Four years after endometriosis took her uterus, Akongzirigo Azitariga Atinganma Talata says she is still grieving the motherhood journey she imagined, but remains hopeful that her dream of becoming a mother is not over.

Below is her write-up

4 FREAKING YEARS AGO.

September 14, 2022.

A date permanently etched into my body, my memory and my soul.

That was the day I underwent a subtotal abdominal hysterectomy.( removal of the womb/ uterus)

One of the most life-altering surgeries a woman can ever face.

Not because I was done dreaming.

Not because I didn’t want children.

Not because I had decided motherhood wasn’t for me.

Quite the opposite.

I wanted it.

I had always wanted it.

I had spent years imagining it.

I imagined the day I would see two lines on a pregnancy test and scream.

I imagined telling the people I love.

I imagined the growing belly.

The maternity clothes.

The tiny kicks.

The sleepless nights.

The scans where I would stare at a little face on a screen and wonder whose nose the baby had.

I imagined rubbing my belly and saying,

“Mummy is here.”

I imagined carrying my baby.

My own baby.

And then endometriosis came and changed the rules of my life.

It didn’t ask permission.

It didn’t care about my plans.

It didn’t care about the names I had whispered in prayer.

It didn’t care about the woman I wanted to become.

It ravaged my body until survival became the priority.

So they took my uterus.

And I said yes.

Because sometimes, choosing life means saying goodbye to the life you thought you were going to have.

And I don’t regret choosing to live.

I will never regret choosing life.

But please don’t confuse that with not grieving.

Because I grieve.

I grieve deeply.

There is a particular kind of grief that has no funeral.

No coffin.

No obituary.

No grave to visit.

No flowers.

No final goodbye.

It is the grief of the unborn.

The grief of a future that never got the opportunity to become a reality.

And I don’t know what you call that kind of loss.

Perhaps the English language simply wasn’t built for it.

Because how do I explain that I miss someone I’ve never met?

How do I explain that there are children I have never held whose absence can still break my heart?

How do I mourn a heartbeat I never heard?

How do I miss a tiny hand that never held mine?

How do I grieve a little voice that never got the chance to call me Mummy?

There are days when I see a pregnant woman and I don’t envy her.

I just wonder.

What would it have felt like to be her?

To have my own swollen belly.

To feel my baby moving inside me.

To lie awake at night wondering whether that tiny human would have my eyes.

To feel labour approaching.

To hold my baby against my chest.

To hear someone say,

“She looks just like you.”

I will never know.

And sometimes, that truth is unbearable.

Because they didn’t just remove an organ.

They removed a possibility.

The possibility of carrying my own child.

The possibility of pregnancy.

The possibility of experiencing a chapter of womanhood I had always assumed would naturally be mine.

And that is the cruel thing about infertility.

People often see the medical definition.

I feel the human consequence.

They see absolute uterine factor infertility.

I see the baby bump I never had.

They see a hysterectomy.

I see the pregnancy announcement I never made.

They see a scar.

I see everything that scar represents.

Endometriosis is a thief.

It stole years from me.

It stole my peace.

It stole my health.

It stole parts of my body.

And eventually, it stole the possibility of carrying my own pregnancy.

But there is something I need to say loudly:

It did not steal my capacity to be a mother.

It changed the road.

It did not erase the destination.

Motherhood still lives in my heart.

It still lives in my dreams.

It still lives in the prayers I pray when nobody is listening.

Maybe my motherhood story will not begin with me carrying a baby in my womb.

Maybe my journey will look different.

Maybe another woman’s womb will carry what my body can no longer carry.

Maybe one day, I will hold a baby who carries my genes, my partner’s genes, our laughter, our stubbornness, our features, our story.

Maybe one day, I will look into that child’s eyes and realise that the dream wasn’t dead.

It was simply taking a road I never expected.

And I hold onto that.

Not because the grief isn’t real.

But because hope is real too.

So today, four years after that surgery, I will not force myself to pretend that everything is okay.

I won’t.

I survived something that changed me forever.

I can be grateful and heartbroken.

I can be healed in some places and still bleeding in others.

I can thank God for keeping me alive while admitting that I still mourn what I lost.

Both truths can exist.

I did not lose just an organ on September 14, 2022.

I lost futures.

I lost pregnancies I had never experienced.

I lost names I had whispered in prayer.

I lost the woman who thought pregnancy would someday be a natural part of her story.

I lost the innocent certainty that if I wanted a baby badly enough, my body would eventually give me one.

But I did not lose my dream of motherhood.

Not yet.

So here I am.

Four years later.

Scarred.

Changed.

Sometimes angry.

Sometimes broken.

Sometimes incredibly grateful.

Still grieving.

Still hoping.

Still believing.

Still here.

And if motherhood finds me through a path I never imagined, I will not care that it wasn’t the road I originally planned.

Because after everything endometriosis took from me,

I refuse to let it convince me that my story is over.

September 14, 2022 took my womb.

It took a version of my future.

It took a dream I had carried for years.

But it did not take my ability to dream again.

And perhaps one day, when I am holding my child, I will look back at the woman who cried on this day four years ago and whisper:

“Baby girl, you didn’t lose everything.

You were making room for another kind of miracle.”

Until then…

I grieve.

I breathe.

I hope.

And I keep going.

Because I am still here.

And as long as I am here,

the story is not finished.

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