Assigned Triangle at Birth
When you have a uterine fibroid, which is what my bowling ball is, your doctors classify it in weeks according to how pregnant you’d be with a womb of equivalent size. My fibroid is about six months along. And if you’ve been pregnant or read up on how pregnancies develop, you know of the odd custom of comparing the fetus or uterus to fruit (and occasionally vegetables) of varying sizes. So a nongravid uterus is sometimes said to be about the size of a lemon, whereas what I have now is a papaya. That might not sound too enormous, but I’m keeping a lot of other things in my abdomen, and there’s just not that much room to spare.
Fibroids, incidentally, are also likened in size to produce. You’ll read comparisons to strawberries and oranges and even watermelons, as if one’s reproductive organs were full of fruit salad.
In a sense I admire the pluck and can-do attitude my womb is displaying by getting pregnant on its own. I also like saying “six months pregnant with a necrotic lump.” That’s because I’m a creep.
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