This is it...my last supper! (Dramatic, I know).  But I'm NPO after midnight.  Tomorrow morning I head into Abbott Northwestern Hospital to have my tubes and ovaries out.  I thought I would be more nervous than I am.  I feel pretty calm.  I put the kids to bed and gave them extra hugs and kisses.  I sat down and pulled out the journal that I had started when Colette was an infant.  I battled what I now realize was some postpartum depression.  When she was a baby, I became obsessed with the idea that something was going to happen to me and that I would leave my precious baby without a mother.  The thought of her growing through adolescence and into womanhood without a mother pained me.  So I started writing to her.  It was my way of talking to her, giving some words of wisdom if I wasn't able to be physically present in her life.  After a while, the fog of depression wore off and the journal got put in a box and moved several times (adding children makes for rearranging of rooms and adding on to the house).  After I got my BRCA1 results, I pulled that journal out again and started writing.   Now, to both my kids.  Mostly to Colette (and I don't know why).

So I had a crappy dinner, a nice glass of wine, a shower and now I just need to go to sleep.  Last night I had insomnia.  Maybe I got my jitters out last night.  At least I hope I did.  I will wake up tomorrow, take off my wedding ring and other jewelry and Nathan will bring me to the hospital for 8:30 (Nice that I don't have to be there at the butt-crack of dawn, but a bummer that I can't have a cup of coffee before we head out).  Nate's sister is coming to get Colette off to preschool and to hang with Anthony during the day.  The plan is all set.  I go, I go under, I wake up in menopause.  That's it.  Blech.

I had a moment the other day where I thought that I was making a mistake to keep my uterus.  I have talked with so many women in my shoes that have opted to ditch the uterus too. And then I thought maybe I was being foolish.  I mean, shit...I'm done with it.  No more babies.  Why risk it?  I guess there is a part of me that wants to keep something.  In this process, I will lose my ovaries and my breasts.  I mean, damn!  Let me keep my uterus (unless it turns out to be a giant pain in the ass...then it has to go).

So, instead of completely filleting (is that a word) myself...I will keep my uterus and have a Mirena IUD placed.  It will give me some progesterone, and therefore some protection against endometrial and uterine cancer, especially should I need to go one estrogen replacement for menopause symptoms.  (There is risk in having unopposed estrogen if you have your uterus).  Risk.  I am so tired of hearing that stupid word!!!  There is an effing risk to every damn route I take.

Anyway....enough rambling.  The plan is set.  I'm all-in at this point.  May the universe guide my surgeon's hands to a quick and precise removal of the offending parts!  And may the pathology reports be clear!  See y'all on the other side of menopause!