The doctors appts leading up to my surgery were horrible. I hated each and everyone, because I knew that everyone got me one step closer to my doctor signing off on my surgery. I never took into account that I'd have to sign off on it too. I was sitting in my pre-op appt with my husband, we were asking all kinds of questions. There was a large chance the doc was going to have to do a full horizontal laparatomy, and he felt there was even a medium chance he'd have to do a vertical. That was terrifying. Thinking about my recovery now, I just simply can't imagine it being anymore painful that it was.. and had he had to advance to that next level in my surgery, I'm not sure I would have had the will to live through that pain. But as were talking of all this, I remember seeing papers laying on his desk. He finally handed them to me... he said there would be more at the hospital (which I had known from my previous surgeries), but that he needed these particular papers signed prior, when my emotional state was in less turmoil than the day of. I don't remember everything the papers said, but I did quickly read through them. I wasn't prepared for the coldness of how they worded everything - on those papers my surgery was just that. It was just a medical procedure. It wasn't a 25 year old woman loosing her ability to have children. It wasn't a 25 year old woman becoming sterile far earlier than she ever should have been.
It was a medical procedure.
Simple. As. That.
Somewhere on those papers it had me sign that I knew what this surgery was doing, that I understood and agreed to continue with the surgery despite the fact that it would make me permanently sterile. I believe it said something like "I, the undersigned patient, understand and agree that this surgery will permanently make me unable to have children and that the chances of ever becoming pregnant is 0%." Again, I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something to that effect.
The morning of my surgery I remember so clearly. My grandma had flown in from California the afternoon before, and my mom had driven into town - they had slept on our couches. I was the first surgery of the day, we were up around 4 that morning. When we pulled up to the hospital, I got out of the car and the four of us started walking towards the entrance ... it was then that I truly began regretting my decision. I couldn't believe that I was allowing this to happen, that I was willingly walking into that hospital. I broke down in the middle of the parking lot, my husband and my mom held me up as my legs became to weak to walk any further. I remember they started crying too, along with my Grandma. But then my husband said, "remember, you're getting your life back, the doc said 80-90% chance... you're going to get your life back. you'll be able to be a healthy mother. remember why you're doing this." I finished my walk into the hospital and went through the motions of getting changed into a hospital gown, getting asked what felt like a hundred times my name and birthdate, and then my doctor came in. And it hit me again. A few moments later they said it was time to wheel me back... I couldn't stop the tears as I said goodbye to my mom, my grandma and my husband - realizing I was making permanent decisions for each of us. My husband would never have a son with his blood, my mom and grandma would never see their eyes in my daughter. This surgery affected so many people permanently, it was overwhelming to think about. They had already given me something to start making me sleepy, so I was already pretty out of it. But as the nurse opened the doors to the operating room, I started screaming for them to stop. I remember crying, and begging them to stop, that I had changed my mind. The nurse was so sweet, I remember she sat at the head of the table, looking down on me. She grabbed both my hands in one of hers and began softly touching my cheek with the other, she looked directly into my eyes and said "You're going to be just fine, you're getting your life back darling. You're going to be just fine."
And then everything went black.
I haven't told many people about that experience... about begging to stop. I wonder know if part of me knew then that I wasn't getting my life back, or if it was just the normal emotions of loosing my ability to have children at such a young age. I guess I'll never know, not in this life anyways. A lot of people ask me if I regret the surgery. The truth is, it really depends on the day. Some days, I am able to trust in the promptings from Heavenly Father that I received prior to my surgery - telling me that this was the right path to take, that it was time. And other days, I'm just not sure I heard Him correctly. Sometimes I wonder if the answers He was sending down simply got mixed up somewhere, and someone else got my "no" while I got their "yes".
The truth is, I'm just not sure. I felt at the time that I didn't really have much of a choice... and I resent it when people say that I did. I refuse to believe that I would ever make a choice that would end me in being sterile. To me, I didn't have a choice, the doctor said my health was deteriorating due to my Endo, that if I didn't have the surgery my kidneys, my liver, my heart may all become damaged too much - but in all honesty, we all know I did have a choice. No one dragged me into that hospital that day, no one forced me to sign those papers. I did it all knowing 100% what I was doing. It's funny. Somedays I choose to think of that day as the day I "broke up" with Endo, a day of strength... and other days I think of that day as a day I lost my fight, as a day I gave up my fight, a day of weakness.
Either way, I guess it is what it is at this point. There is no turning back. There's no use in beating myself up over it on the days that I regret it. There is literally nothing that can reverse it, there are no "uterus" transplants available. There is no going back. Whats done is done.
