Surgery Day!!

Last week I had my surgery and might I say that was an experience! I had this surgery about four years ago and it was totally different. Having a two year old this time makes a huge difference...Ha!

I was told to arrive at 7:30am and typically that means you wait about two hours for your surgery and so that meant I would be home around lunch right???? Wrong!! We did arrive at 7:30 and had to wait for the O.R. to open and finally around 11am I was moved to the holding area before my surgery. We get there expecting to wait about ten minutes and were told we had to wait about an hour so thankfully I brought a wonderful book to read. After my third trip to the restroom I finally asked my nurse to turn down my IV. Being nervous on top of a fast dripping IV was killing me!!

After an hour they moved me into surgery and after that is a blur...Ha!! I was told the surgery went great! It took a total of three hours!! Dr. found the tumor and removed it and then she found that I had stage 3 of endometriosis and that my left fallopian tube was attached to my small intestine. Wow!! Oh and during surgery one of the machines that was used to remove the tumor had a shorted out and left a nice little burn (about four inches) on my right hip...ouch!

After surgery I was moved to the post-opt area and pretty much was sat straight up and moved to the restroom. I guess they wanted me to leave...Ha! Well that did not work out as we intended. I got so sick that they put me back to bed and gave me a shot of Phenergan...can you say See You Later!! That was the strangest feeling. I had my eyes closed and could not open them but I could hear everything that James was saying. After two hours I was finally able to go home and it was around 7pm. I had no idea it was that late in the day!!

Needless to say I came home and crashed for the night. The next day was a challenge. Having Farrah was tougher than I thought. Not being able to hold her or pick her up was so hard. Poor Farrah didn't understand either. She saw me trying to get in bed and was in pain and she just freaked out. She stared crying and just wanted her momma and I could not hold her so I told James to put her in bed with me and she settled down and kept asking "Momma K?" Such a sweetie!!

So I've had a couple of really good days and a couple of I've over done it days but for the most part I'm feeling really good! Thank you to all of you who have been praying for us and just encouraging us! We see my Dr. next week and we are expecting to be able to start fertility treatments very soon!! I can't wait to see what happens next!

Future Fortner's

Today was an interesting and LONG day. We started out the day with two known appointments and ended the day with three appointments. First appointment was with my fertility doctor, Dr. Phy. I just want to say one thing....she is amazing and I just LOVE her! She went over all the pre-op stuff and did another sonogram and we could see the tumor. The good news is that the tumor hasn't grown or shrunk and she said that it is in the perfect spot for a total removal...Praise God!! She then told us about the surgery and it will take about two hours to remove everything so that's not to bad.

After the surgery I will have a healing time of about two weeks and then we jump right in to fertility treatments. She will have a new game plan for us and we are excited about this! Surgery is scheduled for next Wednesday!

After seeing Dr. Phy we were sent to the hospital to get registered for surgery and that was an experience in itself. I love how God places people in your path and I know its my job to just be a little ray of light. Our nurse who checked us in was Doris and she was the cutest little old lady. She was so friendly and so sweet. Then I met Ruben who did all my lab work and he was amazing! He asked about Dr. Phy and I told him just a little bit about her and then he told me about him and his wife and they are trying to adopt. I love how God uses our story to bless and encourage others.

Then we had an appointment with a genetic doctor. Dr. Phy had requested a full line up of blood work and last week we received a call from Dr. Phy saying that was a hiccup in James' genetic test. She asked us to see a genetic doctor so they could explain everything. This is the part that we have waited for a week for. I'll be honest we were scared and all we knew was that with a problem in genetic testing could mean that we would have a baby with handicaps. Handicaps like Downs Syndrome, missing limbs and severe health problems. So needless to say we had a lot on our mind!

We met with Dr. Trotter and Dr. Yoemans and they were both so great. It's hard to explaining all the genetic stuff anyways and they both were so encouraging. Long story short is that James' 13 and 14th chromosome are stacked together. We all have two set's of 46 chromosomes. So this means James has one 13 and one 14 chromosome and then the other 13 and 14 chromosome are stacked together. This pretty much means that James is a healthy person but when it comes to having children it raises factors in pregnancy. Factors like higher risk for miscarriages. Dr. said that we have a 15% chance of having a miscarriage due to genetic problems and 85% chance to have a normal healthy baby. There is a chance that if I get pregnant and the baby will become a carrier and when they want to have children they could have problems getting pregnant. The doctor did say that if anyone has to have this they would rather the man be the carrier over the lady.

