The Bloodhound Gang and Julia Sugarbaker

When I was a girl, one of my favorite TV shows was Designing Women.  (And also The Golden Girls.  Yes.  I liked shows about old women.  Deal with it. So did everybody else.)  In particular, I loved Dixie Carter's role, Julia.  She was beautiful, sophisticated, brilliant, outspoken, and had three inch high shoulder pads.  What's not to love about that character? I remember one particular episode where Julia has to have a hysterectomy.  And she is beside herself emotionally.  She questions her womanhood, her attractiveness.  When I saw this episode, I remember her friends stuck in the elevator, Bernice singing "Black man! Black man!", and thinking, "Well, that's just plain dumb.  Having a uterus is not what makes you a woman.  If you need to get the thing out, yank it out.  She is being ridiculous."

Fast forward twenty years.  And I'm crying at an ultrasound of my empty uterus.  While waiting to discuss the results of my ultrasound with my doctor, I can't get over how silly I'm being.  And that my stomach is growling incredibly loud.  And then I begin, through the walls, to hear the familiar whish-whish-whish that is a fetal heart monitor.  And I hear my doctor's chipper voice saying, "Can you hear that?  That's your baby sister's heart, right there."  And I broke down again.

By the time my doctor came in to see me, she found me a mess.  I was like Henry when I tell him to calm down.  Rubbing my tears away frantically with the palms of my hands, thinking if I just do it fast enough and hard enough they'll stop.

Basically, what it boils down to is that the IUD isn't helping like we'd hoped.  In fact, it may be causing more trouble.  And, truth be told, she's just concerned about my overall health if I continue to bleed heavily no matter what they try.

I confess that it is never far from my mind that my Mom had a hysterectomy at 35.

She said, "Well, I don't think we are there.  Yet.  I'd like to do another kind of surgery.  An ablation."  She then went on to explain it in further detail.  The risks, side effects, benefits, recover time, etc.

Basically, they are going to scrape out my lady parts and then burn the heck out of it, rendering it scar tissue.  It is irreversible.  And it will render me sterile.

And as much as I've joked about just wanting them to take it all out, I wasn't prepared for this.  I said, "So, basically, you're going to do a controlled burn in my uterus?  You're going to set it on fire?"  Suddenly I was envisioning this Kanakuk tribal ritual where a guy dressed in full on headdress Native American garb jumps out of a hidden hole in the ground and then breathes fire.  I think one year the guy had to go to the ER because he swallowed gasoline.  I imagined him participating in my surgery.

Dr. M laughed and said, "No.  We don't actually set you on fire.  We will cauterize it.  So basically there is some wire mesh that heats up like an iron.  Or if your septum has returned or there are fibroids or cysts, we will use a balloon that heats up really hot."  Oh good, so you're not actually going to set me on fire.  Just scorch me.  Bonus.

I told her that I was 98% certain we'd do the surgery, but that I'd have to discuss it with my husband.  I said, "You know, it wasn't in our vows or anything, but I kind of think you shouldn't accept a new job or agree to surgery without first discussing it with your spouse."  She agreed. 

After my appointment, I had to head back to my church for what was left of my Bible Study.  I arrived just in time for prayer time.  We are studying Genesis, and although I missed the teaching time, I'm fairly certain they discussed the creation of man.  So we are sitting in a circle in the library, bowed heads, and praying.  My dear friend B is there with her 2 week old son.  And my friend D is going on and on in her prayer about how good and gracious and intimate God is when He knit us together in our mother's womb.  How he held Adam's face in his hands and breathed life into him.  How God's enormous love birthed us.  On and on about life and birth and womb.  I was audibly sobbing, visibly shaking.  Embarrassingly so.  D had no way to know what was going on.  But I was dying.  So much so that my dear sisters, a group with whom I have studied and prayed with since prior to Henry's birth, began scooching closer to me to simply hold me.  We didn't stop praying, they just held me and let me cry.  What a gift.  What a clear and present picture of God at work in His daughters.

It's not that I want to ever carry another child in my womb.  It's not that I don't understand that this surgery will not only improve my health, but my sanity, and just all around quality of life.  It's just so  final. 

Unlike Julia Sugarbaker, I know that it is not my lady parts that make me a lady.  Nor are they what make me attractive.  (In truth, I'll speak for Sloan in saying that the behavior of my lady parts as of late makes me quite unattractive.)  I was just not quite prepared for the finality of it.  It was as though the breath was knocked out of me and it took me a day to regain a normal breathing pattern.  Most of yesterday was spent in a salty eyed state of crying or having a headache from crying. 

And then laughing.  Because I kept singing to myself, "My ute, my ute, my ute is on fire.  We don't need no water let the mother@#&^ burn."  And this has kept me laughing all day.  That and my sweet friend J's comment, "Gosh, it's a good thing the ultrasound showed that your uterus was empty.  I mean, if you're planning to set it on fire and all!"  Love me some JB.  Big time. 

And Sloan has been most tender toward me.  Sad that he was in Wisconsin and then Atlanta and couldn't be here with me at my appointment.  (How was I supposed to know this was going to happen?  I thought I was going to be told to wait it out on Mirena for a few more months.)

That's just how I process things.  I flip out for about 6 hours and then I settle in.  I scream at cry out to God and He says, "Hey, sweet girl, quiet down.  You don't need to yell.  I'm right here.  With you.  Don't you remember I formed YOUR inmost parts.  Don't you remember I knit you together too?  Even this day, this wreck of a day, I prepared for you.  So rest in me.  Rest in the hands of the doctor I used to save Henry's life.  We got this one.  Chillax."

And so I am.  I'm trying to get into the OR next Friday.  It all depends on if there is an opening.  Because I can't be having my lady parts interfering with G-Love's 2nd birthday.  Because the truth is, my screwed up womb has brought me two of the greatest kids on the planet. 

So heck yeah, let it burn.