Womb Stories

Anel

Rinse with cold water, never hot. Hot water cooks the protein from the blood into the fabric. Don’t leave a trace. Don’t let anyone know or see what’s happening to you.

It’s a hushed act, cleaning out blood stains, hiding blood stains.

On holiday as a young teenager with my family, we shared a house with strangers. I remember waking up in the middle of the night, lifting the sheets and seeing that red stain, feeling my heart contract and drum-beat in my throat. I woke my mom and together we tiptoed like intruders between sink and bed, washing the blood from the sheets. Cold water, a bar of soap, towel rails used as washing lines. No words were exchanged, only the understanding that this was something to be kept between us.

Writing this has woken that feeling of wetness beneath me. Spreading my legs to see the familiar cherry red smudge staring spitefully back at me. It has become a trigger of so many things. Years living with undiagnosed endometriosis and adenomyosis. Memories of abuse and assault. Shame is stitched into the blood stained sheets, passed from my grandmother to my mother, from my mother to me.

Untangling the knots of trauma and illness is, I am learning, nonlinear. Some days I see the channels between my body and my mind, and I can make sense of it all. Other days I just hurt, everywhere. I’ve been working on reimagining what it means to be sick and what it means to be a survivor. Reframing inherent shame has been the hardest part.”

Deborah

When I fell pregnant in 2016 and went for my scan, I discovered I had a heart shaped uterus or a bicornate uterus. I had two horns, and my pregnancy was in the right-hand side. I also had a horseshoe kidney - my kidneys never separated and they were sitting in my abdomen and not my upper back.

At 19 weeks I had a kidney infection that made me go into preterm labour and I was rushed to hospital. I almost lost the baby then as my membranes were already bulging. Miraculously she went back in and I recovered. I had to have a kidney stent to help the infection but otherwise I was okay.

I was monitored weekly by a urologist and my gyni and placed on modified bed rest but I kept working. I was mugged at a launch event at the Labia for my husband’s work, and had a bit of a panic attack. The next day, I noticed the baby had stopped moving. We tried everything to get her to move again, but nothing.

I went to the hospital, it was a Sunday, and the nurses couldn’t find a heart beat. Our baby had died at 27 weeks.

I was sent home, and on the Tuesday took medication to encourage labour. This was meant to be a slow process with an epidural but my body reacted very quickly. I was rushed to hospital and went into spontaneous labour and delivered our baby still born very quickly on the 16th of November 2016.

We named her Sage. We got to spend some time with her, holding her and looking at her. She was perfect. This tiny little perfect being.

I got pregnant again about six or seven months later. This time a boy in the left side of my uterus so we called him lefty. I was spotting for most of the pregnancy and felt really crap. I was so anxious. It was awful. I was a bridesmaid at a wedding and I remember hating every second because I was so scared I was losing the baby.

As a part of our plan I went in to get a preventative cervical stitch at 17 weeks. The doctor was pretty shocked to see that my cervix had already started opening, she performed the emergency stitch and I had to lie in bed with my feet above my head in hospital until it had calmed down. Three days after the stitch (I was still in hospital) I had a bad feeling, not physically just in my heart and got the doctor to come in from home to scan me. It was 9pm at night. I was right. Our baby had died.

The doctor removed the stitch immediately and my waters broke right then in the ward. My body was already pushing our baby out. I was rushed to surgery. I don’t even remember seeing my husband. All I remember is hugging my gyni when we saw the baby had died and her saying she didn’t know why. I was taken back to the ward and I just remember being very cold and feeling chills all night. Like a very bad fever. My gyni came to me first thing in the morning and sent me straight to ICU. I was in septic shock.

I was in ICU a for about two weeks, they couldn’t figure it out. Finally they deduced it was fibroids on the outside of my uterus that had gone septic as the baby had been taking all the blood supply. I almost died a couple of times in the process, organs shutting down etc but finally I was well and they discharged me after a month in hospital.”

“I took some time to get better. Went for a billion tests on my kidneys. Had more surgeries to remove the septum and make my uterus into one instead of two. I got a permanent stitch put into my cervix.

Then we braved it again and got pregnant in Feb 2018 (that’s always been easy so at least we can be thankful for that). I was monitored by a urology team and my gyni throughout the pregnancy.

