His provision

Up until this year, I've always been one of those people who complained about insurance. "I pay too much in premiums and co-pays, the price goes up every year, not enough is covered by my plan, wa wa wa." Well, not anymore.

This year, I was billed for $28,232.90  worth of medical services. Between all my visits to Dr. B, my first HSG and then my surgery and subsequent ER visits, the costs added up really quickly. While insurance didn't cover everything, it sure did cover quite a bit.

I don't really even have words for how thankful I am to have insurance. Without it, I don't think I would have been able to go through with 80% of the testing we had done this year because it would have been too expensive. Without all that testing, we probably wouldn't have figured out what was going on with me and been able to start down the road of treatment.

We've had a few wonderful things happen this week and it feels like things are finally looking up! We got a surprise gift in the mail, my finger finally stopped bleeding(thank you Jesus!!!), a dear friend brought over dinner and the BEST apple pie I've ever had in my life, I finally got to drive this week and leave the house, we hung some new canvas in our home (I'll post pictures soon!), David has a 4-day weekend and we get to celebrate my little sister's birthday tomorrow and then go to a fun New Year's Eve/Birthday party with some good friends. Ah, yes I'd say things are looking up!


I'm continually amazed at how God provides for us. His provision for our all our needs, from jobs to health insurance to wonderful friends and family, has been unwavering. I am just in awe of how He takes care of us. Thank you Jesus for all the little and big blessing in our life!

"Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and God's provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death." Philippians 1:18-20

 Hahaha I stumbled on this little gem today. This was from a few weeks ago.

This was on Christmas. I decided to leave my bleeding hand out of the picture. You're welcome ;)

Goodbye 2011

There were a lot great things in 2011! We finally moved into out brand new home in February, we had several fantastic camping trips though Colorado, we had a fun 5th anniversary, we took an incredible trip to Alaska, which will forever be one of my favorite trips ever! David started a new job at his company that he loves, which we are so very grateful for! We have spent a lot of special time with family, relaxing at home, hiking, skiing and just genuinely enjoying life together. I am so grateful for another blessed year with David. God has blessed me with such a full life, I am often overwhelmed at how truly amazing it is.

While there were so many wonderful things about this year, I have to be honest. I'm kinda over 2011.

We've had a tough year, no way around that! I worked way more than I should have, had that nasty little tax problem, spent a lot of hours in Dr. B's office and didn't spend nearly enough hours doing the things I really wanted to do.

December just kind of pushed me over the edge. Between surgery, my crazy anesthesia complications, losing my December income, dealing with identity theft, 2 trips to the ER (Oh, did I mention that I cut myself really badly on Christmas morning slicing carrots and wound up in the ER? here's to 3-4 weeks of not using my right hand)....I'm just kinda over it.

I think 2012 is going to be muuuuuuch better. At least I hope it will be! See ya later 2011, don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Recovering, part II

To say last week was terrible is an understatement. Seriously, it was one of the worst weeks of my life.

Thankfully I don't really remember how terrible it was. Primarily because I have had some unfortunate after-effects of anesthesia, short-term memory loss being the main culprit, combined with numbness in my face, dizzy spells and nausea, which got so bad I landed in the ER on Friday (Awesome!).

The memory loss I experienced was absolutely surreal. I had conversations with people that I don't remember. I sent text messages I don't remember writing. I have absolutely no recollection of writing last week's blog post.  Heck, I even closed on the refinance to our house and can't remember most of it to save my life (don't worry, we did the closing at our home, I wasn't out driving in such a crazy state. That would be reckless). =)

Now 10 days later, I'm happy to say that my memory has returned, I'm off the major painkillers, I can walk without assistance (I still look like an old lady, but hey, it's progress!), the pain is lessening, and things are looking up. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a long way from feeling "normal", but things seems to get better with each days that goes by. Needless to say, I did not shoot the wedding last weekend (hahaha I can't believe I actually thought I could do that), but God is good and we're going to be just fine this month, despite losing my December income.

