Weekly Update and Surgery Recap

My road trip was awesome! I always get so excited for life when there is a new one on the way. My friend I visited was about 6 weeks from her due date and the baby was moving a lot. I learned a ton about pregnancy and I'm glad that I have her as a resource when that time comes for my husband and I.

The reason I planned the road trip when I did was to escape the reality of my life and get really excited for my friend. She enjoyed the company before she officially started her part time job in a local school. I enjoyed the diversion from thinking about the lack of leader in my pro-life group and surgery.

On Tuesday, I went to the hospital where I underwent a very short surgery. The surgery was over in 30 minutes and I was awake and asking to see my husband about an hour after it started. I didn't know any operation could be that quick! What was it for?

Like many women, I suffer from cramps. In the past year or so it has gotten considerably worse to the point I was bedridden for up to two days from the pain. I also started having more complications with my cycles and my doctor left me with three options:

1. Live with it - that did not sound fun, wasn't I already suffering through that option?

2. Go on the pill for a few months to level out my hormones - problem: that would not give me a diagnosis or any added information on how to prevent this problem from happening again.

3. Have surgery - diagnosis the problem and take anything out that is not supposed to be there

Obviously I chose option three and I'm glad I did. I have a lot more information about my body, the endometriosis was removed (probably by burning it off)and now my doctors know what to treat. Most importantly for me was the peace of mind I received by knowing exactly what was wrong, that it did not permanently affect me in any way. The doctor said the rest of my system looked great. No more wondering if "living through the pain" meant delaying diagnosing something that could affect my fertility later. Now I know that hasn't happened yet and hopefully never will since we know what we are dealing with.

My week has been just about the best case scenario. I was in and out of the hospital in 3 hours. The meds they give you there are strong so the first day I felt great! Yesterday and today I have some abdominal pain that prevent me from bending over too often but I'm not missing any work and I have had a lot of family and friends keeping me company. I'm doing well so I am ready to tackle the next thing on my list...

What Should Health Care Look Like?

I want to start this post by saying that I am surrounded by many wonderful people. I am informed by friends and family and directed to multitudes of resources. I am astounded to know there is so much to learn every day.

Today I was shocked to realize something that I should have known all along. Health Care does not cover anything related to infertility. A friend of a friend had a hard time getting a surgery approved because it was partly done to help her reproductive system working as it should - meaning that she would be more likely to experience the miracle of creating life with her husband. The surgery will also help reduce pain and other issues that many women have to struggle with each month.

What is wrong here?

Health Care is not covering medical problems. A medical problem is something that changes/affects the correct functioning of your body. Proper functioning of a woman's body includes the ability to conceive and carry a child. So why does insurance cover something that suppresses normal functioning (birth control pill, etc) but not something that will restore it?

Hopefully, more people will come to the realization that I did today and speak out that abortion is not health care and should be excluded from any health care reform.

Marriage and Parenthood

As part of my training to become a Natural Family Planning teacher, I am required to report to the group about research related to the topic. Many of you already know that I spent a summer researching the debate over family planning that took place in the 20s. Part of my report will be my own findings, and part will be given on a study I found online that I found quite interesting. The study, done by UCLA, explores the topic of Marriage and Adult Development. One aspect of the study looked at parenthood.

Our initial analyses on this topic indicate that the couples who have a child early in marriage are more satisfied with their relationship than those who do not have a child. Couples are more likely to make the transition to parenthood to the extent that spouses - and particularly wives -- feel their relationship is strong. We are also learning that couples who do and do not have children over the first few years of marriage do not differ much in the rate at which their marriages change.

In other words, conventional wisdom that says your love life will end the minute you have a child was shown to be inaccurate. According to the study, babies do not cause a noticeable change to the relationship you have with your spouse. So what is my opinion? A child is always a blessing - what a privilege to create new life! If your marriage is strong - it may become stronger with all the new opportunities you will have to work together and problem solve while raising a child. If your marriage is weak it may highlight some weaknesses, but you probably would have figured those out soon enough. More importantly, I am excited to see that there is a large study that states babies are not a problem. And to take the report one step further (my own conclusion) - couples should welcome or at least be open to forming a new life together.

