A Place to Call Home

I figured while I'm at it, I might as well continue this anatomy lesson. Next in line- the uterus. The organ that a fertilized egg will nestle into and call home for nine months (calendar months not by weeks of course- another blog post for the future maybe?). The uterus is pear shaped and about the size of your fist on an average day. Once you are in your later stages of pregnancy it is a heck of a lot bigger than that. Here's where it gets interesting- technically it's a two-part organ. In addition to this pear shaped portion we are most familiar with that is actually called the corpus, it continues as your cervix. This is the yellow brick road for sperm to follow to get to the prized possession, and also the freeway to get Aunt Flo the heck out of there.

Here's the exciting part- my uterus is in working order. Always has been! Here's the bad part. Since my ovaries never released an egg, the uterine lining was extremely old. While everyone else renewed their lining typically every 28 days I went as long as 550 days without renewing it. This can lead to some serious problems down the road including uterine cancer. Now don't panic if you aren't getting Aunt Flo every month. It is completely normal to not have a period every once in awhile due to a random annovulatory cycle or because of breastfeeding. These are things the body is aware of and can manage. It's when the cause is from an external factor such as PCOS that you run into problems. Here's to hoping we have finally figured out how to make my ovaries work, which will finally keep my uterus safe. Who knows, maybe we'll get a fertilized egg, and our lil' bean sprout will eventually find a place to call home.