Mourning a Functional Uterus

I am here. I have come to mourn a functional uterus. Sounds off right? Let me explain.

It’s Wednesday. The sun is in a bright red dress, temptation red lippie, sunflower

scented perfume and beautiful jungle green wedges- smack in the middle of the

Kenyan winter, a contradiction. She didn’t come to play. She’s out in all her glory.

Sadly, she either intentionally or unintentionally did not send out a dress-light memo

to Nairobians. Folk are out in knee-high boots, ponchos and trench coats. So here

we are, an unusually bright Wednesday at the end of the month.

It’s a Wednesday caught in the corner of the month, where the hardest to negotiate

of corners is lying in wait for unsuspecting Nairobians dressed in mkopo-wa-salo

boots. Not sure what my beef with boots in the sun is…we’ll figure it out.

So this Wednesday should have brought with it joy, happiness and a Bamba 50!

Instead, I’m at my desk, neck deep in memories instead of CVs. I am neck deep in

pain- pain that actually makes the back of your neck sore. It whispers my name.

When this pain strikes, it breaks me at my core and brings me to a grinding halt. It’s

been 4 years since I experienced this pain and I had pushed it to the back of my

head, perhaps prematurely. Today, it’s caught my heart captive, ripped it open and it

sits there, making camp.

Desmoid Tumours, Uterus, Tears

It is exactly four years since the doctor delivered his verdict that as a result of

complications arising from housing a Desmoid tumour deep inside my stomach

muscle, I would never carry another child/pregnancy to term. That ill-fated day, only

in my eyes, because I doubt this piece of news shocked God, my world yet again

came tumbling down. The lack of a left stomach wall meant growing my family in the

most natural of ways was no longer an option.

God knew I wanted more kids. The husband had left, but my uterus was still there, vacant, waiting to hold a candle to light the way for the fastest swimming sperm…well, there’d be no swimming here!

So today, for the first time in four years, I let the imaginary umbilical cord strangle

me, choke the life out – it might as well choke me as it is not going to be feeding

any child. But then again, who is God? Stranger miracles have been recorded. And

so as this pain tightens its grip around my neck, I let out a war cry. The kind that rent

our neighbours back in a dark April, as they slaughtered each other over height and

the shape of their noses.

Hot tears make their way down my fat cheeks- and my cheeks are fat! They disconnect phone calls mid-sentence! I can’t laugh, talk and make facial expressions at the same time as long as I have a cell phone to my ear…the call will drop, without fail!

So as the tears were making inroads towards my blouse, I felt deep in my spirit that indeed these tears I cry, I’ll cry no more. I let it rip! I let my cheeks have it. I cry and when I am all cried out, mourned the loss of a functional uterus, I bid farewell to the pain I’d carried for four years.