital and six weeks recovery. I could handle the couples days. I knew that I would be back to the grind shortly after. I had to work. I had to take care of my husband.

After the surgery, the gynecologist told me that the reason for the pain and the long periods was because of all the scar tissue that I had built up in my system from all of the surgeries. He had to remove part of the other ovary as well. So now I am down to ¾ of an ovary. I was devastated. I asked what the possibility of me having a child was. He said that it was still possible. I tried to believe him.

When I went in for a check up, I asked the gynecologist why this was happening to me. I didn’t know of anyone else that was going through what I was. He told me that he didn’t know why but he would get down to it.

I checked out. Everything seemed to be good at that appointment. As I was walking by his office, I heard him say something about me on the phone. I heard him tell this person on the other end that, “I think the Marcum (meaning me) woman has endometriosis.” Let me tell you. I kept walking. I couldn’t believe that he wasn’t telling me that directly.

I decided to find a specialist and not to hold back on this one. My husband was constantly back and forth in the hospitals. I believed that he was going to be alright. He started walking funny. It was the circulation in his legs going out. I had to put my problems on the back burner again. I devoted myself to my husband for the next year. If I would start hurting, I did my very best to ignore it. I had periods that were month long and cramps that were undeniable. But I had stored up all the pain medicine from previous times and took that. No I did not become addicted. I simply had to cope with what was my life. My heart was breaking in small little pieces. The thought of my husband not going to be here was destroying me. The thought of being a mother at this point wasn’t even in consideration. I loved my husband completely. I knew that the doctors could not keep him going much longer. His body was failing him. My female parts were failing me. Maybe it was just meant to be that way.

Michael passed away in September of 1989. I went into a stage of life that no young woman of 23 should go into. I was in a group that no one wanted to be in. Not only did I mourn the loss of my special love, I also mourned the fact that we did not have a child to carry on his name.

I decided to find that specialist. I found a gynecologist, Dr. Plunkett. I went to see him with my huge file folder. He read over my information and then checked me out. I never told him what I had heard the last gynecologist said. He said in his office on the first visit, “I think you have endometriosis.”

I asked what it was. “Endometriosis is a condition in which the tissue that normally lines the uterus (endometrium) grows in other areas of the body, causing pain, irregular bleeding and possible infertility. The tissue growth (implant) typically occurs in the pelvic area, outside of the uterus, on the ovaries, bowel, rectum, bladder, and the delicate lining of the pelvis.” For more information, go here.

Dr. Plunkett wanted to do an exploratory surgery. I was having pain during the exam. He said that he had felt something and wanted to be careful. He wanted to make sure that I didn’t lose any option of having kids. I agreed to the surgery.

Once again during the surgery, cysts are found. This time they were found in my uterus. He removed them. Dr. Plunkett assured me that I still had a chance of having kids in the future. I was on cloud nine. I was so excited. I had a competent gynecologist.

For the next year, things went along smoothly. I was sitting at work when the pain hit me. I was working for the Girl Scouts in Cincinnati. I called Dr. Plunkett’s office and asked for the next appointment. I told them I felt like I was going to pass out. They told me to come right away. I called my mother and pretty much begged her to come and take me. I knew that I couldn’t drive. Mom asked if I was sure it was my female parts. I had absolutely no doubts. One I had asked the first gynecologist to remove my appendix so I never thought it could be anything else.

We got to the office. He said he wanted to give me an exam and see what was up. When he did my exam, I passed out for the first time in my life from the pain. When I came too, he told me that I needed to go to the hospital now. I would be admitted right away. We stopped off at my place for a few things before heading to the hospital. I knew that it was really bad.

I don’t remember much about before the surgery other than that. I do remember coming to crying. My mom was very careful not to tell me what he told her. I asked several times and finally gave up.

The next morning, Dr. Plunkett came in to see me. He told me that my appendix had erupted and that if I hadn’t had all the scar tissue from all of the surgeries that I wouldn’t have survived. My female parts were basically green with poison. He told me that he had to give me a complete hysterectomy.

Even now, that memory still makes me cry. I was devastated.  I think I went a little crazy.  I began to believe that I wasn’t a complete woman.  That I could never be whole again.  I am today.  I am completely whole with my family.  I have my babies, Pumpkin and Monkeyboy.

Note:  If you believe something is wrong with you, don’t let it keep building.  Don’t take the risk I did.

I was thinking about what I went through with my female issues. I thought I would share my story. My dad didn’t believe in gynecologists. I think it was common back in those days to feel that way. The “he man” attitude. No man is allowed to touch my women attitude. In fact when mom was about to give birth to me, dad did not want to allow her to go to the hospital. The reason he didn’t want to was because my mom’s female gynecologist was out of town which means I was going to be delivered by a male doctor. I agree this is extreme but you need to understand my dad’s mentality to understand what happened to me physically later on.

