Over the last few weeks, I have debated opening up about my journey so far with my hysterectomy. While I truly feel the calling to be open about my experiences, there is a level of vulnerability that comes with it. Statistically speaking, there are approximately 600,000 hysterectomies performed a year. That is so many women going through a major surgery every single day of the year.

I never thought at age 27 I would have a hysterectomy. There were several factors leading to moving forward with surgery. The biggest factor was the impact endometriosis was having on me and later to find out; adenomyosis as well.
For years, I went to doctors due to symptoms I believed were from PCOS and Endometriosis. Despite the symptoms, I was constantly dismissed and everything came back to being “young” or at times from postpartum. It wasn’t until I was 26 that I had a doctor take me seriously and perform surgery due to the belief I did have endometriosis. The surgery not only confirmed endometriosis, but the severity of it led my reproductive organs to be embedded into each other. While they were able to remove a decent amount of endometriosis, a lot of it was not able to be removed.

There was so much relief finding out there indeed had been things wrong. I was getting to the point where I felt so dismissed from doctors that I was starting to second-guess the struggles I was having. Thankfully, I pushed through and was able to get answers for once in this journey.

With answers came difficult decisions though. I was presented with the option to have a hysterectomy as the next option to cure symptoms and provide sterilization. As the endometriosis was so bad they wouldn’t be able to do the tubal ligation as planned.

It took me 6 months to feel at peace with moving forward with a hysterectomy. Despite knowing my husband and I were very content and happy with only having our son. The emotions and stress of a hysterectomy weighed heavily on my mind. I was at peace knowing that I would officially close my chapter for any future pregnancies. Where I struggled to find peace was knowing that while this was my best choice to find relief with endometriosis, it was not a guaranteed form for 100% relief. 
I hate surgery. The leading up to it stresses me out and I always fear of worse case possibilities. Despite my fears, I decided to move forward with surgery in hopes of being able to enjoy more things in life and not be impacted daily by this pain. 
In March of 2025, I had surgery for a complete hysterectomy removing everything except both ovaries. When I woke up from surgery I was surprised by how little pain I was in. I felt immediate gratification in my choice and felt good all things considered. While I knew the healing process would take a while, I was surprised by how long it had taken. Just like postpartum, I was told 6 weeks of minimal activity to allow my body to heal properly. Magically, the 6-week mark started to show issues of slow healing and began to cause me a lot of frustration. 

For several years I have worked on weight training and have grown to look forward to exercising. I assumed being 27 and relatively active, healing would be quick for me. Sadly that has not been the case. Each week I can do more and have made progress to get back to my pre-surgery levels. However, that has not been the smoothest experience. I find myself reading other's stories on Reddit about the 6 week timeline which is not that straightforward. Some things have healed by the 6-week mark, but that doesn't truly mean you are 100% healed. I can speak with 100% confidence that it is true. As much as I hate to remind myself, a hysterectomy is a major surgery and does heavily impact our bodies. 

While I continue to remind myself that I need to give myself grace. I also like to remind myself of the progress I have made. At almost 12 weeks post-op I can do a half-hour workout with lower weights and not feel terrible pain the next day. I can carry my son who is 40 pounds without immediately feeling like I need to put him down. I can walk longer distances without needing to stop after 5 minutes. I have made so much progress even with my body healing slowly.

There are so many points of view on the internet about how "fast" you should heal from this surgery. I was getting so upset with myself for not being at 100% as soon as 6 weeks hit. I put more pressure on myself to bounce back because of things I was seeing online. It wasn't fair to me to push myself way past my limits because I thought I was being too slow on recovery. For how common a hysterectomy is, there was a lack of information on how the healing process really is. 

The truth is this healing process has sucked. It has stressed me out and caused so much frustration. There were times when I regretted surgery simply because of the slow process of healing. Do I regret the surgery itself? No, it was the best thing I have done for myself. I do regret not giving myself grace soon enough and realizing how big of a surgery it was. The best advice I can give to myself and anyone who has or will go through this is to listen to your body. Just like postpartum, 6 weeks doesn't magically mean you are 100% again and that is more than okay. It is okay to listen to your gut and trust you will get there in your own time.

If you have read this far, thank you!