Hysterectomy Emotions

It's been an interesting week. Physically it's been fine. Better than I expected really. It has been hard to not do too much and try and rest as much as I should, but other than that I can't complain.

One of the things I wondered about before I had my surgery, was how I would feel emotionally afterward.

Well.... for me it has been very similar to how I felt whenever I had a baby. Crazy. Hormones everywhere, crying, emotional, etc... that has been interesting to deal with. It has gotten better as the week has progressed though.

I guess a lot of women feel a sense of emptiness, especially if they had this surgery before they were able to have any kids. I haven't really felt that, but then, I have kids, and I am content with our family. :) I did think and pray long and hard about whether we were really "done" or if there was one more that was supposed to come to our family, but I decided, well, we decided, that it was okay. Four is a good number.

There were also concerns about if I did get pregnant again, how that would affect my health, and whether or not it would be a good risk to take. It's an understandable concern...I mean, I don't think I've had one pregnancy where I didn't end up on bed rest at the end. With each baby it got worse too, so I definitely took this all into account.

There were many times I wondered if I should wait just because Emmett and Jeffrey are so young, and it would be difficult to care for them while I was healing. Then, every time my body would decide to have a cycle, it was just horrible. I know I've written about that before, but seriously, it was awful. Six weeks didn't seem to be that long of a time frame...actually that is about how long apart my cycles were becoming...

So, interesting things about my surgery...

I thought there would be a lot of endometriosis. There was hardly any. I think my doctor was surprised about that too, since the last time I had surgery for endometriosis I had no clue I even had it and I was at a stage III (which is really bad).

I think, if I remember right, (I will probably find out at my follow up appointment in 5 weeks) he felt afterward that the pain could have been from the adhesions I had from my last c-section, and that he could see why I was having issues, because of the condition of my uterus. It makes me wonder if they cut it open to look at the inside. (Too descriptive? Sorry...)

I thought my ovaries would be borderline on needing to be removed. They looked normal. NORMAL. They didn't even look polycystic. That definitely surprised me. I was extremely grateful, but definitely surprised. So, we'll have to see about the whole PCOS thing.

So, I don't really question whether or not I did the right thing. Right after I had surgery, even though I was in pain, I felt physically better. It reminded me of how I felt after I had my gallbladder removed. I just felt better, like something that was making me sick was gone. That's the best way I can describe it.

Hopefully I will continue to heal well, and things will continue to get better. I still have no idea how I am going to take care of my little boys when Shane goes back to work, but we'll just have to take it a day at a time I suppose. Maybe a solution will present itself. :)