What I know now.

I am a google freak, so of course I have googled about these conditions many times. This is what I have found.

• My mom, dad, nor I did anything to make my body grow the way it did. Unilateral Renal Agenesis occurs when there is a failure of kidney formation during fetal development.
• Some people are born with little to no kidney (called bilateral), which makes me feel glad that I atleast have one.
• There is no treatment needed for URA. I simply need to watch my blood pressure and get yearly tests to make sure my one kidney is healthy. I don't have a back up kidney to maintain life.
• I need to limit daily sodium intake to prevent getting high blood pressure, and I need to stay away from high protein diets, because protein makes the kidney's work harder.
• I have been advised to stay away from contact sports, unless I wear protective gear. (Glad I wasn't a sportsy girl when I was younger).
• I should keep a close eye on my alcohol and caffeine intake. 
• The odds for URA are roughly 1 in 750 people.
• A unicornuate uterus is a uterine malformation.
• The odds to having a unicornuate uterus are 1 in 4,000, and studies have shown that if you have a uterine malformation you should get checked to make sure you have both kidney's... Weird huh?
• Having a unicornuate uterus can lead to higher risk for pregnancy loss, preterm labor, eptopic pregnancy, and miscarriages.

Having all of this new knowledge about my body has helped me and hurt me, but overall made me feel comfortable in my own skin. This whole process has made me much stronger.

What I think about now...

Now that I know about my conditions there are new thoughts that pass through my mind everyday. Am I going to have kidney problems in the future? What if I get in a car accident and my one kidney becomes injured? What if I have trouble getting pregnant. I know that there are a lot of options for me when it comes to pregnancy, but it doesn't mean that it won't be scary when I choose to finally take the path towards parenthood. Am I drinking enough water to help keep me kidney healthy? Am I drinking too much? I get scared about eating too much salt, or drinking too much alcohol. I find it hard to limit myself with some things because I feel that since I am still so young I should be able to do what I want. Whether that makes me sound like a selfish brat or not, that's how I feel. Until last year I was asymptomatic. In fact, most people don't find out that they were only born with one kidney 'til later on in life. On one side of my brain I feel lucky that I found out, so that I can try to take better care of myself. On the other side, I feel like sometimes it's all that I think about and could of gone another decade without knowing.

Hysterosalpingogram

I researched the HSG process and found out that the dye that the Docter's inject into the uterine cavity (before the imaging is done) can possibly injure the kidneys. Well since I only have one kidney it made me a bit cautious. I had to go to the lab and have some blood taken to make sure that my one kidney was healthy enough to handle the dye. A couple days later my Doctor called and informed me that my kidney was good to go. By this time the HSG appointment was coming up. In no way was I excited for this procedure, one, because I had been in and out of the Doctor's office more times in the last six months than I had in my whole life, and two because I had read that getting an Hysterosalpingogram can be quite painful. My husband went with me to the appointment (as he did with all of my other appointments), which helped calm by nerves a bit. As I lay down on the cold hospital bed and hiked my legs up in to the metal stirrups, my stomach started to get pretty queezy. The Doctor told me what he was going to do, although I had already researched the info on the web. He said, "I'm going to be inserting a small balloon into your uterine cavity, I will inflate the balloon when it is in the right position, inject the dye, and then we will begin to take some pictures." Expecting the pain helped me a little, but the balloon didn't work the first time, so he had to do it again. This process was excruciating. I laid there, flat on my back, staring at this huge buzzing machine, watching the Doctors do their job, while wearing protective clothing, because of the radiation that the machine emits. When they were finished taking pictures I was able to see the images right away. Although I pretty much knew what he was going to say I wasn't prepared at all. They let my husband come in to the room, Jake held my hand, and we listened to what the Doctor had to say.He told me that the images show that I have one fallopian tube, and pretty much half of a uterus (a unicornuate uterus). It was all I could do to keep myself from bursting out in tears in front of everyone. When everything was said, I stood up grabbed my clothes and went in to the bathroom to change. I sat there and cried. I thought to myself , "WHY?" The ride back home was pretty somber, I cried, and my husband tried to cheer me up. I had looked up all of the possible pregnancy complications that can come from having a unicornuate uterus, and I was not ready to deal with the imaginable heartbreak.

Phase 2...

After allowing the new facts of my life to settle down, I realized that I should feel lucky. There are worse things that could happen to me. I went and got a tattoo of a kidney on my left side, to me it was sort of like closure. And it made me happy thinking that I had two kidneys again. A couple weeks later, I finally decided to continue on to the next phase, which was to get an MRI to see if they could find exactly what was going on down in my nether regions. The doctors suspected that I might have a unicornuate uterus (along with my missing kidney), but needed better imaging to be sure. When I got to the hospital and was ready to lay down on the MRI bed, the technician told me that having a unicornuate uterus was normal, (which is not true at all). During the beeps, buzzes, and drumming of the machine I tried to stay still and calm, but my mind was going a million miles an hour. After the session was done the tech also told me that she could see two kidneys on the monitor. This scared me since I had already inked a new one on my back. Later on I found out that everything the Tech told me was a pile of shit, yet the images shown for my uterus were still inconclusive. What did I do next, besides live in wonder and worry? I scheduled myself an HSG (Hysterosalpingogram).

Lets start from the beginning.

Last October I had suddenly started experiencing some really bad cramps and didn't know what they could be stemming from. Since I didn't have insurance I went to a place called Zoom Care, because I had heard they were a bit cheaper than the usual medical office. The lady from Zoom Care referred me to the hospital for blood tests, therefore making my visit to Zoom Care not only worthless, but also more expensive than I had thought. I continued to the hospital, pulled up the arm of my shirt, and allowed the nurse to stab me with a needle and extract blood from my body. From this test the docter's found nothing. Through out the next couple months I had many PAPS and still no answers. So, next was to get an Ultra Sound to see if there was any abnormalities in my pelvic region. This process, although not very comfortable or fun, went by fast and produced some results. A week after my Ultra Sound the Doctor called me (finally) to let me know the details. "Have you ever had a kidney removed?", the Docter asked me. Trying to hold back my gasp I told her, "No... Why?" She went on about how I have a missing kidney and there are possibilities of some reproductive anomalies. After finishing the discussion and hanging up the phone, I cried. Unbeknownst to me I had been born without some body parts. I immediately googled what I knew so that I could find out more. For the next week or two my world was spinning. Yes, I can live with these conditions. But, at the age of 23, I felt as if I needed to mourn for my missing parts.