Twisting and Nearly Unrecognizable

I had my fallopian tubes removed in May out of necessity—a routine ‘bilateral salpingectomy’ they called it.

We have had a long road to growing our family, including losses, a much-desired pregnancy that was ectopic and ended in abortion, in vitro fertilization, and half a dozen surgeries. I know our story is far from uncommon. We got the pathology report back in June from my May salpingectomy. The findings were benign, but the tubes themselves were described as nearly unrecognizable—twisting and off-color and so many adhesions that my left ovary was stuck to my pelvic wall.

Twisting and off-color and nearly unrecognizable. Sounds like a lot of things right now. The words are stuck inside of me.

As May turned to June and June melted into the Fourth of July, we put a flag up outside of our home that said, “America is for ALL of us,” along with our red, white, and blue door wreaths. We just didn’t really know how to ride the patriotic wave of summer holidays—loving America, being heartbroken by America. Our own childhood apple pie summers curling at the edges with sadness. Sometimes friends, family, and delivery drivers comment that they love our flag. Sometimes people look away. It’s impossible to imagine that this is a controversial message, but here we are—twisting, off-color, and nearly unrecognizable. A hidden disease that festers inside of us and somehow seems to be increasingly welcomed in daylight.

We didn’t know how to celebrate the Fourth of July this year—it’s a feeling that had been growing for some years. Through many porch night conversations while crickets chirped and kids slept, we mostly landed here—America belongs to all of us, and if we don’t teach our kids to love this land and all its people, who will propel us toward a better future? So, we celebrated the Fourth of July with a bang and told our girls that you can love something and acknowledge its deeply painful past and present. Both and.

We are enormously blessed to have our two daughters, and we are also entrenched in the pain of the past and present of trying to grow our family. We are also filled with beautiful hope. Access to abortion care was critical for my life and for our beautiful second daughter, who followed. My OB/GYN is one of the smartest, toughest, kindest women I’ve ever met. She is a steadfast advocate for women’s health. In May, we were getting ready to transfer our embryo when we discovered information about my fallopian tubes that would cut the odds of a successful transfer in half. My fertility doctor said it would be very hard to get a surgery scheduled any time soon by my OB/GYN—she is in demand, and OB/GYNs in Indiana are at an all-time low. But my OB/GYN called me personally the very next morning and said, “I can get you in this Friday? Let’s get this done.” And ladies and gentlemen and all in between, this woman cemented her place in my life as a hero.

And I guess that’s the thing about the twisting, off-colored, nearly unrecognizable pieces of our lives—heroes and hope crop up all over the place. So we celebrate our family, we feel the pain, and we pray for a successful transfer. We celebrate the Fourth of July, we feel the pain, and we pray for a better future in America.