The Finality Of Hysterectomy
I didn’t want children, so why am I sad that I can’t have them?
Growing up I was part of a big family; I may only have one sibling but with 7 cousins, 4 aunts and uncles, and grandparents that I was all close to it was never a quiet childhood. I was the eldest of this brood, which put me in the maternal role that I relished. It was a role which led me to childcare. Ambitions to look after other children and mould their minds.
I sought the big family too I think, but I don’t know if I wanted it or just felt that I needed it. But a family doesn’t fix everything, I don’t think it could’ve ever fixed me. When my health and relationship deteriorated I put the idea of children out of my mind. I didn’t want kids, I resigned to not wanting. And I felt happy in my decision.
After 5 + years of inexplicable pain and far too heavy bleeding I’m electing to have a hysterectomy. This is something I’ve rallied for, and battled with doctors about for half a decade now. I was asked again and again about children, spoken to like a child myself about how I might want them. I was steadfast. I didn’t. But now that it’s a reality, I’m not sure.
When I got the date for my pre-op assessment I broke down, and most of the complex feelings I was having were about the fact I wouldn’t be able to have children biologically. I don’t know why it hurts so much when the hysterectomy is something I’ve had to fight for. Maybe it’s more the choice being taken away. I hate feeling powerless, and the whole taking control over my body is anything but powerless, my future is now already a foregone conclusion.
The logical side of me tells me that on some level it’s because I’ve been conditioned as a woman to want children. To only see my worth in being able to produce life. The way the media paints women like Jennifer Aniston as sad and childless while Angelina Jolie is fulfilled with her brood. Will I be seen as less of a woman because I can’t be a mother?
It’s the greatest cruelty that this thing that I’m giving up a family for makes me look pregnant when I’m ill. When the cramps and pain take over my stomach swells, my back hurts and the only comfortable way to walk is the waddle pregnant women effect.
A few months ago, around the time of my first Zoladex injection, I was at a store in a train station. The pain was particularly bad that day and I was holding my stomach as I bent over to reach inside my handbag. On standing up the pain became worse and an assistant offered me a seat, and as she did so she nonchalantly mentioned The Baby. She assumed — as admittedly I would’ve — that I was pregnant. I didn’t have the energy to explain that it was the exact opposite and I was electing to go through menopause and a hysterectomy. But it stung, I found myself crying down the phone to my friend and then feeling absolutely absurd. I was choosing this yet I was getting upset about my own choice.
I’ve spoken to friends and family about it and they recommend freezing eggs, giving me the hopeful reminders of surrogacy or adoption. But it still feels bizarre discussing something so final. In the past I maybe would’ve felt reassured by them but I don’t even know if a family is something I want. I’m only 27. If I had more time to come to this decision I don’t know what the outcome would be. But I know how much pain I would be in. How much this would take away from my life. I can’t wait until I’m a 43 year old mother of 2 who can barely walk, when the Doctors finally will take me seriously because I’m no use at the baby factory.
There’s the news story that I keep coming back to; about old lonely people at Christmas with no close family to keep them company. What if I’m the spinster barren Great Aunt Rachel? Left alone at Christmas because nobody wants to visit me, being forced by their parents with promises of “it’ll just be an hour with the old bat.”
The other worry is relationships, will I be able to have a long lasting relationship with someone without giving them children- after all its already happened before. Will I be enough to mean that a man gives up his right to be a father for me? And there I go with the patriarchal bullshit again, of course I’m enough. But people are different and want different things. If and when relationships haven’t worked it won’t purely be down to the fact that I can’t grow another human inside of me. Not to mention the fact that I’m bisexual, so may not be with a man forever. But that does nothing to stop the niggling.
I always argued that children weren’t a big priority, it may or it may not happen. But now I know that it won’t. Physically can’t. And ridiculously I’m the one taking away my own choice.
But despite all this, I’m staying hopeful. I hope that the hysterectomy will be a success. I hope that my quality of life will improve. And I hope that I will be enough.
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