You know what’s weird is realizing that you’ve finally taken control of an aspect of your life that had been almost wholly out of your control to that point and feeling an immense sense of relief about it.

I am, of course, talking about my fertility, or rather, my now permanent lack thereof.

It’s really weird to be relieved about this, the fact that I can’t get pregnant accidentally any longer, but I am. As of last Monday afternoon, I no longer have any fallopian tubes. They’ve been discarded as medical waste (which disappoints me), and if I ever want to have another child, it’s going to have to be through IVF, or more accurately, by taking the embryos that I already have frozen and having one transferred.

(only one. I will not risk another set of twins because this house would promptly collapse like unto the House of Usher)

I’m now feeling back to 100%, or as close to 100% as I am capable of feeling. My wounds are mostly closed up, though they still have lingering bits of tape on them (which I shall not peel off because I’m terrified doing so would cause Problems, and I don’t want Problems). My energy levels are back to normal, and I’m able to be upright for the bulk of the day. Kids and cats have poked at my abdomen and I haven’t screamed, so I’m calling that a win.

The mechanics of the entire situation are really boring, honestly, so I won’t go into excruciating details. It was a chill surgery. I fell asleep before anyone even asked me to count, woke up to my doctor congratulating me on my sterility and offering me some apple juice. The pain was at about a 7 when I woke up and went down to about a 2 with the administration of fentanyl. I didn’t even need the pain meds I was prescribed most days–I just slept and took them at night to make sure I wasn’t going to wake up. I ate Pop Tarts in celebration and slept like 18 hours for the first two days and then was just really bored a lot. 

It’s more the emotional aspect that I’m working through, because it feels weirdly powerful. I’ve had hellish periods since I started getting my period. My uterus is my enemy. If I were more settled about never having another kid, and if doing so wouldn’t fuck up my hormones irreversibly, I’d have the thing removed and sent on a one way trip to the sun. I had no control over it, and even when I’d take birth control to try and minimize the pain in one way or another, that came with its own set of issues: weight gain, depression, acne, migraines. My body was this monster with a mind of its own, and that mine was not mine.

And I always internally took comfort in the idea that maybe, just maybe, I was having these horrible periods because it meant that when I was ready to have kids, it would be nice and easy for me. I’d wanted to be a mom my entire life, so the idea of that coming easily to me really appealed.

But no, that didn’t come easily to me, and it took either medication or procedures that, without insurance, cost as much as a small car for me to have kids. And even those expensive procedures took ages to succeed and it was like… what the hell. Why is this thing not in my control, at all? This is my body, it should be more under my control, and yet, it’s not. It’s MOCKINGLY not. What the hell.

(and this bleeds into other areas where my body is out of my control, like PCOS that makes weight loss and looking like anything but a hairy potato kind of difficult; or like whatever the fuck is going on to make my joints feel like they’ve all got a corn chip stuck in them)

But now, with the political climate being what it is (and if you want to debate me on that, fuck off), I just wanted to have something resembling real control over my body. Something permanent. And yeah, I’ve got birth control, we use condoms, there are a million other options, but I want complete control, on the off chance that Things Happen. I don’t want anyone to have a say in what my body does or doesn’t do but me. 

And now that I have that say, it feels good. It feels powerful. It feels like putting my foot down and saying that this one thing, this body of mine, it belongs to me, and you cannot do what you want with it, and you cannot force it to get or remain pregnant if I do not want it, and the only one who makes decisions about it is me. You cannot use it unless I say you can. 

I mean, until I’m dead. Then go nuts, I don’t care. But until then, this is mine, and you do not get a say.

Anyway, this is super short because I’m tired but I wanted to write something about getting my tubes tied, and the only other emotion I feel about it is disappointment that I haven’t yet enjoyed a celebratory cake over it, but since my birthday is in about three weeks, I’m sure that will be remedied soon.