"If it happens, it happens."

A 29-year old patient lies unconscious on the operating table.
Medical history includes cancer.
Classic Hodgkin's Lymphoma.
Stage 2.
Diagnosed at 26.
8 rounds of ABVD chemo.
Remission since 2021.
Allergic to all mammalian-derived drugs.
Tick bite.
Alpha galactose syndrome.
No heparin.
Porcine-derived.
No Emend.
Anaphylactic reaction during chemo.
Push alternative med response plan in the event of an emergency.

It's 2025 now.
Another day on the operating table.
This time, endometriosis removal surgery.
Finally,
After too many hours in too many months in too many years spent curled in the fetal position waiting for the pain to stop.
There is a team of women who have scrubbed in.
Surgeon. Assistant. Nurse. Anesthesiologist.
Routine procedure.
60-80 minutes in and out.
First, look around, diagnose.
Second, cut out the endometriosis.
Third, send dye through the fallopian tubes to see if the dye stops mid-way, meaning endometriosis tissue has grown in them and blocked them, meaning that a natural and viable pregnancy would be impossible,
or if the dye goes all the way through, meaning the fallopian tubes are open, and meaning, in theory, a fertilized egg could in fact make its way to the uterus.

Eventually,
Information gathered.
Surgery finished.
Sutures made.
Sedative drugs decreased.
Consciousness regained.

Everything went smoothly, they said.

What they did not say was whether or not the fallopian tubes were blocked.
This was because I asked them not to say.

Why?

Back to cancer at 26 --
"Do you want kids? You have to decide now, whether or not to harvest and freeze your eggs. Before treatment."
"What's the chance?..."
"30% of people can still get pregnant after this chemo regimen."
"And 70% can't."
"Correct."

Fertility clinic visit.
"What would it involve?"
Hormones.
Shots.
Surgery.
Test tube.
Fertilization.
Freezer.
Money. So much money.
"All before I start chemo in two weeks?"
"Yes."

"Nope."

It was the right choice for me.
And yet,
Grief still made its home in my chest as I, still freshly an adult, let go of whatever expectations I had of family looking a certain way one day, of birthing a child from my womb.
As the grief lifted in the weeks and months to come, endless new possibilities of family took its place.

Forward to 2024.
We stopped using condoms in the spring.
"If it happens it happens."
Open hands.
Surrender.
9 months passed.
No pregnancy.

"Nurture the ones we are given."
Our marriage vows continue to root us in the truth that there are many ways to be given ones to nurture, whether infant or adult.

Maybe we will be given a biological child to nurture.
Maybe we will help raise other people's children.
Maybe it doesn't matter who we are nurturing, so long as we are nurturing someone, or someones.

Forward to 2025.
I asked them not to say, not because I didn't want to know, but because I didn't want to know first thing when I woke up from another intense medical experience whilst in significant pain whether or not I was going to have to further grieve an ultimatum about the chance of having a biological child.

I chose to have this surgey because of pain, not as a fertility intervention. But, the information they would gather from the surgery would be new information about my fertility.

I could find out one of two things about my fallopian tubes.
1. Tubes are open. Pregnancy is possible from a structural standpoint, but uncertain with the history of chemo.
2. Tubes are blocked. Zero chance of natural conception.

I knew I wouldn't need time or mental space to process number 1. We'd just move forward as we had been. Curious, with open hands.
But I wanted to protect myself in case it ended up being number 2. I wanted to choose when I accessed the results so that, if my fallopian tubes were closed, I could process when I had the space to enter into potential grief, and so I could cry if I needed to without jostling my new raw and painful incisions.

2 weeks passed.
Peter and I moved the sticky notes blocking the real-life photos of my fallopian tubes taken during surgery, mixed in with the photos of my insides before and after they removed the endometriosis tissue, which my surgeon had covered so I wouldn't see them and possibly interpret them before I was ready.
Turns out we didn't know what we were looking at anyway.
We checked the written results my doctor uploaded to on my online patient portal, like I asked her to.
We processed.

2 more weeks passed.
I arrive at my 4-week post-op appointment.
I greet the person who removed parts of my body shortly after I saw them the last time.
"Hey, Doc."
We talk.
Discuss.
Make a disease management plan moving forward.
"How do you feel about trying to get pregnant now that you know your tubes are open?"
"About the same. It's not something I'm striving for. I trust that whatever family outcome we have will be good and right and enough."
"Well, before you go, let me tell you, when we were all crouched around holding our breath, when we saw that dye go through, the whole operating room cheered."

Tears welled in my eyes.

I don't know what to cheer for. To hope for.

But what I do know is that a group of people, many of whom have birthed themselves, standing in an operating room cheering about some small chance of new birth in the life of a stranger on the operating table they'll never see again in this world where sometimes everything feels stuck is an image powerful enough to make tears begin to stream down my face on a Tuesday afternoon.

"So now I'm healed enough to where having a pregnancy wouldn't be dangerous?"

"Yep. If it happens it happens?"

"If it happens it happens."

And if it doesn't happen, something else will happen instead, and it will still be beautiful.

//

Cheers to the Journey, and may your Spirit always reside in a state of wonder.