For Sale Or Rent

One 38 year old multi-para uterus. Cheap.

I'm carrying around some excess baggage these days. Not to be indelicate, but...it's my uterus. I'm done with it, you see.

The human body, unfortunately, does not recognize that parts of it have become obsolete or extraneous. And so, my ovaries keep plugging away, releasing eggs that will never grow into babies, and my uterus keeps preparing to receive that tiny little granule of DNA each month. It doesn't seem to understand that never again will it cushion and noursish that tiny spark of life within it's lush walls.

Which would all be well and good except that suddenly, my periods have become a torrent of agony and inconvenience. Literally. I know that's normal as a woman approaches her 40's, and I know that some women have dealt with difficult periods all their lives.

But for most of my life, periods have been more like apostrophes; incidental little things that didn't make much difference in my life one way or another.

I was a late bloomer. I didn't have my first period until I was 16, though of course I pretended that I had much earlier. I guess I felt like some kind of genetic freak because I hadn't menstruated yet. So I went to great lengths to make the charade believable. I faked cramps. I excused myself often from class, making a big show of checking my handbag and then taking it with me. I complained bitterly about "the curse" of womanhood.

What a goon.

When I did finally have my period, it was somewhat anticlimactic. My best friend and I were lunching at a fast food restaurant. When I went to use the bathroom, I was surprised and elated to find tiny red blossoms of uterine effluvia dotting my underwear. I purchased a tampon from the vending machine, and that was that.

Henceforth, my cycles were infrequent and very very light. Even into my childbearing years, I would sometimes only ovulate once or twice a year. That was just fine with me.

Until I wanted babies. And then I realized that my reproductive system wasn't really in optimal condition for conceiving.

Nevertheless, I did conceive after only three months of trying. But because of the infrequency of my periods, I didn't realize I had been so lucky until I was almost done with my first trimester. I was 10 weeks pregnant before it occurred to me that the extreme fatigue I was feeling might be something more than the natural consequences of our carefree but frenetic childess lifestyle.

Don't hate me, but, finding out so late, combined with the fact that Pre-Pubescent One was six weeks early, meant that I was really only pregnant, as far as I knew, for six months. I found out in late September, and he was born in early April.

It took a little longer to get pregnant with Diminutive One. Breastfeeding Pre-Pubescent one had stopped my periods altogether and once he was weaned, it took a while for my body to get the message that the baby factory was open for business once again.

When I did finally get pregnant three years after Pre-Pubescent One was born, I suffered an early miscarriage. I was devastated. It wasn't so much losing a baby, although of course it saddened me. But it was very early and I knew that my body had rejected the pregnancy for a good reason. I was able to be mostly philosophical about it. My real worry was that it would take another three years to get pregnant.

The miscarriage occurred on September 30th, 1997. December 9th I found out that I was pregnant again. Very pregnant. Nine weeks pregnant. Do the math. It just doesn't work.

Nobody really understood how that happened. The doctors theorized that the pregnancy had been a twin pregnancy, and that was somewhat supported by the fact that Diminutive One was born weighing over 9lbs. Building on that theory and calculating from the date of the miscarried pregnancy, I would have carried him 44 weeks. That seemed unlikely, as he did not display any of the typical signs of post maturity, nor did the placenta.

It was a true mystery.

I think it's more likely that my wonky system spit out another egg unexpectedly very shortly after the miscarriage. But who knows?

About that time, my younger sister started trying to get pregnant with a profoundly disheartening lack of success. It was ultimately discovered that she suffers from PCOS, a very complex disorder that results in varying degrees of infertility. She almost never had periods, which meant she almost never ovulated. In addition, she had a bicornuate uterus, which further complicated matters.

She eventually had three beatiful children, including a set of twins, so her story has a happy ending.

I began to suspect that I suffered from a milder form of this disorder, but since I could conceive, and I was really pretty happy with the infrequent nature of my periods, I never really persued a diagnosis.

So there's my reproductive history.

Perhaps you can understand then, how disconcerting it is for me to now be experiencing excruciatingly heavy and prolonged periods, debilitating cramps, blinding migraines, and terrible backaches. And, in an even crueler twist of fate, my periods have become cursedly regular. Every month without fail, for the first time in my life. It figures.

Sometimes, I can't even leave the house on the first couple days of my period because I have to change so frequently. In Chicago this summer, while dining at the Russian Tea House, I had a terrible accident that resulted in a very embarassing mess, even though I was heavily protected.

I've had enough.

I always thought I would be terribly saddened if I could no longer create and harbor life, even if I had no plans to do so. Just knowing I could seemed very important. As the years have passed, it's become markedly less so, much to my surprise. I suppose I have moved into a different phase in my life, and am no longer defined by my reproductive abilities.

I still love babies. Oh how I love them. I love the way they smell, I love the way they sound, I love the way they feel and warm and boneless in my arms.

But now when I see them, more often than not my first reaction is "Gosh, he/she is so cute, but I bet Mom's not getting any sleep.", or something of the sort. That raging baby fever has cooled to a tepid appreciation of a beautiful biological process that I no longer have an interest in perpetuating. I'm happy to leave it to younger women with more energy.

So I'm thinking...

Ablation? It's a strong possibility. Less extreme than a hysterectomy with a much faster recovery time. But that doesn't guarantee periods will stop, and the procedure carries some fairly scary risks.

Hysterectomy? Well, that would be optimal, but frankly, I don't relish the thought of my uterus being yanked out through the ole baby chute. I'm somewhat surgery phobic, but in addition, I don't think hysterectomies are usually offered as an elective procedure.

Too bad I can't just give it to someone who needs it. It's my ovaries that have caused all the problems, the container is in perfect condition. It grows big healthy babies. Pre-Pubescent One at six weeks premature, weighed 6 lbs. Had he been full term, it's likely he would have been 10 pounds or more.

Wait. Maybe that's not a ringing endorsement. Let's just say it grows strong healthy babies.

So, if you need it, let me know. Maybe we can work something out.