Follow up to this because it is EXTREMELY hard for women to get a hysterectomy or ablation when it is not deemed "medically necessary". Insurance won't pay for it. Gynecologists even try to put pressure on women into remaining "fertile". They don't listen to women about their bodies.
I personally would have loved to have kids, but had a hysterectomy due to health issues. Here's my story and why I want everyone, not just women, to keep pushing back against the system to get women better Healthcare:
I've had bad periods from day one when I was 11 years old. I remember crying on the floor waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in the very first day cause it was so bad. My sister had it worse because she actually would throw up because of the pain. My mom did her best and taught us Lamaze breathing techniques they use in childbirth just so we could get through the contraction-like waves of pain until the pain med kicked in. We pretty much lived off 4 ibuprofen tablets every 6 hours for 5 days to get by. Tylenol did nothing for it.
When I was 27-28 I started having pain in my lower right abdomen. I brushed it off, thinking it was just me starting to get irregular periods like my sister. But it kept getting worse and when I would lay down I could feel a hard spot in that area. So I sucked it up and went to the gynecologist for the first time.
Mind you, I've never had sex before, I want to save it for marriage, so the whole experience was a bit invasive, even if it's understandable that they need to shove an ultrasound wand up your vagina to check things out in addition to the one they are using on your belly.
After he's done, the doc turns to me and is like "That's interesting. You've got fibroids and this one is the size of a grapefruit". For comparison, (since I still don't understand why they use fruit to measure babies) that's the size of a 5 month old baby.
My sister (who came with me) and I are floored. No words. My mom had fibroids when she was that age but never as big as this. The doc tells us the options, that he can't remove it labrascopically like he usually does and has awards for, he has to do a belly cut, a C-Section, to remove this growth just in case it's a cancerous fibroid.
He then tells me that he'll "try to save as much of the uterus" as he can. Also once I recover I "really need to get onto getting pregnant" because if I don't, in a year all the fibroids could come back.
I sobbed all the way home. I wasn't dating anyone, not really any prospects on the horizon either cause we were still dealing with COVID. But even before I left his office, I knew that if I had to have him go in and do the surgery, I just needed to have him take the whole thing out. It would be so much better for my health if I wasn't spending 2 weeks a month dealing with the prep for, survival through, and recovery from painful periods.
The next visit I took my mom with me. I knew that if I didn't I wouldn't be able to get them to understand my reasoning. My mom is a mama bear when it comes to us kids and I knew she would back me up. And it's a good thing I did because he did push back, saying "we don't do hysterectomies on women who are healthy" and "it'll really mess with your body if you do this" and "but don't you want to have kids?".
My mom and I had prepped for this. We knew that these would be the questions we faced. "The uterus isn't healthy, and won't be, you said it yourself, it would have to be cleaned out again" and "hormone replacement therapies have come a long way and we can work with that" as well as "there's plenty of children in foster care who need homes. I had foster siblings growing up and would be happy to do the same for other children."
Finally my mom looked him dead in the eye and said in her quiet, angry, momma bear voice said "you aren't listening to your patient and what she needs. You should really listen to your patient". He finally shut up and started listening to me and agreed to do the surgery.
I could go on for pages about having to recover in the maternity ward of the hospital and hear the new babies crying in the night. Of being asked by the nurse helping me get up to pee "well didn't you want kids?", of having to call said nurse to get me my pain meds when they went an hour past the time I should have had them, and of the year spent dealing with pain from my ovaries that he refused to take out during the hysterectomy. I could tell you of the ER visit about said pain where I waited 6 hours to be seen only to have the ultrasound tech push and poke and dig around in my vagina until I bled then left without an apology. I could go on for weeks about the questions we women get daily on our marital status or what our reproduction timelines are but this is enough of a trauma dump for one day.
Just please, PLEASE, if you know a woman who is making the decision to get an ablation or a hysterectomy, don't question their decision. I can garauntee they've already done the research and they know what they're doing. Just listen to them about their bodies!
To the women who are deciding on either of these: trust your own judgement. You are inside your own body. You listen to it every day. If this is something you need to do, medically, mentally, emotionally, whatever- you do it. It's a hard road but you can do it. You've got sisters out there who will back you up. Don't let them push you around.
