I Never Thought This Would Happen...To Me!

I have no idea how these blog post are meant to work. I will just be doing it my way, letting it all flow out.

A lot of you reading this know who I am from school, family or maybe a random gathering. What you don’t know is what I have been through and my story.

I am not going to talk about my childhood and how I grew up, I am just going to take it back to 2015.

Just like almost half of the female population I was on birth control since high school. I was on the Depo Provera shot, you get a shot every 3 months. The Depo Provera contains a hormone called progestin. That hormones job it to make ovulation impossible. After about a year of being on this birth control my period stopped completely. When receiving that form of a birth control it is advised that after a certain amount of years (2 for the depo) you can have long lasting side effects. I was on it for more than 5 years. When I moved back to Bakersfield in 2015 I started to see a new doctor who told me that I should stop getting the shot and transfer to a new form of contraceptive. I did what any person would do and I listened to my doctor. After a few months of being in the transition I started to get really sick. I didn’t want to eat, I was cramping, sleeping, an emotional wreak. I still hadn’t gotten my period which was normal (one of those long lasting side effects) it could take a while for my body to get back to normal. In that waiting period I was taking the pill so I could prevent pregnancy. The doctor kept telling me that the things my body and my mind were experiencing were all side effects of the depo leaving my body and the pill entering my body. It made no sense to me!!

In May of 2015 I decided to take a pregnancy test…It was positive….

I went to back to the doctor and sure enough I was 7 weeks pregnant. I honestly don’t remember how I felt, I do know I was scared and nervous. Time went on and I went to the scheduled appointment 4 weeks later and they told me everything looked great the “baby” was growing. When you first find out your pregnant it's routine to get blood work. I got mine done, then 3 days later they called me and told me that I tested for something called Cystic Fibrosis. I still to this day don’t understand what that is. After that test I was told that it was smart to make an appointment with a specialist to do further test in regards to the baby. I made that appointment.

I was around 14 or 15 weeks when I went to see the specialist. I went in like a normal appointment. Got up on the table and the doctor started the ultrasound. Now that, I remember.

The doctor put the jelly on my stomach and started the ultrasound after asking me a ton of questions about my medical history and my families. Nothing crazy. He was quite for about 5 minutes. Then he took the thing (don’t know what it is called) off of my stomach, got all the jelly off of me and took his gloves off and looked at me and said “I am so sorry Tara, there is no heartbeat. The baby is only measuring at 9 weeks you are almost 15. You have had a miscarriage and need to go back to your OB right away”. I was in shock and didn’t know what to think or say so I just said “ok”. Gio and I went to our doctor and he confirmed that I did have a miscarriage. He didn’t understand way my body didn’t miscarriage normally so he suggested a D&C. I went straight to the hospital from his office and was prepped for a D&C. That is basically were they go in surgically and remove the baby.

I woke up in a recovery room…. completely blank.

I was confused and stuck in my mind. I was treating the entire situation like a puzzle. I was trying to solve the problem… Was is it me? What did I do wrong?

The hospital sent me home and told me to check in with me doctor next week for a follow up.

As that next week went on things didn’t get any better for me. I was bleeding… very heavily, I wasn’t eating, I couldn’t move I had so much pain.

I went to my follow up appointment and told the doctor everything I was still experiencing and so he did an ultrasound and that’s when I saw his expression change. I knew it was bad. He started telling me that the tissue that was left over from the D&C grew in my uterus. I was experiencing something called a Molar Pregnancy. He just kept talking then he said the word “cancer”. Molar pregnancies can either be cancerous or non-cancerous. The only way you can know for sure is to have a biopsy. Which meant I needed to have another surgery, another D&C is what he suggested. I went back to the hospital and got all ready to have another surgery and they told me that I was already losing a lot of blood and I had the option of getting a blood transfusion and so I signed the paper already scared and not knowing what was going on. I am the type to shut down when I feel any kind of emotion. I lock myself in my head and try to answer anything that pops in there for myself which makes it worse in the end. I woke up and the doctor came in and told me that he removed a mass from my uterus that weighed around 5 pounds and he sent it off to be tested and that he would call when the results came in. Three days later he called me to his office and told me that the mass was studied and that it was in fact a cancerous tumor that was growing and making me sick he said that the birth control that I was on (Depo) made my body collect all of my eggs from 5 years and they formed into a tumor and once I stopped the depo it released and attached making my body think it was pregnant. When you are pregnant your body makes hormones to help support the baby. That’s how the tumor was able to grow back faster stronger and harder. He said that because I was on the Depo for so long it was going to take my body a long time to heal and it was possible for my body to continue to make the pregnancy hormone.

He went on and on for what seemed like forever.

He then got to the part where he didn’t know if I was going to be able to have children in my future. He said we wouldn’t know until the time came. I had the last D&C in August of 2015. August 11th of 2015 to be exact.

Fast forward 3 month later its December. I was at the doctor every 3-4 weeks. I was still producing the pregnancy hormone after 3 months my body still thought I was pregnant… Only in December we found out that I was pregnant with our now beautiful daughter Kiara Rae Caro who was born on August 11th 2016. I will leave that journey for another day… That’s a pretty long journey itself..