2018 is the year I did not have a baby.
This was not a surprise to me, seeing as I wasn't married, dating anyone, or sexually active in anyway and certainly wasn't actively trying or wanting to have a baby. For some reason this flabbergasted many people around me.
I guess the trouble started around March or April. My brother and I set out to buy a house together, an investment opportunity for him and a safer, hopefully cheaper, place to live for me. I met with a very kind middle aged real estate lady with flouncy curls and a personality to match. She started showing me cute cozy cottages, perfect for a single girl. Walking through, she would show off the house's selling features. "There's a second bedroom that you can use as an AirBNB or an office or can't you just see a bassinet in here?" No. To be honest, if there isn't a bassinet physically inside the room I cannot see it there. Just an anomaly. A woman who knew nothing about me other than the fact that I was in my late twenties and looking for a house . She looked at me and decided, that girl needs a baby and I have never met anyone who wanted me to have a baby more. "You know, this flaming pile of garbage would make a great baby room."
"Or, literally anything else."
I really just figured this woman was an anomaly... until the end of May. While still searching for a house that was not complete with a baby room I sat down at my doctor's office. I was attempting, quite vainly, to figure out why life had seemed to have turned into an endless wasteland of nausea and bullshit and I was certain it had something to do with my physical health and my hormone balance. I just had to get a doctor to listen and agree with me.
"Your ultrasound shows a (big medical word meaning a specific kind of benign tumor that we usually just call a fibroid) on your uterus." The doctor calmly explained.
Okay, that makes sense. Something inside of my body that doesn't belong is a decent enough explanation for pain and nausea. That particular something being attached to my uterus, an endless creator of bullshit, had potential for explaining the wasteland I seemed to be living in.
"I'm going to send you to my favorite gynecologist for treatment but with the way it seems to be attached you need to really start thinking about whether or not you ever want to have children and if you do you need to start thinking about having them soon."
The first act in a parade of doctors telling me that my symptoms did not warrant treatment that would make me infertile, that fibroids don't normally cause symptoms so I shouldn't worry about it, and that I really ought to be trying to get pregnant now because fibroids only get worse with time. Oddly enough, one doctor who told me that had just a week earlier told me that I should not be having sex at all.
Um... you're an OBGYN. do you not know how pregnancy works?
Another one who told me this was my uncle, an emergency room surgeon who my mom had asked about fibroids during a family get together. "They're benign tumors." He shrugged, "they don't cause symptoms or anything but if Katie has them she should be trying to have a baby now before they get worse."
Sitting behind him in the car my first thought was something along the lines of "no uterus no opinion," because I was feeling symptoms including excruciating pain, nausea, and endless waves of bullshit emotions, and was getting pretty tired of being told that I wasn't. My next thought was that this was my uncle. My uncle who may not see me often but had definitely known me for 29 years and knew that I was not in a life space that lent itself to deciding it was time to become a mom because the timing wasn't as bad as it could be. This was not random stranger who did not know my life. Meanwhile, my real estate agent kept showing me garden sheds and utility closets that would "just make the cutest baby room!"
Nobody asked me, "Katie, do you want to be a mom?" I did not have the chance to answer either. The hooks of their expectations and desires had already pierced my skin. Was this actually that big of an issue? Would it harm future relationships I might have? Was I being selfish by wanting to get rid of chronic pain, and the inability to deal with my own emotions, even if it cost me my ability to bear children. I wanted to be able to live my life like a normal person. Why wasn't anyone letting me say what I wanted?
"I would like to pursue surgery to remove the fibroids."
"You won't be able to get pregnant if we do that. Let's try hormone therapy."
"The hormone therapy is making me sick and I'm in a lot of pain. I want to remove the fibroids."
"We'd most likely have to remove your uterus which would mean you wouldn't be able to ever have children. We'll try a different hormone therapy and these $1000 shots of medication."
"I'm in constant pain, I'm alienating my friends because my emotions are screwed up, and I am preoccupied with thoughts of my own death. Can we please try removing the fibroid.
And they kept telling me that it would be an invasive procedure and I would most likely be left infertile as if I did not have the internet at my fingertips to research what the treatment I was asking for entailed or as if I didn't know enough about my body to know that a uterus was THE key ingredient for creating a child (Please note, this is specifically my situation with the way they were attached. Not all fibroids require that invasive of treatment. You should talk with your doctor before making big decisions that could be treated with less invasive methods but you should also feel comfortable enough to advocate for yourself).
I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me, other than the benign tumors pushing other organs out of the way. Should I have a baby? Is it selfish of me that I would rather be able to travel and hang out with my friends and eat a full meal without feeling sick than have a baby? That I wanted to function more than I cared about ever being a mom? Did nobody get that?
I think I was twelve when I started to learn that, while I thought my body belonged to me, the people around me believed my body belonged to them. It's a lesson that never quite took despite the committee of Good Christian Bitches who decided that the items I did and did not wear would be the determining factors in whether or not the church I attended would be able to do ministry or the obligations of owning a body that others tried to impose on me. It was also around that age that I learned that being pretty was considered the rent I owed the people around me for use of the body that had been lent to me. I learned that those were the expectations placed on me, as arbitrary and ridiculous as they were. The expectation of childbearing must have been in the fine print of the rental agreement. And I want to point out that I'm not talking about abortion or birth control or anything like that. I wasn't placing the life I wanted to live over an existing life. I hadn't gotten myself into a fix and needed an easy solution. I was not being denied medical treatment either. This is about me asking for one thing and being told by everyone that went against the expectations everyone had for me. I was asking for treatment of something interfering with my ability to work, to be around people, and to not feel like I needed to be institutionalized and being told that this uninsulated garage would be the perfect room for a baby. It was like I woke up one day and the terms of some contract I did not remember signing had come due. People who shouldn't care whether or not I ever chose to have child had appeared to collect on a debt. Did I promise a witch my first born in exchange for this glamorous life? If I did we both got a bum deal. Maybe this parade were her baby hungry minions trying to expedite the process.
And still, nobody asked me if that was what I wanted. If pregnancy and parenthood were the kind of rent I was willing to pay for owning my now defective body. I don't know if I would have agreed. Even if it was a price I was willing to pay there was not way I could make that kind of life-altering decision when there was so much static in my brain that I doubt I could have had a stable relationship, not when I could barely convince myself not to go get checked in to a psychiatric hospital. Decide to have a baby? I was in so much pain that I could barely decide to move from my couch to my bed on some nights. The decision I could make was that I was not living the life that I wanted and I needed to fix that and deal with the consequences later.
2018 was the year I did not have a baby. It was also the year that I didn't want to have a baby but was being told I was supposed to. I am still not fully sure what to do with that. My brain just doesn't want to wrap around the idea that possessing a uterus somehow comes with an obligation to use it. An obligation set by people who shouldn't care one way or another.
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