Another thing is that if James only gave the 13th chromosome and I carried it full term that baby would only live a day or two at the most. This is usually why the pregnancy ends in miscarriage during the first trimester. This is only a fraction of the information they gave us. To tell you the truth we are still trying to process everything. We went to this appointment expecting the worse and left with being encouraged! The doctor said that the average of 1 in 10 pregnancies will end in miscarriage with us due to a genetic problem.

We are excited to see what is in store for us next. We have traveled this journey for over 10 years and we are not about to give up now! We serve a mighty big God and we know He is in control. Thank you for all your prayers and support! Please keep them coming!

Fun things with Farrah!

Farrah is getting so big and I don't want to forget all the fun stuff Farrah is doing so this post is just for me.

Farrah, you have the most loving little heart and it just makes me smile when we see it in action. I love when we are with friends or family you will just go up to someone and give them a great big hug! It brings a great big smile to that person and I like to think that that was just what they needed that day was a Farrah hug....you give great hugs!

Every morning you get up and get dressed and your daddy sees you for the first time he always whistles at you and says "Hey Beautiful!" This morning I was putting your hair in pig tails and you looked in the mirror and did a "whistle" to yourself. It was the funniest thing to watch. I always hope you will see yourself that way!

We saw your Lula this week and when we were telling her bye she would say love you and you would say bye. You would never say love you only bye. Then we put you in the car and Lula would say love you and you would say bye...this happened like 20 times. We were driving down the street and you and Lula were doing your "thing" all the way down the street. It was so funny!

You love to dance! When a song comes on you always say Mom and start dancing. Then I have to join in the dancing. If daddy is in the car he has to dance as well. You won't let anyone not dance. LOVE IT!!

You are catching on to phrase we say. i guess I say "whew" a lot. I have caught myself saying it and that's where you got it.

At Christmas we drove to look at Christmas lights and daddy had a coke he was drinking. You would say momma coke and I said mommy doesn't have a coke. You sat there and thought for a minute and said daddy's coke! Of course your daddy couldn't turn that down so he gave you a drink and said...Aha I need coke! We laughed about that forever!

Farrah you are getting so big and are so much fun! I can't wait to see your next "Farrah sayings" are going to be!

Happy New Year!!

I must say 2010 was great but I can't wait to see what 2011 has in store for us as a family. I personally learned so much in 2010 about me, my family, my friends and life in general. I would have to say 2010 was hard but in a good way.

I have fallen flat on my face so many times but thankfully I have wonderful friends and family to pick me back up. I will also say this has been one of the most insecure years I've had as well. I have struggled from everything from my relationships with my friends and with my own self. Am I good enough? Have I done enough? Do I do the right thing? Am I a good mom, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, sister-in-law, aunt and friend? I wear a lot of hats....ha!!

Thankfully God has lead me to the truth, all of it and good, bad and ugly. So for 2011 I am looking for freedom! Back in 2009 I knew our family was about to change and I didn't know exactly how but I knew it was going to be big and oh my was it BIG. Farrah was just what we needed and I have the exact same feeling for this year so I know this year is leading to big things this year and I can't wait to see what it holds.

One of the things that will be big for us this year is we are trying for a baby again! The end of this month I will be having surgery for fertility reasons and I am so excited! After 10 years of no answers we finally have some answers and that brings me so much peace. My biggest prayer is of course complete healing for both me and James but a year of no worries. A year to understand and grasp that I am not in control and to truly give this all to God. I don't have all the answers but I can find peace with whatever this years holds for us.

And lastly in 2011 I want to be comfortable just being me. For so long I have listened to so many lies about who I was that I started to believe those lies and I feel like I am finally finding me. The girl my parents love. The girl that makes my husbands heart do flip flops. The sister and friend that my sister, sister-in-laws and girlfriends can totally trust. To encourage and compliment women. So many times I don't encourage or compliment my own friends or family and that has to stop!

This was not the blog I had intended...Ha! I was going to write about the amazing weekend I had with my husband for New Years so I guess that will come later. So for now Happy New Year and I hope 2011 is everything you hope for!