I had to take a large amount of hormones to calm my uterus (gained a whopping 30kgs as a side effect). Antibiotics every second week just in case. Testing my urine daily and sending if off to labs once every two weeks. All sorts of drugs. I was on modified bed rest for most of the pregnancy with my employers letting me work from home. I was in hospital for the high risk period of 26-29 weeks.

My gyni didn’t want to be a day too early or a minute too late. My stitch is high and attached to my bladder so it would be very dangerous if I went into spontaneous labour as I had in the past. I got food poisoning at 34 weeks, went to hospital and spent all night running to the loo. I was so scared. In the morning my doc did a c-section and she confirmed that I’d started going into labour.

We got our timing right.

My daughter Cassidy Violet was born at 34 weeks at 2,3kgs on the 7th of September 2018. She spent a week in intensive care instead of the anticipated 4-6 weeks.

She’s strong and a fighter and the best thing in my life.

Monique

It was 2012 and I was 29 years old, a first-time homeowner in a well-respected neighbourhood, married for two years, and a fur momma. Some might say my husband and I lived the ideal life but that all changed when we started trying for a baby.

After a year of not conceiving, I knew something was wrong and went for an HSG test to determine the health of my reproductive organs. I entered a large room with white walls and a cold metal table that I had to lay on. The radiologist and her team were precise, wasting no time getting started. The contrast material—a substance used to improve images of the inside of one’s body—travelled through my vaginal canal, cervix, uterus, and lastly my Fallopian tubes. The diagnosis was delivered right there on the cold table – a blockage in my right fallopian tube. Though I was clearly devastated, the radiologist techs left the room giggling. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were laughing at me.

My husband Omar and I agreed that we’d try IUI (Intrauterine Insemination). The day of the procedure arrived, and I was strangely excited, certain that this would work. Once again, I was on my back, Omar standing to my right, our fertility specialist at my feet, just the crown of her head visible.

In went the IUI catheter, a slight pinch, much like a Pap smear. When the doctor left, Omar and I laughed nervously, hoping—naively—that this was it. The procedure was unsuccessful.

After that my husband was determined to conceive naturally. I still had one fallopian tube, a significant number of eggs, and was in the best shape of my life, he argued, we should just keep trying the good old-fashioned way. Four years went by, and still I wasn’t pregnant. Worn out by the endless letdowns—month after month, year after year—I located a new fertility specialist and set up an appointment. This time, the HSG test determined both of my tubes were open, but I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and uterine polyps, which are growths attached to the inner wall of the uterus that extend into the uterine cavity.

In my mind, another roadblock.

I had the uterine polyps surgically removed and started on Levothyroxine to increase my thyroid levels and after three months, I was cleared to try IUI again. On egg retrieval day, July 24th 2016, I was nervous, happy, terrified. The anaesthesiologist and nurses prepped me while Omar stayed in the waiting room and by the time the doctor came in, I was fast asleep. The procedure took thirty minutes and when I woke, Omar was standing by my side, rubbing my arm. I felt at peace.

The next day, my doctor called to tell me the egg did not fertilize. My heart sank as I struggled to process more disappointment. August rolled in. We were eating at our favourite Mexican restaurant when my phone reminded me to administer medication that would suppress ovulation. I put down my fork and made haste to the restroom, giggling to myself as I considered all the things I was willing to do to grow our family.

Omar did an excellent job tending to me after the egg retrieval and the next day a nurse called to inform me that our egg was fertilized and in the embryonic stage. "Yes!" we both shouted, laughing excitedly. Our fresh-embryo transfer was scheduled two days later, and only took a few minutes. I closed my eyes as I imagined our embryo finding a snug little spot in which to grow. Over the next two weeks, I did everything I could to keep busy. I stuck the picture of our embryo to the wall downstairs and said to it again and again, ‘Dear baby, it's safe to come, we're ready now.’

The day of our scheduled pregnancy test, I lounged around with our dog Sebastian for most of the day, anxiously waiting for the nurse to call. I was so antsy I could barely eat. Finally, the phone rang. I was pregnant.

Though we can’t control what happens to us in life, we can control how we navigate it. We can connect with others online, seek counseling, enjoy and celebrate our spouses, respect our bodies, continue to work and most of all, thrive.

One or two or no fallopian tubes, we can still do all of that.

Anna

I have endometriosis—the condition where your uterine lining grows outside your uterus—and it’s been really difficult trying to get it diagnosed and treated by doctors.

I was always in pain, bloated and nauseous. Sex made it worse. I had multiple appointments, scans and ultrasounds but doctors kept telling me there was nothing wrong, that I should stop thinking about it so much.

Eventually I met with a specialist who thought it might be a benign tumor so he did an exploratory surgery and found endometriosis everywhere, coating my rectum, bowel, intestines and growing so badly over one of my ovaries that it had stuck to the muscle wall of my abdomen.

After the surgery I bled for about two weeks. I was told it was normal to bleed for a few days but when it didn't stop I got concerned and called my surgeon. He said it was likely that the scalpel had nicked an artery, and if it didn't stop after three weeks I should come in for an exam. The bleeding was heavy, uncomfortable and painful, and it made the whole healing process that much longer and more difficult.

I’ve recovered but my fallopian tubes are so scarred that I have little hope of ever falling pregnant naturally.

Kyla

I have polycystic ovaries so I’ve struggled with weight gain, acne and heavy, irregular periods for years. Just this month I bled into my pants at work and my poor new intern had to tell me. I tried for years to control it with oral contraception but that led to migraines so I switched to the Mirena and gained 20kg.

At 28 I found a lump in my breast, which turned out to be cancerous. I was single and childless, and had to make the spontaneous decision to max out three credit cards and pay for egg harvesting.

Breast cancer in young women isn't common enough for there to be any reliable data on post-chemo fertility so I was advised to freeze my eggs if I could. Chemo brought on menopause—hot flashes and all—and no period for nine months, nine months I spent worrying that I’d never menstruate again. Thankfully my period came back and I lost the Mirena weight but I'm already having skin breakouts and the painful cramping has started again. On my most recent visit to the gynae I discovered I have endometriosis as well. I’ll have to have a laparoscopy—more surgery—to get it treated. It’s demoralising, always having to obsess about my weight, my skin, my period.

I'm not trying to fall pregnant right now, I don't know for sure whether I even want kids. I was certain when I froze the eggs but it was a pipe dream then. Now that I'm in a serious relationship, and it's something we're actively considering, I'm a lot less firm in my position. Having had a double mastectomy, I won’t be able to breastfeed and I’m not sure if that’s fair. I’m a doctor and advocate for breastfeeding... the idea of bringing a child into this world and not at least being able to try fills me with guilt.

Julia

In 2017, after many years of being on contraception, I went off the pill. I’d been diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovaries) in my early twenties and I wanted to see what my body was doing. guilt

I had fairly irregular periods for a while but chalked it up to my hormones adjusting and waited for things to settle. Then, in January of 2018, I started experiencing hot flushes (some call them flashes). I thought it may still be my hormones adjusting but my sister suggested I get tested for early menopause as a friend of hers had been recently diagnosed.

I got a blood test through my GP who said it didn't look good and suggested I see my Gynae. At this point I started panicking, grappling with idea of living with early menopause and what that might mean for me and my body.

Sure enough, my Gynae confirmed the diagnosis, over the phone and in a very matter of fact way, lacking any sort of empathy. I was 27.

That's where a difficult journey started for me.

I had to see multiple different doctors to understand what treatment options were available, as there were widely varying views. Some doctors recommend staying on the pill while others say you need higher doses of estrogen. With estrogen you also need to take progesterone so that your uterine lining doesn’t build up too much. You can take medication continuously or give yourself a week off each month to have a ‘period’. It can feel overwhelming.

I grieved the loss of the option to conceive without significant intervention (I only have a 5% chance of falling pregnant naturally, a donor egg is my best option) and became acutely aware of how much importance our society places on a woman's ability to conceive - perhaps not overtly, but in many small and hurtful ways.

It often feels like having Primary Ovarian Insufficiency, or early menopause, means I have failed in some way, that my value in this world is somehow undermined.

To acknowledge and give love to my ovaries I got a floral tattoo where I imagine my ovary sits, representing life, and my womanhood, for that has not changed.

Sarah

My husband and I started trying for a baby in 2019. A year later and two months into lockdown, I was moody but not pregnant, resentful of the baby bumps that frequented my newsfeed and exhausted by the relentless cycle of hope and heartbreak. Have sex, cross fingers, start bleeding, repeat.

