I have been feeling pretty great overall physically! My diabetes and digestion have been well controlled, and I haven't had any big changes since my last update. I have more energy, I’m able to be as active as I want, and I have been getting to do almost everything I want without my body holding me back! But there is one caveat to that statement that I have been wrestling with for the past 2 months and I don’t quite know how to share…

If you have been following along with earlier posts in my journey, you know that Justin and I completed the first parts of IVF before my surgery and have embryos frozen (which we were planning to use post-op). In August I had an appointment with Maternal Fetal Medicine for pre-conception counseling due to some issues found on my post-op CT scan from May (mentioned in my previous post). To keep things frank, my pancreas had been causing damage to one of the main veins in my abdomen over the last 8 years and now the vein is severely narrowed. This narrowing causes increased pressure in the connecting veins, which resulted in the formation of varices in my esophagus and stomach (bulging veins). There is no “fix” for the issue, and it will hopefully not cause any problems in the near future, however, this makes pregnancy extremely unsafe for me to pursue... Long story short, we were advised that we should use a surrogate for us to have “our own kids”.

It has been a tough few months and it has taken us a while to fully process how we want to move forward with having a family. While we appreciate all our family and friends encouraging us through availability of other “options”, this has been a big struggle for me personally to have another normal experience taken away... Our options involve a lot of hoops to jump through as well as extreme expenses, so we were very hesitant to make any decisions. Since we already invested in and completed the IVF process before my surgery, we are hoping to be able to use our embryos through the surrogacy route. We are slowly beginning to look for a surrogate who would be willing to carry one of our embryos, otherwise known as a “gestational carrier”. This is a new and somewhat tough situation for us, so we are hoping to find someone who feels called to surrogacy through our network of friends and/or family, promoting a more comfortable and enjoyable process for everyone (in lieu of going through an agency). 

The past year + has squashed all the plans that we thought we had, so we are trying our best to thrive living in the space of “no plans” while enjoying as many good things as we can! And once again, we are so grateful for everyone who has helped support us through another bump in the road. We are unsure what the next year+ will look like, so we appreciate all of the prayers and positive vibes as we navigate through it.