i lost an ovary when i was 17 turning 18.

january 2018 was a month spent in and out of the emergency room (pediatrics still, with cartoonish stickers staring at me as i writhed in pain for one reason or another)(i had only been faking a stomach bug in the beginning). i went from doctor to doctor until i landed at a gastroenterologist who told me to go to an ob-gynecologist, who then ordered an ultrasound, in which a cyst was seen.

we went to my mom’s ob-gynecologist, who suggested splitting my stomach open. i’d miss half of february, meaning i’d go over my school’s allotted absences and fail out of 11th grade. we went to my pediatrician, who recommended me to her friend who was an ob-gynecologist, who then referred us to the doctor next door. dr. jose who specialised in laparoscopy gave me a once over, quoted an insane price, an insurance loophole, and reassured me that they’d try to take out just the cyst and that i'd be good in three days post surgery.

there were too many smaller cysts inside. i ended up losing an ovary and a fallopian tube.

“you can still have children, it’s okay.”

my a-ma—my paternal grandmother, who paid for what insurance couldn’t cover, asked if i could still have children. i said yes. my grandma, my mom’s mom, asked the same. there was this invisible pressure of becoming a mother and giving my grandmothers great grandchildren and my parents, grandchildren. why wouldn’t there be? it was all everyone talked about. asked about.

at 18, i wanted to have a nuclear family. two kids (maybe twins, they’re in my genetics, after all) and a husband. marry someone at 26, preferably chinese, and live a good married life.

then my grandmothers died when i was 21 and my dad sat me down.

“you don’t need to get married.” a weight is lifted off my chest; one that i never even knew rested so heavily against me. “you do not need to have children.”

don’t get married young; don’t have a family young. have fun, more fun than you could imagine.

my dad is only 26 years older than me. he says he felt like he missed out on his youth because he was so eager to leave his family.

i haven’t dreamt of motherhood since he sat me down. i’ve dreamt of a partner and perhaps marriage, but the children that used to have such vivid faces and names are now blurred figures in my dreams.

i don’t think i’d be a good mother. i carry too much of my father’s anger and my mother’s bitterness to nurture life. there’s envy and resentment in me so terrifying that i’d be afraid to care for such a tender, soft being. i do not want to raise another version of myself—another daughter who looks at her mother and thinks i never want to be like you; another son who wants to leave so badly, he forsakes his youth and becomes an indifferent old man who has regrets. another child who throws the statement “i never asked to be born” around so freely, it seems like a joke (it is a call for help that goes unheard).

but on the off chance the anger dissipates and the bitterness lessens; the envy shrinks and resentment leaves, and i find myself wanting a child again—i find myself no longer strangled and lost, only following her grandmothers’ wishes—i still have names that i’d like to gift them and some hand me downs i think would still be cute even a decade or two from now.

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

a song to end this post. i wonder if i'll ever look back at this and wonder just how much has changed. i wonder if the children i longed so much for at 18 is something written in my future, or if i'm ending my bloodline.

life is such a curious thing.