The End ❤️ (Hopefully)

9 years ago today, I made my first trip to the emergency room for unknown pain, which we later found out was endometriosis when I was diagnosed in June 2013. Little did I know, the journey that was coming for me.

This week, on Wednesday, March 2nd, I’m hopeful that this journey we’ve been on for the last nine years will end. I will finally be having a hysterectomy. And honestly, I can’t find any other word to describe how I feel right now except: thankful. I spent last night reading this blog—the one I wrote when we were going through fertility treatments— and A LOT of tears were shed. Tears of complete and utter gratitude. We are five years past these treatments, and we have gotten almost 4 years so far of witnessing first hand the absolutely incredible beauty, goodness, and hilarity that is our daughter. How could I possibly feel anything but thankfulness, looking at that precious little girl, who has Thomas’s smile and my curls (see below picture of my words from a precious post that I wrote months before I became pregnant😭, my, does God have a sense of humor!)

I feel so incredibly loved. I feel loved by a Heavenly Father who has given me the blessing of hindsight and understanding why I had to go through the last 9 years. He’s been with me every step of the way and it’s evident in so many ways. I feel loved by my husband and family who have been there for it all—every appointment, every shot, every insurance call, every ultrasound, every surgery, the list goes on. I feel loved by my Winnie—my one little frozen fighter embryo who turned into my spunky, empathetic, sassy, creative, loving, character of a daughter who makes me proud every single day. I feel loved by my church family who never stopped praying during these 9 years—who filled up my meal train for this upcoming surgery in less than 4 hours, who have already started sending me cards, and who have checked on me every single day in some capacity leading up to surgery. These people have carried my burdens. I feel loved by friends who have offered any help in the coming days and who have been offering help for years now—just the offer alone makes me feel the love. I have been given more love just in the last 9 years than I could imagine in a lifetime. How blessed am I?! ❤️

Prayers are appreciated as always as this phase of life hopefully comes to an end for me. I feel immensely thankful that I am content with Winnie and our small, but perfect for us family of 3. I’m ready—ready to be without pain and doctors appointments and bills and all the things that have come with the endometriosis and yearly surgeries. This will be my 8th (and hopefully last) surgery in 9 years. Please pray for a successful surgery with no allergic reactions (I’m allergic to stitches and skin glue making for harder and longer past recoveries). Please pray for a quick recovery with no complications. Please pray for Winnie not to be anxious with it all, as she’s getting nervous not knowing what to expect. Recovery time is 6-8 weeks, so prayers for us as we adjust to that would be greatly appreciated. I will follow doctor’s orders, but will miss picking up my kid…and the vacuum 😬😂.

I love you all SO MUCH and can’t thank you enough for praying for me and supporting me and loving me. Hopefully this will be the last post ever to this blog that I started what seems like forever ago, but I’ll keep it forever so I can come back and remember how blessed I’ve been ❤️ I never want to forget.

Enjoy these snapshots from my previous blog posts that made me ugly cry with utter gratitude to our AWESOME God for what he’s given me: