the constellation of our stitches
things I've learnt and want to share about reproductive surgery
‘the stitches will dissolve over the next fortnight’
They didn’t. I tweezed them out myself a month later. I stared at the thick white thread as it stubbornly stared back.
Years later I have a small white laparoscopy scar beneath my belly button that could be an old piercing scar if you didn’t know better. I have other, larger reproductive surgery scars. Only I know what they truly represent and all the stories that are held within them.
It has long surprised me that we don’t talk about reproductive surgery more.
Laparoscopies, hysteroscopsies, dilation and curettage, myomectomies, endo removal, ectopic surgery, egg retrieval (and no doubt other bodily intrusions that I’ve missed here) - they’re largely a hidden event. We are poorly prepared for what they involve and what we might expect from recovery - and we recover in private.
If you too wear the physical and emotional scars of these procedures I dedicate this piece to you and all you endured. The scars that are now a part of you, the visible and the invisible - they deserve to witnessed in terms of their depth and significance.
If you’re reading this and about to have reproductive surgery, here are a few things I wish I had known then - from the pragmatic to the more nuanced.