Dear Body: We Need to Talk

Hey girl.  I know you're having some rough times.  Let's talk about what's going on.

You're upset, understandably, from repeated assaults by surgery and endo.  I am partly to blame, but we need to come to an understanding about how to work things out.

I've taken pretty decent care of you over the years.  I'm sorry about the binge drinking in college—that wasn't cool.  But I cleaned up my act pretty nicely and turned into a half marathoner and triathlete, and I appreciate your allowing me to do these.  We worked well together and I think I should get some credit for pursuing such healthy hobbies. 

Tendinitis helped me realize that I needed to take care of you a little differently than before, with a little less impact, and I switched to yoga.  You thanked me and we had a nice routine going on for a while there.

Let's talk about food.  I was a vegetarian for 13 years, and going back to meat hasn't changed my overall outlook on food.  I believe in breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks, and I think you'd agree we have a good thing going.  No issues there, right?  Lots of fruits and veggies?

Good.  That brings me to my key complaint.  You're probably thinking it's going to be infertility.  Good guess, but something else is bothering me even more than that.  So let's set infertility aside for the moment and talk about pain.

I'm certain that some of my choices have led us to this impasse.  First, I let endo have its way for a while because I didn't believe in the Pill.  Mistake.  I realize now that I should have stayed on the Pill up to the month we wanted to get pregnant, but I didn't know that then.  I'm sorry.

I tried to fix the endo situation by having the laparoscopy last year.  My intentions were pure, but I'm pretty sure you hated the surgery even more than you hated the endo.  I had no idea you'd react that way to laparoscopic surgery.  I've never heard of someone taking 3 months to recover, so I'm not sure how I would have anticipated that.

Then I got greedy.  I tried again to get pregnant.  And I didn't just try, I used letrozole.  It worked, and we were pregnant again.  And then we weren't.  Not to be flip, but...you sure showed me.  You showed me that it was a sign of hubris to try for a biological child again after I knew a uterine septum was present.  Maybe that was the cause of the miscarriage or maybe it wasn't, but I feel dumb for not getting more opinions about the septum.  Dumb and completely, totally heartbroken.

Your downfall was really in full swing by that point.  A few months after having the contents of my uterus sucked out again, we brought out the hardware again.  I had my doctor trim back my septum and some scar tissue and remove a polyp.  And you hated it.

I don't think you've ever felt the same after that surgery in December.  I'm thankful to blogging in that it provides a record of just how badly I was doing in January and February.  I made a lot of excuses for why I didn't feel great, letrozole this and post-op recovery that, but in retrospect you were sending me signals, loud and clear.

I'm sorry for going back in for surgery in March.  I'm sorry for agreeing to the uterine balloon.  I don't know why I wasn't getting your signals.  On second thought, I do know.  I said I wouldn't drag infertility into this discussion, but I'm going to for a second.  I'm really, really angry at you for not giving me a child.  I know it's not my due, I don't deserve a baby more than anyone else, and infertility is just one of those unlucky conditions.  But I did all these interventions, each surgery and procedure, for the chance of having a child.  I can see now how much I was risking in terms of your health, but I couldn't give up.  I still kinda hate you for not following through on what we're born to do—reproduce.

So I got the balloon and then received your response to it.  Yeah.  Got it.  And I'm still getting it.  You're sick and fucking tired of it all.  We're in this position because of choices I made, because I had some dream that I was willing to risk everything for.

I get that I went too far, but we need to reach a level of understanding.  I can't give you more of the things you need in my current condition.  I can't exercise, cook for myself, or sleep well.  My cortisol levels must be through the roof when the pain is flaring.  I can give you some of the healthy things you need if you back off. 

How about I promise to really consider your needs when I make decisions about a possible baby in the future?  I can't promise that I won't try again.  I'm sorry.  But you've reminded me how critically important it is to keep you working and functional, and above all, healthy.  I won't forget it.

So please consider backing down.  Message received; I made some poor decisions.  I was doing my best with the information I had at the time, but I could have paid more attention to your needs.  Now that the damage is done, literally, we need to find a way to coexist and hopefully get along.  Truce?

Love,
D