The First Baby Shower After My Hysteretcomy.

I didn’t expect it to hit so hard.
I had marked the baby shower on my calendar weeks ago—picked out a gift, wrapped it with soft pastel ribbon, even found a cute card with a silly little pun. I told myself I was okay. This was for her, not me. This was about celebrating life.

But as I stood there in that warmly decorated space, surrounded by the scent of cupcakes and laughter and the rustle of tissue paper, something inside me began to unravel. It was slow at first. A small tug. Then another. Until the unraveling became a collapse.

They passed around the tiny onesies. Rubbed her belly. Made jokes about swollen ankles and baby kicks. I smiled and nodded. Played the games. Ate the cake. But I felt like a ghost.

Because while everyone else saw a celebration, I saw a reminder. A sharp, glinting echo of something I’ll never have.

I quietly slipped into the bathroom at one point—"just to freshen up." The truth? I needed to fall apart in silence. I sat on the closed lid of the toilet, holding a balled-up paper towel to my face, doing everything I could to cry without making a sound. Because how do you explain to someone that you're grieving a uterus?

How do you tell a room full of women laughing about birth plans that you feel like less of one?

I thought I had made peace with my hysterectomy. I thought the physical healing meant the emotional part would follow. But nothing prepares you for the moment you stand in a room full of fertility when your own has been taken from you. It’s a special kind of lonely.

People like to say, “You can still have a baby shower one day.”
They say it gently, as though that makes it true.
But it’s not the same.

I won’t carry life in me.
I won’t know morning sickness or swollen feet or the first flutter of a kick.
If I’m ever a mother, it will be through another path—no less real, no less meaningful—but undeniably different.
And I won’t get that baby shower.
The one where the glow is yours. Where they ask about cravings and ultrasound photos and nursery colors.
The one where you are the fertile goddess at the center of the circle.
That version of the story is closed to me.
That grief has no finish line.

After the party, I smiled in the group photo. I hugged her tightly. I meant it when I said I was happy for her. I truly was. But in the car ride home, the ache returned like a shadow. And it stayed with me for days.

Grief like this doesn’t have an off switch. It doesn’t respect your calendar or your healing timeline. It lingers. It attaches itself to moments you didn’t expect. Like baby showers. Or lullabies. Or the empty space where your womb used to be.

I’m learning that you can carry joy for others and sorrow for yourself in the same hands.
That love and anger and gratitude and grief can all sit at the same table.
It’s bitter. And it’s sweet.
And it’s okay to cry in the bathroom.
It’s okay to feel what you feel.
Even if the world doesn’t always understand why.