Diary - January 29, 2023

Most of you know that I was raped almost 25 years ago. What many of you do not know is that I have struggled with infertility from that rape. Infertility is not an uncommon occurrence these days, but what is uncommon is that medical science cannot fix me. Many, many infertile couples have received great care from infertility specialists around the country through perfected techniques that have assisted couples with little miracles for decades. My husband and I, on the other hand, have not been so lucky.

We have been to every infertility specialist and endochronologist up and down the northeast coast, I've taken every type of med known to man to help induce pregnancy, endured copious amounts of testing, and injections that would make a diabetic cringe. It turns out that none of these things would help us become parents because the simple fact is this: infertility specialists could not "fix" what a rapist did to me. I have a serious amount of scar tissue build up that causes sever periods that come with an unbelievable amount of blood loss, thereby making me severely anemic. It was so bad that I was facing a blood transfusion, but instead I was able to have iron infusions that helped for a while. The drawback was that the increase in iron would eventually lower again if I keep having these monster periods. The scar tissue also makes it nearly impossible to ovulate and implant in my uterus because the lining is so thick. Therefore, I have no other choice but to have a surgical procedure to make sure I never end up on the other side of an infusion pump ever again.

One week from this Tuesday, I have to not only have an ablation on my uterus to help get rid of the scar tissue to ease the excessive blood loss during my cycles, but I also have to get a tubal ligation, or what was once commonly known as having my "tubes tied." This is because besides the fact that one should never try to get pregnant, or even accidentally get pregnant, after an ablation is performed, but my ovarian tubes had precancerous cells. Cancer runs deep on my side of the family, and because I've never had children and am over the age of 40, the risk of getting ovarian cancer increases exponentially. My only recourse is to give up on the dream of being a mother and have this surgery.

This new blog, entitled "Diary," will be an ongoing diary as we get closer to the surgery date and will focus on my feelings, both good and very bad, regarding this surgery, what it means for my future, and the lasting aftereffects that will most certainly happen. I want everyone to know the difficulty of this impending surgery and how the aftereffects of rape can last a lifetime after. I may have been raped over 25 years ago, but I'm still facing the consequences today.