A hysterectomy at 25 is relatively unheard of.  Who has that?  Not many.  Except me.  I lost two babies in miscarriage.   Had a surgery for ovarian cyst.  Then successfully carried to term my son before I was 25.

Nine months after his birth there were complications requiring an exploratory surgery that ended in a massive infection of the uterus.  Another emergency surgery was required to rectify the first.  That unfortunately was botched causing massive hemorrhage and near death circumstance.  Yet another surgery was needed to repair the damage and save my life.

A month in the hospital and six months bed ridden before I received the recommendation of a hysterectomy because of the damage to my uterus.  Young and naive I didn’t think to question their opinion.  The choice ultimately was up to me. The fact that I was a mother of three step children and our son contributed to the decision.  I did not dream of having more.  I never envisioned a failed marriage and assumed we would all go on as a family.  What prompted my final decision perhaps more than anything else was the fact that I did not have to worry about my period anymore.

I hated my periods.  I felt unclean, embarrassed.  I was always terribly self-conscious, always afraid of them.   I was never regular and could not count on when they would occasionally come.  As a teen no one was present when I started.  No one knew.   There was no celebration, no feminine or motherly embrace welcoming me to womanhood.

The only trouble with having made that choice is that there is a finality of which there is no return and no accountability  for the unexpected.   Failed marriage.  Loss of the children except for my son.  New life and resurrected feelings of love accompanied with a desire to have more children.  Bouts of early menopausal symptoms.

Guilt and remorse I have carried all these years knowing that at one moment I had a choice.  A choice simply made in reality because I felt the freedom of not having a period and unconsciously born of neglect.  No mother, no grandmother, no family, no history of love and celebration honoring the most important passage every girl must go through, becoming a woman.