2025

a short account of a hysterectomy, and a keening for the absent womb

On the 2nd of July 2025, I had a total hysterectomy. My uterus, cervix and fallopian tubes were removed during the procedure. Seven days later, I collected my organs and brought them home. Seven days later, my stitches were removed. Seven layers of skin are perforated in four keyholes to get to the organs so they can come out of the body through the vagina - a very strange birthing of sorts. My organs stayed with me in my house for seven days. On my 36th birthday, I took them to the river near my house, I finally said goodbye to them, and offered them to the water.

I never intended to make a public project out of this experience; however, I have continuously chronicled my lived experiences of infertility, as well as my ongoing struggles with endometriosis, adenomyosis and chronic pain, so here we are. I share this in the hope that I can soften the stigma and an inherent shame I, alongside others, encounter and feel in being ill, in being infertile, and in having to let go of the womb.

I never wanted to be a mother, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a deep sorrow within me. I think of my body - a body that has been ever changing due to these illnesses - not really belonging to me, a body moving in pain, but also in and through pleasure, a desiring body. I think of the body I will never have, the one I never wanted to have, but I have often wondered about - a pregnant body. I think of the body I no longer have and still long for - a menstruating body. While I am ok, I’m also grieving.

As I move through this experience, I think of the women and of the people who also go through these diseases, and those who continue to have their desires not heard, their experience questioned, their stories untold. I think of the sociocultural and socio-historical narratives that are constantly fed to women and people. I think of those who don’t have access to care, choice, or basic menstrual hygiene. I think of women and people pushing their pain and their voice down because they’re too tired or too scared. I think of all the years that can be and are wasted due to a lack of diagnoses and misdiagnoses. These diseases can cause a whole-body havoc, yet they are menacing; they still fail to show themselves in most imaging tests, or when most needed. I think of all the hours, days, and years I have had pain as an incessant companion.

Despite having been often seen as hysterical or dramatic, as have others, I’m very grateful to the medical team who finally listened, cared and didn’t try to convince me my pain was all in my head. People close to me know how hard I fought to get here. My seeming hysteria, my wandering womb, is now truly wandering away from my body. A womb I made so much work with. A womb that broke my heart so many times. I still do not quite know who I am without it, but I’m now getting excited for a life with less pain.

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