Making Peace Just In Time to Say Goodbye

Hannah was in deep anguish, crying bitterly as she prayed to the Lord. And she made this vow: "Oh Lord Almighty, if you will look down upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to you."    1 Samuel 10-11

  

I am going to write about something that is a little uncomfortable for me to talk about. It just seems distasteful and too personal to write publicly about. I am going to try to click on the "publish post" button before I change my mind.

Tomorrow I will join what a group of female coworkers used to call the Uterine Free Club. I am scheduled for a hysterectomy at 7:30 am. I have gone round and round with uterine fibroids for the past 7 years, maybe more. They have been there in the background of day to day life, draining my energy and unfortunately, draining some life. I decided to write about this because fibroids are so very common and we women rarely talk about them. It's just a routine, pretty icky female problem that does not make for polite conversation. It wasn't until my first surgery 5 years ago that I learned that at least 4 women in our immediate family have had hysterectomies because of fibroids. 3 of them were unable to have children because of it. I grew up knowing these women and did not know this!

I should have called it quits on the uterus 5 years ago.  But I was 34, Dodd and I had been trying to have children for some time, and we didn't want to give up easily.

As I lay waiting on a hospital bed for an ultrasound tech to confirm what my OBGYN and I suspected but what my heart had not yet accepted, I had a very real encounter with God. It was one of a handful of moments in my life that I felt his presence acutely.

It felt like he was gently yet firmly reminding me that a child was not mine to possess. Overwhelmed by the sense of his presence, I told him that if he decided to give us a child, I would not hold that child tightly. I promised to remember that he was God's first, entrusted to my care for a time. I promised to give him over. That was when I still had hope of conceiving.

The ultrasound showed I had at least 5 large fibroids growing inside and outside of my uterus. My doctor said if I was older and already had children she would recommend a hysterectomy without question. It was hard news to hear and weird to talk about. It felt very serious but the fact was, they were just dumb benign tumors that didn't really do anything besides cause a mess. I did not have cancer or something serious. I told people around us and I was surprised at how many women I knew were totally flip about the subject. "Oh yeah, no big deal. I had them too. Have a hysterectomy, you will be fine." It was a common reaction that eventually became painful to hear. Most comments like that came from women at least 10 years older than I was whose uteruses had already carried and delivered children into their arms. It was quite another thing to digest the news when the organ hadn't yet fulfilled its duty.

We found a surgeon in the area who removes fibroids laparascopically with a very high rate of pregnancy afterwards. He was sure we would conceive within a year of the procedure. 5 years ago this week I had the surgery, recovered well, and we resumed trying.

And trying. and trying.

Hope faded. Those years were barren, and not just reproductively. It felt like nothing came to birth in my work, service, or relationships. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I was walking the desert. It is difficult to pray in faith and to care for others when you feel dry and dead, which only compounds the situation.

Last year, a few weeks after we brought Samuel home, I returned to the OBGYN with the same set of symptoms I presented 5 years ago. She confirmed what we both knew. The fibroids grew back with a vengeance. We've tried to treat them with various medications. I'm too young for menopause which would stop the fibroid growth. The doctor told me that I would require a hysterectomy, it was just a matter of timing. She wanted to make sure I was emotionally ok with it. With the thought of Bear's sweet smile in the back of my mind, I told her honestly that it was fine. At this point, it was just a useless organ to me that had done nothing but cause misery every month for the past 26 years.

But I shouldn't be so hard on the poor uterus. In it's way, and in it's time, it did bring forth a son. And, as Dodd told our social worker at one of our post placement visits, our son is more perfect than if I had physically carried him inside me for 9 months. And perhaps another purpose of this uterus was to powerfully teach me that all that we have and receive is on loan from God. I would have been a possessive mother. Maybe I still am. But after going through this, I entered motherhood prepared to do what all mothers must eventually do, let go of their children.

I am not into numbers and symbols, but realized as I thought about writing this that there is an interesting coincidence in timing around this week.

• 5 years ago this week was Surgery 1.  
• 1 year ago this week Bear came home.
• Tomorrow is the hysterectomy.
• And this week while I am on medical leave I will complete the application to adopt our second child from Ethiopia! Seems cosmically fitting!

I hope that we as women can talk about this icky topic more openly. 20% of white women and 50% of black women will have fibroids. It sure would be nice to find ways to treat fibroids in ways that don't require surgery. It would also be nice to find ways to spare other women from the nuisance, shame, pain, and heartache they can cause.

So, I am at peace with the uterus and ready for its departure. Hysterectomies have come a long way in the past few years. If all goes well, I will be home the day after surgery and back to work in 1 to 2 weeks. My Mom is flying in to help with Bear while I recover and I expect to be back on my feet in a week. I better be, I have a lot of paperwork to do!