My womb isn't laughing.

hys·ter·ic - hiss-ter-ik

NOUN: a. A fit of uncontrollable laughing or crying. b. An attack of hysteria.

ADJECTIVE: Hysterical.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin hystericus, hysterical, from Greek husterikos, from huster, womb (from the former idea that disturbances in the womb caused hysteria).

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This time last year, I never thought I'd be begging for surgery. I knew there was something wrong with me, if the endless loss of tiny human lives at the hands of my reproductive tract were any indication. But no one let on that it was anything structural.

I submitted myself to test after test. My arms were tracked up and marred from blood draws, my blood supply leaning towards anemia. I was weak, emotionally and physically. Cramps came with the territory. You miscarry, you cramp. Periods hurt. I'd always had painful periods, so I never thought about it.

Then this year.

I carried a beautiful packet of cells for 9 weeks before learning that she, too, would suffer. This time it was a genetics issue. However, my body didn't want to release the pregnancy in a "normal" manner, so I had to succumb to a surgical procedure. Since then, my cramping has increased tenfold and I began to develop mondo ovarian cysts.

A month ago, my doctor suggested endometriosis. Symptoms include painful, giant, nevershrinking cysts (check); menstrual pain (check); bladder pain (check); IBS-like afflictions (CHECK CHECK CHECK); chronic menstrual bleeding (including clotting) (check). Why no one connected this before is a mystery.

So January 10 at high-noon I will be going under sedation. They will slice two holes in my skin and inflate my body with a large volume of a gaseous substance and send a camera and laser inside to seek and destroy any endometriosis that may exist. Or scar tissue. Or adhesions. Or Jimmy Hoffa. Or anyone/anything else that is hiding from the common eye inside my body. I will take "two days to recover". [edit: I have been told that two days is actually bullshit. But since that's all my employer will allow, I guess I will have a painful rest of the week in my chair at work. Thrills a minute.]

If there is endo present, we have been instructed to consider serious measures to get pregnant soon and fast before it returns. As we all know that is no comfort. "Soon" and "fast", when it does actually happen that way, do not always equal happy, healthy and beautiful pregnancy with butterflies and lollipops. It means fear. It means cost. It means terror. Most likely it means crying... lots. But it is a limb I am willing to climb out onto if necessary.

At this point, before I know the results of a procedure I have yet to endure, I feel a lot. I feel remorse for not suggesting this long ago. I feel happy that someone is looking into the pain (oh GOD THE PAIN) of my month-long cramps. I feel anxiety of what's likely to come. I feel fear for the expenses we may incur if our useless asswipe insurance won't cover the procedure. I feel nervous that the results may ring with yet another "everything looks normal". I feel angry that this is happening at all. I feel hopeful that afterwards we can potentially move onto IVF and increase our chances of finding eggs in my ovaries that aren't scarred with my poor genetic material.

I sure as hell don't feel hysterical, however. Even if the feelings are coming from my womb.