When I was 16 years old, my menstrual periods became very painful, caused me to vomit and had excessive bleeding. My cramps would literally cause me to curl up in bed for a day or two with the pain. I was always light headed as well. I begged my parents to allow me to go to the doctors. They were that bad. Well, my father never agreed no matter how much my mother tried to talk him into it. He told me that women were suppose to suffer with their cramps. It was part of being a woman. Translation to that is you will just have to bear the pain.

When I turned 18 years old, I finally went to see the gynecologist. I’m sitting in the gynecologist’s office by myself when he tells me he wants me to get an ultrasound to find out what is causing these problems.

The result of the ultrasound was that I have ovarian cysts. Some of the symptoms of ovarian cysts are pain in the abdomen, pelvic pain, pain during your period, abnormal bleeding, vomiting or nausea. Ironically I had them all when I was on my period. Since I had the symptoms since I was 16 years old, he thought it made sense to schedule a Laparoscopy right away.

Laparoscopy is done when the cyst is small and looks benign (noncancerous) on the ultrasound. While you are under general anesthesia, a very small cut is made above or below your navel. A small instrument that acts like a telescope is put into your abdomen. Then your doctor can remove the cyst. The doctor assured me that I would have no scar except for the one in my belly button.

I remember how he described even today. They would cut a small incision in my belly button and then insert a laparoscope. The surgery is called a lapascopy because of the device they use. Attached to that is a laser to burn the cysts off. The stomach will be blown up like a balloon with carbon dioxide gas. This makes your stomach expand so that they can see the internal organs. In my case, the female organs. He said that there were not that many risks involved with this procedure. He told me that I didn’t need to worry about a scar. I just wanted the pain to go away.

I believed him and had the surgery. I cleaned my apartment from top to bottom to make sure that I would not have to do anything after the surgery. Problem was I forgot to stock the food. I remember waking up groggy but feeling semi normal. I was on the pain medicine at the time. My mom was there to drive me home. During the ride, I guess my insides woke up. I was in pain. At the time, I lived in an apartment that had about 15 steps to get into. That almost killed me to walk up them. My roommates had decided not to be there as well. So I was alone for the weekend. They had told me after the surgery to keep pressing a pillow on my stomach to help the gases pass through my system. I drifted in and out of sleep after the surgery so remembering that pillow did not work at all.

Things returned back to normal. My periods became normal and less painful. Then it started again about six months later. Once again I went back to the gynecologist. Once again he sent me for a ultrasound. The result was bigger cysts. He told me that he needed to find out if these cells were cancerous. These cysts did not look the same as the first ones. I’m 18 years old. He mentions cancer to me. I become the most paranoid person in the world. I look up everything I can about cancer which makes it ten times worse. Please unless they are specific and say that they are sure you have something do not look for information. This is the one place that I think the internet gives us too much information. I think back then I went to the library though.

The gynecologist has recommended that I have another surgery, a lapatomy. He was wanting to remove the cysts to check them. A laparotomy uses a bigger incision to remove the cyst or any effected area. While I was under, he said that he would test the cyst for cancer. If it is cancer, my doctor told me that he would remove the infected parts which could be my ovaries, uterus, or something else. He again mentioned the risks of the surgery. He told me that recovery would be 6 to 8 weeks. I should expect to be in the hospital for a week. Remember this was back in the 80′s. I requested that my appendix be removed since I was going to be open anyway. I had to sign a paper to have it done since it was not necessary.

This was in 1985. After the surgery, I found out that it was not cancerous. Thank God. The doctor explained that he had to cut off part of one of my ovaries because there were too many cysts and I had scar tissue. I asked why this kept happening. Why me? Why didn’t other women have this problem? The gynecologist assured me that a lot of women had the same issues. He couldn’t explain what was wrong with me. I decided if he couldn’t give me a reason that I needed to find another doctor next time. I was already very pessimistic about it. I was scared at this point that I would never be able to have children.

Things went great for a while. I decided to go in for a general checkup. I talked to a friend and she told me she had a great gynecologist. I switched doctors. During the checkup, I experienced severe pain during the exam. He sent me for a sonogram. Now I knew that they were going to find something again. Once again, it came back that I had to have another laprascopy. So this means 3 surgeries in two years. Yes they said it was minor but its 3 surgeries in such a short period.

This surgery they found out that I had a lot of scar tissue that was intwined with my female parts. He cut through the scar tissue. I asked again why this was happening to me. He couldn’t give me an explanation why. Today, I can tell you that I wouldn’t accept that answer. But back then I was young and didn’t know any better. My parents were not there to support me during this. Remember my dad didn’t like gynecologists. At this point, neither did I.

So six months later, it happens again. This time I had to have a ovary removed completely. Still no one could tell me why this was happening. I was terrified that I would never have kids. The doubts alone could have made me sick. I realize that it was a long time ago and we have come a long way since then.

I remember feeling so completely lost. I wanted answers and no one could give them to me. I felt so frustrated and so incredibly helpless. But I couldn’t focus on this at all. By this point, I was married to my first husband, Michael. He was starting to get sicker. He went blind a month after we got married. At this point, his kidneys were beginning to fail. So he took priority over anything else.

More to come on this topic