labor every 3 weeks

After round 3 I get a lot of:

"Wow! Elizabeth. You are half way through. That must feel so good!"

"No, actually, I still have 3 more to go."

I explain it like this to my friends who have given birth:

Okay, so with your first baby you really have no idea what is involved. You might be a bit scared, a bit excited, a bit nervous, but you know you can do this. You have read the books, you have been eating well and exercizing. You feel prepared to go into labor.

And while in labor you go into the unknown, you have great support, it gets a bit painful, you throw-up, you sweat, you get restless, your tired as hell, you nap, your frustrated you can't control it, maybe you take some drugs and sleep and in the end you give birth to your baby and it is over.

Now, imagine 2 years later you choose to have baby number two. You have forgotten how long that last labor was, the pain is not as tangible as it was on that day, you have a bit more knowledge and wisdom, but it is still uncontrollable. Never the less you do it. This labor has echos of the last one, but it is not the same as there are never 2 labors that are the same. Maybe you choose to do it without the drugs this time, or maybe you decided to walk in the door and get the epidural before anything starts... but either way, you are at it again, back into the unknown, it lasts for 3 days and there is low grade nausea the whole time BUT you come out the other side with a baby!

Then out of nowhere, you get pregnant with baby number three and you think to yourself, "Yup, I'm gonna have this one, even though it is unplanned, and THAT IS IT!!" You are clear that you are done birthing kids. And you go through the unknown again, a bit more tired coz you already have 2 kids at home, but in the end you have another baby.

Well, my journey with chemo is kinda like that... I know that I am done, except, I still have 3 more labors to go through!

I am asked to go into labor 6 times every 3 weeks and I don't have any kids to show for the effort!

And yes, I can choose to stop this at any point in time, but it just is not my way. I know I am supposed to move forward with the western medicine.

And I try and find a way to move forward, but the truth is I have to stop 'trying' and just have to let the way come to me, because my way of 'trying' couldn't prevent breast cancer in the first place. And, I'm just too tired to figure anything out anymore. My brain is mush. (literally).

So, I keep showing up to what is real for me in this moment. And for the past few days "this moment" has included a whole lot of nothing.