This morning I realized that, not only do my ovaries no longer connect to my uterus, but I have laid waste, made Charn of, my uterine landscape. (Aitch will forgive me for saying that first to her in an email and then lifting it for this purpose. She got it first, at least.)

I had an endometrial ablation, a surgery intended to ameliorate excessive bleeding and which will, perhaps, end the Red Menace until I'm in menopause anyway. I find myself surprised by the emotional reaction I'm having. It's not, "oh, now I'll REALLY never birth my own babies", just a feeling of passing into a new place, untethered. Almost everyone knows that I love children, am not mystified by them, and don't consider them aliens sent to plague us. I've never wondered what mine would look like - okay, wondered, but never seriously pined to know. I'm not mourning my reproductive future, even if I were still to have one as I approach 40. Those of you in the elementary education world know what old eggs turn into when they make a baby. Not a good idea. Oh my, not usually a good result at all.

So I'm at Café Luna, having chamomile tea to stave off the nausea and contemplating the wisdom or not of eating the bran muffin in front of me. The recovery, physically, is no big deal, I'm just queasy and tired. I won't describe the, um, "down there" symptoms other than to say that there is so little going on that I'm pleasantly surprised. No news is good news.

Sometimes I just get the muffin so I can guiltlessly use the wireless connection. Techno-whore, so sue me.