I had my post-op appointment on Monday (hooray for getting out of the house! Don't worry, I'm still not driving. That would be reckless.) and it went pretty well. I didn't really learn anything more than what Dr. B told David right after surgery. They fixed some very mild endometriosis and scar tissue, the HSG went very well and the biopsy from my D&C came back with good results. They kind of gave me a 50/50 chance of whether having this surgery will help us get pregnant, so we'll just have to wait and see.

I'm thankful that I don't have anything planned for the rest of this month as it sounds like it will take me another week or 2 to finally get back to normal in terms of mobility and pain. We were going to have Christmas at our house, but I quickly realized that would just be way too much to handle (shoot, I'm not even sure I can manage baking cookies today!). So we'll be at David's parent's house with both of our families. I'm excited to eat my mom's Christmas cookies, enjoy all the beautiful snow that just fell, relax by the Christmas tree and spend time with David and our family!

Thanks again for your prayers! I hope everyone has a joyous and wonderful Christmas!

Recovering

Wow these past few days have been an absolute blur. Ever since surgery, the days and nights just seems to blend together. Maybe it's the crazy pain killers or maybe it's the extra dose of anesthesia I got, but goodness I've been so out of it this week!

I thought I'd do a little update on how surgery went. The most nerve-wracking part was sitting in the hospital bed, watching the minute hand on the clock get closer and closer to surgery time. David did a great job of distracting me with funny stories and jokes. I was laughing so hard, I must have really annoyed some of the other patients in the surgery center. Haha!

Once I was in the operating room, things get a little fuzzy. I remember there being like 6 different doctors and nurses standing over me and lots of really bright lights. My vision got blurry and the next thing I knew I was waking up in the recovery room. They wouldn't let David come see me until I was "fully" awake, which was bummer because it took me 2 hours to become somewhat coherent. And I was pretty much by myself the entire time, =(

Dr. B talked with David really briefly after surgery and quasi-explained everything they did. It sounds like they did find some mild endometriosis, which he fixed. There was also some scar tissue, which they removed. They did a repeat HSG, which showed my tubes to be in great shape. And they did another hysterscopy with a D&C to get some tissue samples for a biopsy. So far, that's all the info we have. I have a post-op appointment on Monday, so hopefully we'll get a little more info about how everything went.

So far, I have been home recovering slowly. David has been incredible! He's been so attentive to me and making sure I'm ok, taking my meds, refilling water bottles, and bringing me ice cream. I love that husband of mine! The pain comes and goes, I've pretty much been laid up the entire time. Supposedly, full recovery for a laparoscopy is about 10-14 days or so. But tack on a hysterscopy, D&C, and HSG onto that, and I think I've got a long road ahead of me.

We have also been SO blessed by friends and family who have prayed for us, sent encouraging emails, stopped by with meals, magazines, cupcakes and other yummy treats. David is going to gain 10 pounds in no time! We are seriously so grateful for everyone's help and support! And I've had 2 little furry helpers that try so very hard to make me feel better....=)

Good grief I look terrible! Well, I guess that's to be expected...but still, yikes!

Countdown begins!

Well, talk about what a difference a couple days can make. For whatever reason, I'm not scared at all for Monday anymore, I'm almost....excited? I know, what you're thinking...who the heck gets excited for invasive surgery? Well, me I guess.

I had my pre-op appointment with Dr. B. He was really wonderful at calming my fears, helping me understand what they're going to be doing, explaining all the various scenarios and he felt pretty confident that I would be able to work 6 days later (um, did I mention I'm photographing a wedding 6 days after surgery? Yeah....). Essentially, they're doing 3 different procedures, with the possibility of 4 or 5, depending on how the laparoscopy goes. First, there's the laparoscopy. Then there's the repeat HSG. Next is a repeat hysterscopy with D&C. And finally is the possibility of removing a benign tumor that is on my uterus.

