My journey - Part 3

Read Part 1 and Part 2 ...

After my “shock” of an ultrasound, we had another sit down with my doctor.  He didn’t really have a whole lot to say by way of explanation other than my uterus and ovaries must have been so under-developed during the laparoscopy that they were just missed.  That has always been a little hard for me to believe… I can understand that explanation for the initial ultrasound, but the laparocopy?!  They had a camera inside of me looking around…

To be honest, I’ve always felt that this was my little miracle and an answer to a question inside of me.  You see, before the first time I went the doctor, but when we were starting to realize that something was wrong with me, I had a conversation with God… I told him that if I found out that I couldn’t have kids then I would assume that he was calling me to become a nun.  After we found out the results of my first laparoscopy, this conversation kept coming back into my mind.  I wondered if God really was calling me to the religious life.  I realized, even at that age, that a calling to a religious vocation was something that God imprinted upon your heart.  I had obviously thought about it and pondered it, but would not have really said that I felt “called”… now I know this is a slippery slope because discerning a vocation takes time, prayer, and a real openness to listening to God’s urging – many people do not give it this attention and so miss their calling… but that is a tangent for another post, another time!

Suffice it to say that I was troubled by this commitment I felt I made – not because there weren’t things very attractive about religious life or because it scared me… it just didn’t feel like a “shoe” that fit me right.  I had not been praying much during this time, because to be honest, I was pretty angry at God.  But as He has a way of doing, He found ways to stay close to me.  So, even through my anger, he brought me around to two things… first, the realization that I very, very much needed Him in my life – that I could not do any of it on my own, and secondly that I also very much wanted to be Catholic (as I was raised) but needed to learn what that meant.

Which brings me back to my “commitment”… it was an ever-present thought in the back of my head and I can remember before my second ultrasound revisiting it.  I remember having another conversation with God that ended with the understanding that there would be more than “just” not having a uterus and ovaries that would let me know I was called to the religious life.  In many ways, the results of the second ultrasound showing that everything “normal” was like a “Yes” from God affirming that I had understood Him correctly.

Back to my journey – my doctor decided that a second laparoscopy was unnecessary as the ultrasound results were pretty clear.  So, the next step was an MRI of my brain to rule out a tumor or mass blocking the hormonal signals.  A week before my high school graduation, I went in for an MRI.  For anyone who has had one done… not the most fun experience!  Luckily I’m not claustrophobic (at least not strongly so) and managed to get through it ok.  We got the news a few days later that my scan came back normal.  Yay!  Having a brain tumor was not something on my list of things to have or do before I graduated high school…

At this point, we were still left wondering what was going on with my body.