Going Back Under the Knife
And discovering a welcome surprise
The nurse pricked my left arm twice before giving up on finding a vein. “I want to keep trying, but I won’t,” she said. “I’m going to find the doctor.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and squeezed my mother’s hand. I’m not good with needles anyway, but especially not after 12 hours of fasting. If I were not reclining in the medical chair, listening to my favorite yoga music, the dizziness might overtake me.
I was in my obstetrician’s office for a relatively minor procedure—a hysteroscopy to remove a polyp in my uterus. I had undergone the same procedure five years earlier, when I was trying to get pregnant. I knew that technically, it was no big deal. But in the intervening years, I’d had a traumatic C-section and nearly lost my uterus, so I was nervous about any procedure involving my lady parts.
The nurse explained that my blood pressure was elevated and I was dehydrated, which made my veins collapse. I couldn’t argue—wouldn’t anyone be anxious and dehydrated after fasting? As she prepared to leave, she mentioned something about having a toddler. “I have a 3-year-old, too,” I said.
She looked at me with instant solidarity. “Ugghh,” she groaned. “No wonder you’re dehydrated.”
That’s when I knew I was in good hands. Everything about this surgical experience felt different from my C-section four years ago. No one I encountered was condescending; they were unfailingly honest and kind.
My new OB, who I’ll call Dr. K, was extraordinarily compassionate. The first time we met, three months earlier, she sat with me for an hour and listened to my whole saga—from fertility treatments to the C-section that felt like sexual assault. She didn’t chastise me for being traumatized. In fact, she had some harsh words for my previous doctors, who should have warned me about the complications that could arise for someone with my history. She spoke gently, outlined my options honestly, and won my trust.
Now here she was, in her scrubs and sneakers, asking me to take a pregnancy test we both knew was slightly ridiculous. Per her instructions, I’d taken misoprostol, the abortion drug, twice in the last 12 hours, to soften my cervix before the surgery. Yet in our post-Roe world, she couldn’t begin the procedure without a negative pregnancy test. “Welcome to The Handmaid’s Tale,” she said, and I went off to pee in a cup.
After the anesthesiologist found a vein in my hand, the rest was easy. I fell asleep, woke up and it was done. There was some mild burning, cramping and bleeding, but for those of us who have given birth, it felt like a mild inconvenience. I got home and took a nap, read a book, let my mom pamper me a bit. By the next day I felt significantly better. The side effects were exactly as the doctor had described—no better and no worse. I felt a surge of gratitude. She told me the truth and took excellent care of me. What an unexpected gift.