Summer Update & Health Care

My summer has been a little crazy and so I have not written as much as I have wanted. My husband and I have been looking at houses and found one we liked. Now the big decision is whether or not we still believe this is the right time to buy. On top of that, we have gone on a bunch of mini-vacations. We've made it to Chicago, South Bend, a wonderful B&B in South Haven where we had a four course breakfast outside (see picture), Interlochen and I went to Harbor Springs while he went to Sterling. They have been wonderful and relaxing but that pushes all the work, chores and errands into a shorter amount of days. The summer has flown by and I think everyone is in the same boat as me - did summer really happen? We can't tell by the temperatures and no one seems to believe it is August! I'm getting in one more trip to visit friends in South Bend and then school will be starting again already. So there was the update on me, now for the update on a pro-life issue...


There is one short and simple post I want to address concerning the sanctity of life. As you are probably aware, Health Care is one of the main issues the U.S. Congress wants to address. They were not able to pass anything during the month of July. They are on break for the month of August - please consider contacting or visiting your representative while they are in your area. We need to fight to make sure that taxpayers don't finance abortions.

Health Care Reform

In the past week I have gotten about 20 emails about health care reform. People are worried about rising costs, but they also want access to the best of the best. It is hard to believe that the government can settle both problems. The underlying issue in any health topic is to preserve and protect the sanctity of life. Somehow that gets left out of the debate when important health resources - like medical nutrition counseling for diabetics - get cut and elective procedures - like abortion - get increased funding.

So how do you get a point across to elected officials?


Below is a letter I wrote to my representative. I did some research on his website to see what I could start with and found some great information. He has a long history of lowering taxes and using resources wisely. On that part of his career I completely agree with him. I hoped by starting with common ground he would understand my concern in a way that is important to him - fiscal responsibility. I am posting this letter so anyone contemplating contacting their representative can hopefully take some ideas from my sample.


Dear Representative Peters,

I wanted to contact you to let you know my thoughts on the upcoming health care reform. First of all, I wanted to say that I read your biography and admire the way you have dealt with money in the past. Your record shows that you look out for the best interests of those you represent by cutting waste and making sure money goes where it is most needed.

I will try to keep my comment short and sweet. Although I agree with many others that health care needs to reform, I disagree with some of the ways that are proposed to do just that. It is important to me that abortion be explicitly excluded from any type of national health care plan that may be proposed. It is something that is most times an elective procedure and the funds could be used somewhere else. Please help protect those of us that feel abortion is the killing of an unborn child by keeping our taxes from providing exactly that. If you disagree with my request I would like to know why you believe that my hard earned money is best utilized in that capacity.

Thank you,


Jenelle

Education

This summer is flying by! I enjoyed finishing up the year teaching psychology to juniors and for the past two weeks I have loved helping out with the extended school year program as a special education para. All that has meant more work for me and no "prep" time to update this blog. The summer gets busy and I hope everyone is enjoying it!

In other news, I had my monthly board meeting this week and was reminded of something that I find truly important - education. The more people are educated about the issues, the more chance we have of succeeding. It is amazing the amount of items that can be in political bills. It is extremely hard to stay educated on what they are all about. We have all heard that legislation that has hundreds or even a thousand pages is being passed before anyone could have time to read it. Legislation that sounds like a good thing may have many negative items slipped in at the last minute. One thing that is not last minute is the inclusion of abortion in the new health care plans - President Obama has shown that this is an important issue to him. The health care plans are so comprehensive that even if it does not explicitly state that as a service, it could be easily justified in just about any scenario. In most cases, abortion is an elective procedure and should be seen as just that. The congress is not voting on the bill yet, but I will post on here when they are so that you can feel free to contact your representatives while the issue is directly in front of them.

Vaccines as a pro-life issue

Vaccines seem to be controversial lately - most publicly for allegedly causing autism. Less public concern I have is over the vaccines that were created with the help of aborted babies or their organs. Unfortunately, I seem to come off as anti-medicine which is not true - medicine can save lives. On the other hand, much of our modern health technology bends or breaks ethical and moral standards and in many cases one important statement is ignored or pushed to the side...

Life is NOT expendable

In a related note, one of my favorite books is coming out as a movie that looks really good (starring Cameron Diaz). My Sister's Keeper addresses some medical ethical issues about how life should be treated. I encourage everyone to see it or - better yet - read the book.