***Warning, fairly graphic***
Okay so here it is. My girl bits suck… or at least they did.
It started on November 21, 2007. I was in labor with my sweet boy and spent 5 hours pushing. At the end of that exhausting experience I had a baby and a prolapsed cervix. The positive was that it landed me on strict 2 week bed rest after the birth, which meant lots of snuggle time with my new love.
Then on October 2, 2009 I had a lovely second birth. Quick and easy and it resulted in my sweet baby girl. However, I knew things down there were not the same. Something seemed off.
On September 11, 2010 my issues really began. After a busy week of getting our old house prepped for a sale my cervix/uterus prolapsed again. Feeling like a little golf ball hanging out of me. It was uncomfortable and I felt some painful cramping.
Having no clue what was happening at the time I went to the ER. The young and handsome ER doctor that assisted me during my visit casually told me“oh, that’s just your cervix, we’ll just shove it back in and then you can go… don’t forget to follow up with your regular doctor. G’night.” I wish this was an exaggeration. My visit with the doctor took less time than it did for me to undress.
Follow up I did. In fact I got 3 different opinions. All of them said surgery was necessary. 2 of the 3 said I needed a hysterectomy (the third didn’t actually not recommend it, she just didn’t mention the details of what a surgery would entail). On top of that I found out that not only did I have a uterine prolapse. But that I also had a bladder prolapse (cystocele), a rectal vaginal prolaspe (rectocele), and a vaginal vault prolapse.
Yep. At 35 my vagina was basically broken. And if I wanted to get fixed I’d lose the chance to have other babies.
Coming to peace with the fact that I was done, really, really, really done with having kids I made the decision to go ahead with the surgery. January 19, 2011 I had my surgery. It was invasive and long, but it was going to tackle basically 4 surgeries in one. The surgery went well, however the damage was more extensive and they couldn’t fix the rectocele. Which meant at some point, maybe a year or two, I’d need another surgery.
Recovery was long and hard… especially with a 3 year old and a 16 month old. A 16 month old who was still nursing and had ZERO intentions of weaning. But I managed. Week by week things improved and I was finally feeling back on track. I joined Weight Watchers and started losing weight. However, something felt off. My rectocele felt bad. I knew that it wasn’t fixed, but with everything else back in place my doctor was thinking it would be manageable for a bit longer. Nope. It was bad. So 6 months after my surgery I was scheduled for a second one.
I can’t put into words the nerves and emotions that come with these surgeries. Prior to my first surgery I had only ever had my wisdom teeth out. I had NEVER stayed the night in a hospital… I had never had an IV… both of my births were out of the hospital so it was all so new to me. To say the least I was so nervous I caused myself some MAJOR gastrointestinal distress and many sleepless nights.
In reading up on my second surgery, not wanting to talk about with anybody but a VERY select few… I came across this blog post: Let’s Talk Posterior Colporrhaphy. I was impressed with her candor in telling the whole blog sphere about her experience. If you were to google you’d find that there aren’t hardly any blog posts or news articles about these kinds of surgeries. There are some message boards but other wise vagina surgery isn’t a big internet topic. Anyway, she inspired me to talk about my situation.
It’s been 4 weeks since the second surgery. First two weeks were rough, but not even in the same ballpark as my first surgery. Though I am sore, it feels great to be relieved of the symptoms.
The end!
