Surviving Cancer

I never, in a million years, could have imagined my life taking the turn that it did in the summer of 2019. Newly married on January 26, 2018, new South Dakota residents in May 2018, and newly a mother to two, on April 11, 2019. I was settling into my role as a South Dakota wife, and a mom of two. I had just landed a new job as the Childcare Specialist with the Helpline Center, here in Sioux Falls. I was nervous to go back to work and send my babes to daycare, but realistically, we could not afford for me to not work, with Josh being a full time student.

Even with my previous job, working for the school district, we weren’t coming out on top. I made just enough to pay for Audyn to go to daycare. We were living off of student loans, that was our reality, that’s how we survived. We knew we wanted another child, and for some reason, unknown to us, we felt an urgency to get pregnant sooner rather than later. We knew if we waited for the “perfect time” when we had money and stability, it would be quite some time before we would have another child. Despite the challenges we knew were ahead with raising two children, we felt compelled to have another baby.

Months went by, and I was starting to wonder if it would ever happen for us. Finally, on August 2nd of 2018, I took a pregnancy test. I turned it over and waited for the allotted time to pass. Upon turning the test back over, I read the words “PREGNANT.” Without even thinking, I started to tear up and looked up towards heaven, and thanked my Grandpa. You see, my grandpa had passed just a few weeks prior, unexpectedly. He got up there [Heaven] and hand picked our son, Everett, for us. Grandpa was certain that Audyn was a boy at our gender reveal party. He even went as far to say that, the doctors were wrong and I was actually carrying a boy. Well, that didn’t turn out to be true, so I know it was him who called in a favor. We got our boy, and he got another great-grandson.

We knew it would be hard, raising two children, in a different state than family, and with a limited income, but it was a hardship we were willing to take on. Our son, Everett Blake Henderson made his debut during an April snowstorm. Our birth story isn’t that of pure joy and elation though. Everett was having difficulty keeping his oxygen saturation levels up, so after 4 hours of monitoring in the nursery, he was transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. It would be nearly 6 hours before I officially got to meet and hold my son. After 4 days in the NICU, Everett got to come home. While his stay in the NICU wasn’t long by any means, it was still a very difficult time for Josh and I, with all of the wires, monitors, needle pokes, and uncertainty.

Life after Everett seemed to fly by before our eyes. We settled into a rhythm after moving to a new home, in a new town, just a few short weeks after he was born. Summer was upon us. I hadn’t yet secured a new job, so I spent my days at home with my babes. I had wanted to breast feed rather than just be an exclusive pumper like I was for Audyn. Unfortunately, with Everett’s NICU stay, I ended up being an exclusive pumper again.

Exclusively pumping has a lot of it’s own challenges. Pumping every 3 hours, bagging and freezing milk, waking up in the middle of the night to pump even though Everett was basically sleeping through the night, started to take its toll. I started to feel very down, all the time. I wasn’t finding joy or happiness in my kids. I was stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed, all the time. I tried to wait it out, thinking it would pass, but it didn’t. I finally called my doctor and was seen for postpartum depression. After some medication, I finally started feeling like myself again. Exclusively pumping was still taking its toll on my mental health, so that is when I decided to be done. Over the course of a couple weeks, I quit pumping. It was during this time that I found the lump.