I Survived To Thrive

As I sat bouncing my 1 year-old youngest son in the doctor’s office, I expected another fairly routine checkup. He was my high-risk pregnancy miracle baby boy. I discovered I was pregnant just weeks after my final intense round of chemotherapy had ended. My oncologist was so disturbed by the situation he told me that it would be best in the interest of my health to terminate the pregnancy. Our healthy baby boy that doctors told me would not survive the first trimester in the womb is now a healthy, very active boy with mild to moderate bilateral hearing-loss. He is a miracle. I expected his pediatrician to echo this very thought to me as he had done previously on countless occasions. But this visit would be focused on my life.

As the pediatrician entered the room, he was holding papers close to his chest. Papers were never a good sign with my medical past. I was a survivor. After entering this world with abstract vision-loss, severe hearing-loss, a small right arm and then the added flare of chemo, radiation, a pacemaker, blood tests, CT scans and who knows what else – I despise test results given in-person. It pretty much means bad news. I braced myself and my son for what I was about to hear.

….. Read the rest of my story on my guest post today with my friend Holly Barrett’s “Testimony Tuesday”!