By Rosa
I remember the next day when I woke up after the surgery. I remember thinking that I was less of a woman. The womb defines a woman, and that is what came to the front of my mind. I felt crushed. I felt that I had suffered a major loss. I compared it to the loss of a person. I saw it as a dual loss – the loss of a baby plus the loss of a uterus.
My breasts were flowing milk but I had no one to breastfeed. My breasts reminded me of what I had lost. It was quite frustrating and devastating. The only thing that kept me going at the time was the psychologist taking me through therapy. Whenever she would ask me what one positive thing I looked to was, I always said that it was my daughter. Just the thought that God gave me a second chance to raise her was enough for me to have hope in life – hope that I still have a chance to sail through. Even though I had lost my baby, I still had a daughter who loves me passionately. I had someone who calls me “Mom.” I had someone that even if everyone else lets go of me, she looks up to me and that is one thing that I have kept holding on to, up to this date three years later.
I was left with a scar and a painful recovery journey – the inflammation and the swelling in the abdomen, it was quite painful.
The scar itself was another dramatic trigger. I’d go to the toilet, look at myself in the mirror and see that. I just felt like crying all the time. They punctured my bladder when they were doing the hysterectomy, so I had to stay with a catheter for 10 days to help my bladder heal. To date, my bladder still suffers from spasms. I have to live with the pain. Every spasm reminds me of what happened to me, but I choose to see life in another perspective: I was given a second chance by God to live.
My body changed
My bust size changed. I looked like someone who was breastfeeding. My abdomen was still big and I had endless stretch marks with nothing to show for them.
I lost so much weight in the 9 days that I was in the ward. I went down from 75 kgs to almost 63 kgs. I remember coming out of the ward and the clothes that I had put on were sagging. My friends would tell me that my ass looked like a flat ironing board. So you can imagine the pressure I had to gain back my shape.
I overindulging to gain weight. I ended up adding too much weight and weighed almost 87 kgs.
There’s a group on Facebook that a colleague of mine at work was in and she helped me join. It’s called Intermittent Fasting. I managed to lose 14 kgs. I cut carbohydrates and sugars, and I incorporated training. I downloaded some YouTube exercise videos and lost so much weight until my colleagues and friends told me to stop doing what I was doing. So, I became confused. I started to eat again to gain weight so that I would impress them. I think we usually feel we need to impress people instead of impressing ourselves. Following my health crisis, I have learned to appreciate my body. My spouse was supportive and joined in the goal to lose weight. So we did it as a team.
I remember I really wanted to lose weight so that people would not associate my body size with pregnancy loss. I wanted to avoid questions from people: “Why have you gained” or “Why have you lost?” I just wanted to go back to the me before the pregnancy to avoid these questions that would remind me of what I went through.
I was obsessive and exercised for 2-and-a-half hours every day.
I remember one day a colleague asked me, “Why are your boobs so big? You never used to look this way.” That affected me so much that I started breast reduction exercises. It really didn’t work for me much. Then I sat down and asked myself, “Why am I stressing? Why am I doing this? Why do I want to please people? I am who I am. I’m not them.”
Now I just watch my diet and I don’t care what people think of my body or me; it is me. It doesn’t matter if people feel I have bigger boobs or my body shape has changed. I’ve learned to be comfortable in my own skin.
The advice that I have for a woman who is struggling to appreciate her body after pregnancy loss or a hysterectomy is to be you. Never try to please anyone, never try to do any excessive activity like deciding not to eat or overindulging in food that you love just because you want to satisfy others.
Your healing journey starts with you accepting you for you, not others accepting you.
It starts with you looking at yourself in the mirror and telling yourself, “I am enough, I am good. I am who I am, and I don’t care what people say about my body.”
Accepting your body after loss is important for the healing process, especially if you have a scar that keeps on reminding you of your loss. Just look your scar as a testimony. You are still a woman. The womb doesn’t define you as a woman, you have other things that define you as a woman.
When I started to look at other things that define me as a woman, I realized that I don’t need a womb to be a mother. I don’t need a womb to be a good wife. I don’t need a womb to be a good friend. I have very supportive friends who do not even care about my womb. It starts with that and the rest will just fall in place.
I am currently who I am today because of what I accepted. I am who I am today because of who God chose me to be. And that is how I discovered that the pain I went through is where my purpose was planted. I am a transformed human through my pain. I wish to tell anyone who has gone through hysterectomy; anyone who has suffered body shaming due to a pregnancy loss, focus on things that God has intended you to achieve on this earth. You are special.
Read Rosa’s story here:
Rosa is a woman sharing her healing journey in an attempt to help others heal. By opening up about the loss of her pregnancy and uterus, Rosa lets readers into her pain and how faith and family are helping her heal.