Love/Hate

As a teenager, it was hell. When it first started, I didn’t know what was happening to me. So much pain often accompanied fainting. My mother kept bringing hot water bottles, which were sweet but didn’t help at all. Nothing helped except a good painkiller and not much later the birth control pill. The birth control pill relieved some of the pain, but the pain was never completely gone. Later, as I got older, I learned to deal with the pain. I learned to scrap one week on my agenda every month. To make sure I didn’t have important appointments, jobs, or other things planned on those days. Of course, that didn’t always work out as planned and I often had to cancel appointments because I was “sick”.

I’ve always known something was terribly wrong. I just knew that. My mother always said: ‘those pains are normal, I also had them when I was young and, most women in our family have painful periods’. But I knew my pain was not the same as the pain she had as a young woman. It wasn’t until I was 30-years-old that it became clear to me after my first smear what it was. I received an urgent phone call from my doctor after the smear. ‘Something is very wrong, and we suspect cervical cancer,’ my doctor said. I immediately had to undergo laparoscopic surgery, after which it was confirmed that it was (fortunately) not cancer but a severe form of Endometriosis. I really had never heard of it, and at the time (2005), there was really very little information about it. My doctor told me that a hysterectomy was inevitable. If I wanted children, I had to hurry, but it would most probably never happen. It felt like a slap in my face, a very hard one.

First came denial. NO hysterectomy for me. No surgery on my body, and I didn’t want to lose my uterus at all. I had never seriously considered whether I wanted children or not. I had not found the right partner with whom I wanted children. I wasn’t going to force that decision now. Then followed by a few years of resignation, ‘life without kids is also a wonderful life’, which was true. I loved my career as an international fashion photographer. I traveled a lot and met my husband, Martin. We had a lot of fun together; he was okay with the idea of never becoming a father. Sometimes I secretly hoped that I would get pregnant ‘spontaneously,’ but that never happened.

When I was 37, I had a thrombosis in my leg. I just came back from a trip to Tokyo via New York back to Amsterdam for work. Strangely enough, it felt like muscle pain. It turned out to be a thrombotic leg. A medical world opened up for me again. And then I decided to start living differently.

I worked way too much, I traveled a lot, often ate quickly, and not very healthy. Slept irregularly, drank alcohol regularly, smoked cigarettes, and had a lively social (night) life. That was no longer possible, I needed to live healthy in order to get better. I quit everything, started eating healthy, sleeping, working less. I learned to run, be outside, live without sugar, meditate, and listen to my heart. I was 38 now and wanted a child. Suddenly there was that feeling, from very deep inside, a voice, ‘I want a child’. I decided to read everything I could possibly find about Endometriosis, and almost 8 years later, there was more information online.

Meanwhile, the pains continued to rule my life, but I still had my uterus that I was determined to use for what it was meant for. Years of terrible periods, disappointment, tracking ovulation, urinating on ovulation sticks, and sometimes pregnancy test that were always white like a clean sheet. Many tears had shed. A life without a child is a satisfying life. I loved my work, I loved my freedom to travel and go out with friends. But once I had decided that wanted to be a mother … there was no way back.

After a year of detox, sugar-free, dairy, meat, and coffee-free, Endometriosis pains became a little less. I remember very well that Martin and I went on holiday to Thailand for 5 weeks, where we both ate, drank (water and coconuts) and moved so consciously. Shortly after returning home, I was pregnant with Finn.

He was born precisely ten years after that first laparoscopic surgery when I was 30. Ten years after the advice of a hysterectomy. I’ve been fortunate, I realize that every single day. My body, despite her shortcomings, gave me, after uncountable months of pain and sorrow, a beautiful son. And I love her for that. I doubted and cursed her so often but always continued to believe in her and I still do.

Yesterday morning my period started. After 30 years it’s still as painful. I have not taken a birth control pill for years because it also contains things that are not beneficial to me. And now that my periods serve no purpose anymore, I’m looking forward to the day they stop for good. These pains may stop.

Love Dee