In which my Lady Bits leave the building.

Next Wednesday I am checking into the surgery ward down the street and Thursday I will be wheeled out with a few less organs. I have been trying to think of a way to 'announce' that, I guess the blog is the best place really. I've talked a lot about endometriosis here, and that's what this boils down to. 

The pain began 12 years ago during my first and only semester of college, in a split second that lands me in the hospital in fear of an unknown miscarriage; a scary moment for the *very* young couple Chris and I are at the time. It's not a baby, thanks to the actual cause of pain. 

Four years and many missed days of work, bottles of pain killers, and long, sad nights later, I sit in my doctor's office facing my first surgery to diagnose what he thinks it may be. I awake from anesthesia to sad news, things I didn't even know could happen. A clubbed tube. Attached ovaries. Scar tissue spider-webbing throughout my abdomen. Bleeding cells wreaking havoc having gone unchecked for years. News that I better try to get pregnant now, within six months, before I lose my chances forever. 

Save my uterus. That's all I ask of the doctor. He does. I don't get pregnant. And I don't. And I don't. And I don't. The pain comes and goes, but never as severe. Diet can do wonders for how endo makes you feel. On a feeding regimen of bread, soda, and coffee, hell on Earth can be felt. Take those away for only one month and life can feel normal again. Mostly. 

It still grows. It still spreads. 

Another four years. Another surgery. Clear the tubes. Cut the scar tissue once more. And then...

Pregnancy. 

Surprised by this organ that I've hated for years, that I've coddled and despised and treated with the utmost respect and disdain simultaneously... this little pocket of tissue fulfills my deepest desires in an instant. Now I love it.  I celebrate it! It makes me woman! It makes me mother! It creates the most incredible being I've ever seen, ever imagined. 

As I watch him grow, the damn bloody cells grow too. Unseen, another four years. I always imagined the first pains that night in the hospital to  have felt as if laboring a child would feel. Now I know. They do. One long tearful night later and I am lost. I can't keep doing this. Love and hate. Pain and pleasure. I've held on to my uterus long enough. 

I need to let it go. It needs to let me go. 

Fear grips me.... but the pain no longer will. 

~~~~~~

I found this a little bit ago and it kind of makes me feel better: 

"What I realized though is that your uterus may be leaving – but your You-terus is fully intact.

• Your You-terus is the most fertile part of you – the part that is always pregnant with ideas.
• Your You-terus provides a structural, moral integrity to the systems that surround it – your ideas, wishes, hopes and dreams – they are irrevocably connected.
• Your You-terus provides a warm, safe, nurturing environment for your creativity.
• Your You-terus will always be able to contract, expand, and give birth — as you are an unstoppable creator.
• And Your You-terus, which learned a lot from your uterus by the way, can never, ever, be removed." (from My Uterus, My Choice)