Bilateral Salpingectomy!

I'll preface this post by begging you to blame the anesthesia for my irrational feelings.

I'm sterile! How could a woman who actively wants to have a child electively CHOOSE to have her fallopian tubes ripped out?! Ugh! It defies the most basic common sense and every sense of womanhood we're born with. These were my parts - happily given away to the surgeon.

Alas, I try to remember, I had to do this IN ORDER to get pregnant. What an ironic twist! My tubes were blocked and semi-blocked. My highest recorded FSH (this past May) was 22 and I'll be 42 in 3 months. Logically I know that ONLY a miracle would have found me rolling in the hay with Vince Vaughn (yummy!) whose world-champ-husky-guy-sperm could break through the semi-blocked tube, find that one-in-a-million crusty old egg that smells slightly viable, fertilize it and create Super-Embryo, able to leap tall buildings err...able to coast back down the semi-blocked tube, find a cozy spot in my uterus, implant and, somehow, manage to remain there for 38 more weeks without being poisoned by the fluid a hydrosalpinx (blocked tube) regurgitates back into the uterus and onto an early embryo, thereby causing implantation deficiency and miscarriage.

Rational enough, right?

But I still think, hey, isn't that Vince Vaughn across the street walking his dog? It's a sign you idiot - you were too radical, yet again!!!

Well, while I try to ponder what our children would have looked like, I'll report on the day's events (for educational and entertainment value):

8:30 AM. Surgery on schedule. I walk into the operating room and am blasted with U2's, Still haven't found what I'm looking for. Indeed, how prophetic! A minimum of ten people are scurrying around on cue, not missing a beat. That feels good - when they run smoothly, I feel better. I tell everyone who asks how I'm doing about my palpitations (on/off for weeks now - been checked out several times by Cardiologist 2 years, one stress echo and all good - maybe one bout with a-fib that resolved on its own but otherwise just benign PVC's - in other words normal). No matter, I'm scared shitless. I sit on the table, just over the little carved-out depression in the table which my va-ja-ja should sit directly over and begin to lie back when the anesthesiologist points to the nurse and to my ass "she's wearing underwear." I was mortified that he noticed. You see, to make matters only more humiliating for me, I got my period yesterday morning - so I had to wear a pad and it sure doesn't hold itself suspended to my undercarriage. She says "it's okay, I'll take it off." She was such a sweetheart and an angel, truly (because she wound up waiting until I was out to take them off of me - sure, everyone got to see it but at least I wasn't conscious during the "show"). They started to put warm blankets all over me - my doctor was actually shivering in the 65 degree room. Man it's cold in there! And then they slid massagers under my legs. Honestly, if I wasn't going to be put under general anesthesia (the thought of which I ABHOR!), I would liken this to an awesome spa day where ten people cater to me, talk about me, run around for me - I could get used to that kind of life; lemme tell ya, it doesn't suck! Dr. M (my Gyn surgeon, whom I LOVE!) puts a mask over my face and tells me to relax. I feel my heart going nuts and can hear it beat erratically on the monitor. I say through the mask (with what had to be real fear in my eyes) "God, my heart" and he is such a honey that he pulls his face right over mine - six inches away - and he says "yeah, I see it but listen to me, you're going to be just fine, think good positive thoughts and sleep; I promise, I'm going to take great care of you" and I wanted to cry, it was really so much in the way he said it, with such sincerity and kindness. Hey, ultimately, some things are out of even his control but I trusted his words and their timing.

And I woke up. But this time and for the first time EVER I woke up IN THE OPERATING ROOM. Wow! Big bulb lights overhead "Sky, breathe Sky, everything's fine - you did great, tubes are out, burned off some endometriosis and your uterus looks great too, I'll see you in a bit." Oh and then I tossed my cookies. I refused all pain meds from the time I was conscious. Can I just say, I don't know how people can become addicted to pain meds. I can handle roller coasters but give me codeine, percocet, vicodin - anything - and I will toss my cookies. It's actually FAR worse than the pain and it depresses my breathing. No thank you!

All and all, I am grateful and feel terribly blessed. I came out of it in one piece, my awesome friend "R" was with me when I got to the pre-release recovery room (rather than the O.R. recovery room) and was on the phone with my other awesome friend "V." I felt really cared for and that was just perfect.

I've spent the last few hours in bed with the most wonderful kids on the planet - my furbabies - lying around me, missing me like I'd been gone for weeks. Thank the powers at be for the innate obsession I have for animals because they've brought me more joy and given me such genuine love on a consistent basis than anything else has in my life thus far. (and I mean that in a very positive way!)

Next step.....in a 1.5 weeks, get stitches out, grab copy of surgery notes for my CCRM file along with pics of my insides (YUK!) that Dr. M sent me home with. I guess I'm good to go at CCRM at day 5-10 of my next period but I might actually wait until 2-3 periods from now.

Ever feel like you just need a little break? :)

Big hugs and kisses to my IF sisters - we have to be some of the strongest chicks out there!