Hope in Bloom

A Quiet Chapter That Shaped Everything

I was formally diagnosed with endometriosis in 2016.

But the unraveling began years earlier.

After several years of trying to start a family, I began searching for answers. What I believed were difficult cycles turned out to be something far more complex. I learned my fallopian tubes were obstructed. I wasn’t ovulating. The path I had envisioned toward motherhood suddenly shifted.

Shortly after, I was scheduled for my first endometriosis surgery.

What followed were years marked by recurring ovarian cysts, increasing pain, and profound loss. Miscarriages. Procedures. Waiting rooms filled with fragile hope.

Endometriosis is often described clinically — lesions, inflammation, adhesions — but what it takes from you is deeply personal. It affects your body, your plans, your sense of certainty.

The pain grew more debilitating over time, both physically and emotionally.

In 2020, I was referred to an excision specialist here in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time, I felt fully seen and understood in my care. Excision surgery brought relief and validation — but it did not erase the years before it, or the ongoing reality of living with a chronic disease.

Nearly seven years later, I remain without children.

And I am now navigating the next chapter of this journey — making decisions about long-term surgical care, including a hysterectomy.

That sentence carries weight.

There is grief in it.
There is surrender in it.
There is also strength in it.