An Unorthodox Christmas Wish

Are you familiar with the song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas"? Familiarize yourself.



I went to see my OBGYN a few weeks ago and sang this song to him, only I substituted 'hysterectomy' for 'hippopotamus'.

After a battery of blood tests, physical exams, biopsies, etc., I'm excited to announce that my uterus and I will be parting company on December 27.

I never thought that I would be so excited for invasive surgery as I am to have the cursed organ removed.

My uterus, whom I shall call Shirley, and I have had a love/hate relationship. When I wanted Michael, she willingly obliged by the end of the first month of trying. Then when it was time for Noel, baby number two, Shirley was again most accommodating. However, when Morgan and I decided that we wanted a third child, Shirley put her foot down. Repeatedly. And she shouted a lot. To add injury to insult, my period of infertility was also when my heinously horrible menstrual cramps began. I had never experienced a single menstrual cramp until Noel was about three years old. But once they started, Shirley made up for lost time. The first two days of my cycle for the past six years have entailed me lying in bed, wishing that the sharp-toothed spiny tennis ball in my belly would just chew its way out already.

After three years of tears and infertility treatments, Morgan and I decided to quit trying. We had two healthy children; we were blessed and grateful. We got rid of our crib, our car seat, all of the accoutrements that one accumulates with the raising of small children. We looked at the bright side. The kids were (mostly) potty trained and relatively independent. No more bottles, diapers or sleepless nights.

Then Shirley promptly removed her foot. The one she had put down, remember? Yep. I got knocked up.

We were very excited, even though we had just gotten rid of every. baby. item we had ever owned and we had no medical insurance.

So Adam came along, and with his delivery came extensive hemorrhaging and the threat of an emergency hysterectomy. The doctor and nurses were able to stop the bleeding, however, and Shirley got to come home from the hospital with me, firmly rooted in my belly instead of floating in formaldehyde in a glass specimen jar.

I decided, being the frugal and incredibly stupid woman that I am, that no contraceptives were necessary since I had been, for all intents and purposes, infertile for three years. I considered my third pregnancy to be a fluke. Which is why I got pregnant with baby number four when Adam was eight months old. Shirley is a jerk. She has a twisted sense of humor. I taught her a lesson, though, when I had a tubal ligation after Jack was born. No more practical jokes for you, Shirley. Hah!

She has chosen to fight back the only way she knows: miserable, agonizing, wretched periods. She has to go.

Sorry, Shirley. You have no one to blame for this but yourself. Thank you for my children.

Goodbye.