Please forgive me for my lack of consistency in continuing my story, this was not my intention… Time & mom life have gotten away from me.

    Now, keep in mind that up until the day that I received my diagnosis my boyfriend (Riggs) & I had been actively trying to conceive. We had also been consulting with my OB/GYN about it and going through testing to see what our issues were. The day that I had my Pap-Smear we had been given the option to start taking different medications to help move things along. We decided to take some time to think about it, then a couple days later I was called back into the office & was given my cancer diagnosis. At that point, my doctor told me he thought it would be best for us to put trying to conceive on the back burner for now. I completely agreed, I told him that my treatment & getting me better were now my top priority!

    The last time I wrote I explained my meeting with the Gynecological Oncologist (Gyn/Onc) & how I was dissatisfied with not having any answers; so I reached out to my OB/GYN.

    The day after I left a message with my OB/GYN I received a call back. He had my final pathology results, “Proximal-type” Epithelioid Sarcoma. I had no idea what this was either, but apparently it confirmed the local pathologist’s findings. But I had more questions for him; this day was day 28 of my cycle. I hadn’t started my period yet (which wasn’t uncommon for me at all), I also knew that with the news of my cancer diagnosis that that could also put a damper on my hormones & my doctor confirmed this with me as well. My concern was with this day being a Wednesday & I was scheduled to have my MRI on Friday if I were pregnant would it be safe to have this scan? He assured me that the MRI would be ok because it is just magnets, but to go ahead and take a pregnancy test in the next day or so to be sure. If I were pregnant it could affect my treatment moving forward so they needed to know.

    The next morning I woke up around 5:30 with a sudden urge to use the restroom. Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal & I would leave the lights off get up walk to the bathroom do my business & return to bed to go back to sleep, but if I got up then I would need to take a pregnancy test & I wasn’t ready to be up for the day. I told myself “I’ll just wait until my alarm goes off.” Some time goes by and I was like “nope, I’ve got to go too bad & I’m not going to be able to go back to sleep until I use the restroom.” I get up from my bed and walk into my bathroom & grab a test, I read through the instructions and take the test & set a timer. As I’m sitting there watching this test the first line turns pink, then the second one looks like its changing as well. Any test I have ever taken has always only ever had one line, but this one looked to maybe have two. At this point I take a photo of the test and send it to my best friends asking their opinions on it. After a few minutes I remember its six a.m. and they are sleeping, if I want a second set of eyes on this I need to wake up Riggs. I walk back to our room and say “Hey, babe.” He jolts awake thinking he is late for work, “what?” “I had to pee” “So” “So I took a test” “and?” “I think it’s positive?” He then walks over to me turns on a light and says “Yup, looks like it.” and kisses me on my forehead. I explained to him that this isn’t how I wanted to tell him, but I needed to know.

    In this moment I didn’t know how to feel, we had been trying to conceive for 15 months now. I wanted to be happy, excited & overjoyed but now I didn’t know what was going to happen. Was this ok? This was such a scary time for me & I had been waiting for so long to see those two little pink lines show up and now I had, but this was not the right time. What are we going to do? What does this mean for me & the baby? Too many questions & emotions all at once. (I’m getting teary eyed thinking back on this moment).

    The next day I went for my MRI, good thing I took a pregnancy test because you aren’t supposed to have contrast if you are pregnant, so they did my scan without it. I was supposed to have my follow up with the Gyn/Onc to go over the results of the MRI & final pathology the following Monday. That appointment was canceled and rescheduled for a week from then because that doctor got stuck in Colorado on a ski trip. 

    We decided since I was so anxious about the appointment that we needed to brighten things up a little. We decided to tell our parents the news that we were expecting. Since my aunt is so talented & was already keeping one big secret for me, I thought she needed another. She is amazing at embroidery; I went and bought some onesies and we put a message on them for each grandparent to give to them for Valentine’s Day. Riggs thought we should do something special to tell them, the only problem was that day was Valentine’s Day. We were on a time crunch. We finished the onesies and put them in gift bags to be hand delivered, except for his mom’s she lives in Maryland. We had to ship hers to her. With both of us working for Lexus we were going to an early premier showing of “Black Panther” that night, after the movie we stopped by his Dad & Stepmom’s house because they only live two minutes from us. It was after 10 but we didn’t want to wait! The next, evening we went to my parent’s house to give them theirs. Riggs’s Mom didn’t know we were sending her anything so we texted her boyfriend so that he could intercept the package so that she wouldn’t open it until we were able to FaceTime her. Everyone was so excited and couldn’t wait to share the news, but we asked that everyone wait until Easter when I would be 12 weeks. We also hadn’t talked to the Oncologist yet and didn’t know what my cancer diagnosis meant for my pregnancy.