Janine

As I infiltrated behind enemy lines in the early pregnancy ward, surrounded by tired women of all ages, I looked perfectly in place. With my rotund stomach still half inflated with anaesthetic gassy build up, they couldn't possibly have known I could never join their ranks. I won't say any of them looked happy, but possibly for most there that was more to do with the long wait times and full bladders, than the churning misery I was shoving down in an effort to get the prescription without bursting out wailing, "It isn't fair!"

Everyone on this platform knows that none of this ever is.

The surgery, this latest one, was deemed a success. The surgeon even sent me a note in the online documentation later that day saying, "Well done!" I believe he meant to be kind. I was more amused than offended. Just over eight weeks ago now, he removed my left ovary, left fallopian tube, and two fibroids.

This almost finishes the war started 15 years ago, when I realised I probably wouldn't be having children, and a second battle that began when around 10 years ago, I was the lucky recipient of an endometrial ablation, decisively ending any chance of having children of my own.

All of this came about due to the industrial-grade endometriosis I endured from around age 11, but which no one bothered to put a name to until last year; not even the surgeon who performed the ablation a decade ago, the same surgeon who provided the niftily named, oophorectomy. (The removal of an ovary is an oophorectomy. I do not know who sits on the committee to name these procedures, but I would like to volunteer.) Lack of a name for The Thing meant lacking support, treatment options, and early enough decisions about children. It meant years of operating below my best due to overwhelming exhaustion, pain, brain fog, and depression. I lost jobs, never managed to attain a career, and my marriage foundered badly at times, though ultimately survived. The surgery itself was pushed back as my mother died last year and I just couldn't face losing yet another reproductive organ at the same time as grieving the woman who birthed me.

During recovery from this latest surgery we discovered I am what is considered to be a super-metaboliser of codine, meaning my body converts it into morphine at an alarming rate. The modest dosage I was sent home with from hospital might well have been another round of anaesthetic, because it was lights out for me every time I took one pill.

So after some discussion and debate with the hospital as to why it wasn't feasible to cut the pin-head-sized tablet in half, lose half of it on the floor and potentially have the cat eat it, they grudgingly allowed that it might be necessary for me to pick up a smaller dosage tablet, and told me to pick up my prescription from the ward- the early pregnancy ward.

My other half literally propped me up while I tried not to see anyone in the waiting zone. He supported me as I staggered jaggedly down the hall with the green piece of paper rumpled in my hand. He assisted me to the car park, then left me on the pavement while he retrieved the car so that I wouldn't have to walk up flights of stairs with my innards still sutured together. By the time he returned several minutes later the silent sobbing had subsided into hiccups. He put my favourite music on for the drive to the chemist. I didn't say much, and when I did it was observations on trivialities rushing past in the view.

My story is more complicated than a lot of other childless women's. Not worse, nor more traumatic, just not as simple. I can't point to only one factor and say it was a cancer, or a genetic disease, or I never met the right person. While the endometriosis ended up being most of the underlying cause, multiple vectors, including intense pain, relationship issues, and bleeding that left me sleeping for 14 hours a day, led me to that surgery 10 years ago, and the story is still unfolding. First the ablation, then the left ovary and fallopian tube. I asked why they didn't just remove everything all at once and be done. The answer given is that due to the ablation, they now don't know where I am in the menopause. Leaving the diseased ovary in increases my risk of cancer, while taking the perfectly healthy ovary out also increases my risk of cancer. So you, dear reader, can probably guess as well as I, that this means in five to 10 years I might be back for another go around. The war unending.

We all know the drill here in Childless Land; the gut punch to the stomach just when we think we are over it all and are suddenly faced with another visceral reminder of what could have been; a form of shell shock that no one who hasn't fought in this war can possibly understand. As I type this I wonder if I should have fought harder to have the whole bloody mess just taken away forever, so there would be no more reminders from my body at least, that I am an evolutionary dead end. But who knows. Maybe next time, hopefully for the last surgery, the surgeon will finally give me a gold star; a medal of honour of sorts, for having survived my very own, very personal, war.

Ovaries by Abraham Delfos - 1786 - Leiden University Libraries, Netherlands - Public Domain. Downloaded from Unsplash, under Public Domain and Unsplash License.