Divorcing My Ovaries

by Melanie Dale

I’m getting a divorce.

(My marriage is fine.)

I’m divorcing my ovaries. After years of abuse, I’m finally cutting them out of my life once and for good. They’ve played a bigger role in my marriage than I would’ve liked, really emphasizing the “in sickness” in “in sickness and health.” I’m still waiting on the health part. I think Alex didn’t see the fine print in the vows: in sickness and in health.*

*health not included in some models

I can trace most of our problems to these dumb little blobs. Endometriosis started kicking me in the ‘nads from the moment I first got a period.

My Oves: Congratulations, you’re a woman now, and you’ll throw up every month from here to eternity!

Me: The other girls don’t seem to be puking…

My Oves: We’re special! Don’t question our process!

In college when I was wracked with pain, in the fetal position clutching my belly on the hand-me-down dorm room sofa that smelled of stale cigarette smoke, Alex made me a waffle in the dining room and brought it to me with my favorite topping, syrupy cherries. He worried as I popped fistfuls of Advil every four hours, three and a half hours, three hours, scalding myself with the heating pad turned up to high pressed against my skin to try to reach the cramping uterus and stabbing ovaries beneath.

He sat on that same sofa, different dorm room, half a year later when I sobbed, staring at the birth control pill in my hand. I didn’t know what it would do to me, but I was desperate to take the endometriosis pain away. I was recovering from an eating disorder and afraid of weight gain and losing control again. Losing control to too much control, the endless loop of disordered thinking. He encouraged me that it would be okay and I believed him.

Me: You can’t hurt me now.

My Oves: You can tame us but we’ll be lying here, waiting to unleash our fury. Nothing can stop our—

Me: Shhh, bye-bye.

A few years later, married, I went off birth control and Alex and I began the long process of trying to get pregnant. And trying. And trying. My ovaries were a problem. The pain grew month after month.

I had a laparoscopy to try to cut away the endo, end the ovarian pain, and help me get pregnant. As the anesthesia wore off, I felt the familiar twinge. Still there. I hadn’t even starting healing from the surgery and I already knew it hadn’t worked.

Fertility treatment after treatment failed. I took shots to make the ovaries work harder. My ovaries were on a hair trigger. They wouldn’t comply. Alex held my underwear while I spread for the ultrasound wand, again and again.

Me: Why won’t you be normal? The medical people say you’re not behaving the way you’re supposed to. Just ovulate already.

My Oves: On it, boss. Here’s what we’ve been working on. We can ovulate zero or fourteen eggs.

Me: What about one or two? One or two would be great.

My Oves: Oooh, that’s going to be a problem. Zero or fourteen. Those are your options.

Me: I hate you.

My Oves: Oh, ooh, sorry, can’t hear you over the sound of us stabbing ourselves over and over.

With our in vitro baby and two adopted kids, I set out to ignore the pain. I lived my life. My ovaries taunted me like a middle schooler at the bus stop, but I took their estrogen and ignored their twinging stabs.

When the pandemic hit, so did ovarian cysts, and I clutched my mask to my face in hospitals and doctors’ offices monitoring them. Unbelievable. They were waiting for this moment to strike. Were they trying to give me Covid? As the technicians shoved the ultrasound wands up into me, I wondered if I could catch Covid through my vagina. Eventually the cysts shrunk away and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Me: Haha, I won, ovaries. You can’t take me down.

My Oves: *evil laugh*

A year later I felt a lump and it was breast cancer and the pathology showed it was estrogen-based. My ovaries fed the monster trying to kill me.

My Oves: We talked to the murder grape in your boob and agreed to DoorDash all the estrogen he needs to expand his territory. We’re very excited about the potential for franchising.

Me: Let me introduce you to my new friend chemotherapy. Suck it, ovaries.

My Oves: *high-pitched scream* We’re meltinnnnggggg!

Chemo stopped their evil plan temporarily, but they’d be back. We had to shut them down. Like with infertility treatments, I had to get more shots, but this time instead of making my ovaries work harder, we had to make them stop. First monthly shots, then cut them out for good. My doctor asked if I was ready, reminding me, “Once we take them out, we can’t put them back in.”

They’ve hurt me for so long but now that I have to cut them out forever, I miss them. I thought I had another decade with them giving me pain in exchange for estrogen, bone density, and thick hair. I hate them, but I hate to see them go.

Alex holds me carefully. I’m breakable now, so many surgeries and treatments in so little time. He gently squeezes me and tells me, for the bazillionth time, that it’ll be okay.

Our hair is thinning. His knee hurts. My joints ache. His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles and my forehead lines keep me in a perpetual state of incredulity. I’m learning to live without estrogen, day by day, and it’s terrible. The meds I’m on suck out every last shred of it and my body feels like a shadow of its former self.

I stare into his sparkling eyes and take in his beard, which has turned silvery gray. When did that happen? It makes his blue eyes pop and he’s more handsome than he’s ever been, after all these years.

I’m divorcing my ovaries but I’m married to my best friend and we’re growing old together. Sooner than I thought. Forced menopause and all. But this is it, right? We’re living the dream. You get married to grow old together and we’re doing it. What a gift.

Between the pandemic, my cancer, and raising three teenagers, we’ve been in the throes of survival these last few years. But I’m starting to peek beyond survival mode. The other night I started a new list on my phone. Things to look forward to. Most of the stuff on my list is traveling with Alex. We’re starting a new chapter, an ovaryless chapter, but like a thick Stephen King novel, the first half was just weaving together the characters, and now as we head into the second half, the story is just getting started.

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Melanie Dale is the author of four books, Women Are Scary, It’s Not Fair, Infreakinfertility, and her latest, Calm the H*ck Down: Let Go and Lighten Up About Parenting. She hosts a podcast, Lighten Up with Melanie Dale, enjoys speaking at events around the country, and her essays are featured in the Coffee + Crumbs’s book, The Magic of Motherhood. She and her husband of 20 years spend their days in the Atlanta area trying to survive the teen years. It involves a lot of coffee and sarcasm.

Photo by Jennifer Floyd.