wildly uncomfortable menstrual cycle for approximately 6,570 days, the eighteen years that I would be legally mandated to be responsible for my child
Here’s the thing: if I had walked into the doctor’s office on that bright sunny morning, brimming with joy while excitedly rubbing my hand over my belly, thrilled to share the news that I was going to have a baby and asking for a blood test to confirm its staking a claim on my uterus, that dude would have shit his pants and sat me down for a Very Serious Conversation about why embarking on the journey of motherhood at my advanced age and in my current state of advanced corporeal decay was a Very Bad Idea. I’m an expert in going to the doctor, man. The only thing they ever want to hear from me is “I’ve lost weight” or “Do you think you could tell me how to lose weight?” It’s probably against some code of conduct to admit it, but he knew and I knew and he knew that I knew that if I’d said, “You know what sounds like a fun party we could throw? A high-risk geriatric pregnancy,” he would have been on a conference call with both Mister Blue Cross and Mister Blue Shield, calculating whether or not they could afford to pay out the lawsuit my family would undoubtedly file after he threw me down several flights of stairs.
The last thing he wanted to hear is that this sick, old asshole was going to ruin his pre-retirement months by forcing him to coach me through a difficult pregnancy. Why not just yank this gooey, unpredictable blood bag out of my body so I can get on with living the rest of my godforsaken life? I’m sure there were practical reasons for denying my request, but who cares about menopause or fluctuating hormones or postsurgical complications? Twenty-eight years of a contentious relationship with my uterus had been long enough to come to terms with the fact that neither of us was going to change and maybe a conscious uncoupling would do us both a world of good. We still loved each other, of course, but the time had come for us to part amicably and maintain mutual respect.
Just kidding—I wanted the doctor to hit me in the head with a brick and cut this traveling uterine circus out of my body, then toss it in the trash and keep it moving. But he couldn’t do that, the insurance was like “lmao sorry” despite it begging to be jumpshot into the nearest biohazard receptacle, so we did the next best thing: a whole bunch of snipping and scraping that took all goddamn day and for which I had to be anesthetized and after which I had to wear a diaper for a while, which I hoped was to catch my uterus in case they accidentally dislodged it and it fell out but joke’s on me it was only for DISCHARGE.
THE BALLAD OF MY ABLATION
No food. I had to fast the night before, which is fine, whatever, I love Sprite, but I had to very specifically clean all my parts while practically starving. The stress of this just made me want to fucking eat. I often think about what a gross monster I am, but never in as much detail as when confronted by the thorough methods I need to use to go about cleaning myself per a doctor’s instructions, methods I definitely do not employ on a daily basis. Am I just disgusting?
Paperwork. At the hospital, they hand you all these forms and papers to sign prior to surgery and, come on now, I’m not reading that shit. It’s early in the morning, and the only thing on my tongue is the memory of a pizza I ate two days ago. I’m not wasting my time with this contract. Besides, what am I going to do if I have a dispute? Get a lawyer on the phone?! Can you even imagine being the person who holds up the Outpatient Surgery Conga Line trying to argue about clause A in subparagraph twelve on the hospital liability form while the tired and overworked desk lady sighs exasperatedly at you? Yeah, right! I signed fourteen pieces of paper that