Each month that I speculated and hoped and bled, my feelings of inadequacy deepened. I never stopped to question the misplaced notion that a failing reproductive system is a failing woman. I never sat down to cry, to mourn the child that wasn’t. We just kept going, my husband and I, two mechanical bodies with some unknown cog out of place.

Tired of the perceived monthly failure, we went to see a gynaecologist who specialises in endometriosis, a condition where the uterine lining grows outside the uterus, causing severe cramping and making it difficult to conceive. He examined me and deduced to a 90% certainty that I had endometriosis and needed keyhole surgery to remove it if we wanted a better chance of falling pregnant naturally.

“I perform more than 500 of these operations a year,” he said with unflappable confidence and undeniable charm. “Ten days after surgery, you can have sex again.”

Ten days is nothing, I thought. This is going to be a breeze.

It was 9am on a cold morning in June 2020 when Oli dropped me off at Vincent Pallotti Hospital. He couldn’t join me due to strict COVID protocols and I missed him as I sat alone in the eerily quiet reception area, waiting to be taken to the gynaecological ward.

At noon I was rolled into an open plan area just outside the operating rooms and an unexpected anxiety started clawing at my chest. “You okay sweetie?” the nurse on duty asked, laying a soft hand on my wrist. “A little anxious,” I replied. “Ag, that’s normal just before surgery,” she said. “Lucky we can blame it on being a woman, hey?” I smiled awkwardly, trying not to cry.

After two hours of being operated on, I woke up in a great deal of pain, bleeding into an adult diaper, not knowing how the surgery had gone, or when I’d be able to go to the toilet on my own. My surgeon was leaning over me as I came to and told me something about a birth defect. Turns out he was referring to my cleft uterus, which he’d discovered during surgery and had managed to fix, but I was so groggy after two hours of being unconscious that all I registered was “defect”.

I spent that night in hospital wondering if I’d have to wear a catheter for the rest of my life, if my ovaries were useless, if my period pain would be back with a vengeance. I was too nauseous from the morphine to eat or drink any water, and too sore from my waist down to move. At 4am the kind nurse on duty came to remove my catheter and said I had to pee into a potty while lying on my back. I almost cried with relief when, after fifteen minutes of trying, I was eventually able to go, then cried for real when I looked down and saw that I’d only pissed blood.

My doctor returned at 8am to tell me that I was fine, that he’d taken care of my endo, my cleft uterus and an ovarian cyst he’d found, and that I could go home that day.

I am grateful and amazed that he did all this without invasive surgery, that modern medicine means I might still fall pregnant naturally and not suffer from crippling period pain anymore. But I also wish he’d taken a little more time to sit with me after surgery, to hold my hand and tell me I was okay, that bleeding was normal, that my bladder would work normally again, and that the pain would subside. I wish he’d told me to be patient while I healed because having sharp instruments cut into the part of your body responsible for forming new humans is a big deal.

“Ten days and you can have sex again” did nothing to prepare me for the eight weeks it took to feel like myself again, time I spent feeling as if I’d somehow failed, like my body and mind were not as resilient as they should be. After ten days I couldn’t take a walk round the block, let alone have sex, and I was still struggling to urinate normally. When, after two weeks, the physical pain did subside, my mood remained depressed, and I had no professional or creative drive to fall back on.

Four years after my surgery, I'm still not pregnant and each month that I bleed still hurts. We've tried intrauterine insemination and in-vitro fertilisation and each round of injections, retrievals and testing hurts more than the last. Through this process I've come to both appreciate and resent the stubbornness of hope. There are days I want to be able to give up and others that I'm thankful for whatever it is that won't let me.

Doing this series, hearing others' womb stories and reflecting on my own, gave me space to stop for a moment and feel what it is I've been doing so relentlessly for so long. , something I found its given me a reason to get off the train that I’m thirty-eight and for the first time in my life I’m having open and meaningful conversations about infertility, messy menstrual cycles, hormone imbalances, debilitating mood fluctuations, polycystic ovaries, endometriosis, early onset menopause -- the pain and wonder that come with having a womb. That precious part of a woman’s body that is everyone’s first home.

Eager to quell my feelings of inadequacy, I reached out to a friend who’d had the same surgery a year or so prior and she assured me that everything I was feeling was perfectly normal. She told me of her own three-month recovery journey, and said I should pay no attention to ten measly days. She gave me the space I needed to heal without feeling less-than, and sparked my interest in a photography project that might offer the same space to others.