Dr. B seemed really positive that this surgery could really benefit me. If I do have endometriosis, then he'll be able to fix it all with a laser. That could vastly improve my chances of getting pregnant. Also, the repeat HSG can increase fertility for 3-4 months and depending on where the tumor is, removing it could also really help as well. It almost feels like no matter what I'll be better off after this surgery. Now of course, there are certainly some bad things that can come out of this, like having extremely advanced endometriosis to the point where it isn't fixable. But overall, I'm feeling really positive.

So the countdown begins.

I've been working hard all week to prepare for not being able to do much next week. I pretty much finished all of my editing and album designing for clients, got a big chunk of Christmas shopping done, filled all 8(!!) of my prescriptions for post-op, and I'm going to start making meals ahead of time so that my poor husband doesn't starve while I'm hanging out on the couch. I'm SUPER grateful that some friends and family have offered to bring some meals over for David too. Literally, the man would starve otherwise. =)

I'm still a little worried about that wedding 6 days after my surgery. Thankfully, I have a dear friend who is also a professional wedding photographer who said she can step in last minute and shoot for me if I just can't do it. Of course, I'll have to pay her for it, which means losing my December income on top of paying quite a bit out of pocket for the surgery (I forgot to mention that I found out insurance will only cover 80%, which I'm still SO thankful for). But I'm happy to know she's there if I just can't do it.

This will probably be my last post until after surgery, so please pray that things go smoothly, that Dr. B is able to fix anything that might be wrong, and that my recovery process goes well enough that I can shoot that wedding. Thanks to everyone for their encouraging emails and comments, we LOVE knowing that there are so many people out there rooting for us and covering us in prayer. You'll never know just how much that means to us!

See ya on the flip side! =)

Pictures!

David and I have some dear friends of ours who also happen to be photographers. They're a husband & wife team and they're super talented! The wife actually photographed our wedding 5 years ago, it was her first one! She and I both started our photography businesses around the same time, it's been so cool to encourage each other along the way and celebrate success and growth together.

David came up with the brilliant idea of dong a photo swap with our friends. They're professional photographers, I'm a professional photographer...so why not take pictures of each other! So each year we're going to get together and do a mini photo shoot. This was our first year and it was a huge success despite unfortunate timing. We had to reschedule our shoot SIX times due to snow and illness. But we finally met up and had a good time!

I think I might even use one of these for a Christmas card picture. Ahem, in 5 years of marriage, I have yet to send out a Christmas card..but I'm thinking 2011 will be our year to finally do it!

I'm so glad we did these pictures, I think it is so important to have good pictures done every now and then to document your life. Here are a couple pics!

The 5 Percent

All things considered, today was a good day. I went to church, spent time at my in-laws, watched the Broncos win (yay!), ate yummy food and spent some really good time with David. But unfortunately, today wasn't a very good day for me.

Optimism is part of who I am, and 95% of the time, my days are joyful, I have smile on my face, total trust in God's plan and mountains of gratitude in my heart. But then there's that 5% of the time when it's just not possible to be so optimistic. Let's be honest, infertility is one heck of a difficult thing to go through, and we've been going through it for a long time. Eventually that wears on you... you break down, you cry, feel hopeless, wonder what the heck God is doing, wonder if your life is going to be like this forever. Today absolutely fell into that 5%.

I really really really really hoped that I would be pregnant this month. Mostly because I want to have a family. But also because it would get me out of surgery next week. I thought that maybe, just maybe God would come through and save the day. He would save me from having to have surgery, from having to deal with infertility anymore, from the heartache that comes out of this struggle. And for whatever reason, He didn't save the day, at least not in the way I was hoping for. Surgery is scheduled for next Monday.

Even though it's hard, these 5% days are important. It's days like today that refine my character, build my strength and reinforce my trust that God's plan is good. "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer." Romans 12:12 If there is anything this in this world that I am, it's these three things. This is the verse that has gotten me through these 5% days. I'm so grateful that even though God didn't "save the day", He is still with me....encouraging me along the way.