The Hannah Way Series| Part 4

Hey Readers! Welcome back to another entry of The Hannah Way Series. It has been over a month since the last one and although it has not been intentional, I do want to apologize for the delay. As most of you who follow my socials know, my husband and I bought our first home on October 10th; so, from closing day to present, we have been busy getting everything together so that we can be comfortable coming home after long days of working and schooling. By God’s grace we have managed to furnish our entire home quickly and all that’s left is finding artwork for the walls and the smaller things that make a house feel more personalized to the both of us. Those things I am happy to take my time in doing so it is not a top priority at the moment. Aside from the home, my husband’s business has also been time consuming. He’s on his way to having 10 solid contracts in less than six months of the launch of the business which has made our schedule so full, we ended up needing more help. With that said, we thank God for the favor and provision he continues to shower us with…I just have to write and schedule more entries so that we don’t miss a beat over here :)

In part three of this series, I was preparing for my second procedure, and we were planning out who would be able to help me with recovery while my husband worked. The next few weeks happened at what seemed to be lightening speed. We closed on our house on 10/10/25, painted, cleaned and packed up our stuff to finally move into the home around 10/25/25, I went to my pre-op appointment on 10/27/25 and my procedure was scheduled for 11/19/25. This gave us a little less than a month to furnish it and make it comfortable enough for me to be able to recover there without any worries. It was a lot. After meeting with the necessary doctors, there were moments of hesitancy. The doctor who was scheduled to do my operation would call me throughout this time to rehearse the game plan with me but would always repeat the reason they would typically perform this kind of surgery. She’d say things like “Normally we would perform a full procedure to remove both the endometriosis and the fallopian tubes. This greatly enhances the chances of conception via IVF”. Whenever she’d bring up the conversation of taking both of my tubes, I’d reply the same way. “I know that my left fallopian is normal and capable of working fine once the endometriosis is removed, I do not see a need in removing it and neither did my first doctor.” Each time, she’d concede and apologize because she “just” looked at my chart again and read what the previous doctor wrote about it.

It made me aggravated. To have to consistently advocate for myself about keeping my fallopian tube to the same doctor who will be doing my surgery was a bit scary. Would she listen to me on the day of the procedure? or would she go in and just do what she wants because she feels she knows best? I remember even telling her that I’m mentally prepared to lose the abnormal tube, I am not prepared to lose both especially when I know I don’t have to. She would always seem to respect it in the moment, but I never felt fully heard. It made me think about how real it is to know that hospitals are businesses too. They make more money upselling you on something you don’t need by making you feel like your case could benefit from it. Of course I could benefit from IVF, but what it would take for me to put my body through just to get to the implantation stage is more than we can handle and afford right now. And for what? the same 50-50 chance to see if the embryo will hold and the pregnancy will be viable? That is the gamble with any woman trying to conceive. Just because the embryo sits in the uterus does not guarantee that the baby will make it full term. Only God can dictate that. Moreover, I have written proof of my left tube being normal, my ovaries looking amazing and my uterus sitting pretty. IVF was not an automatic option for us.

To calm myself down after those phone calls, I simply allowed myself to be present with my husband and the shopping experience for our home. That was fun. He wasn’t excited to spend the money, but he kept his word in allowing me to get what I saw fit and we had a good time. My grandmother then flew into town on 11/17 and stayed with us for two weeks. The night before surgery, I washed with the antibacterial soap they required me to use. I did it again the morning of. We were out of the door and on the way to the hospital by noon, arrived and checked in. My surgery was scheduled for 1:30pm but they were running behind so I didn’t go into the O.R until closer to 4pm. My grandmother stayed in the back room with me until my husband got there around 3pm due to work. They only allowed one person to be in the back with me this time so they switched out as soon as he came. I told the anesthesiologist the same thing I told the last one back in May… “Load me up Doc, show no mercy”. He laughed. We verified with the doctor one last time that the plan was to remove the abnormal fallopian tube only. She agreed, I signed the papers and before I new it, they shot the cocktail into my IV port, I kissed my husband, and it was lights out seconds later.

My surgery lasted just under 3 hours long. They removed all endometriosis tissue, my abnormal fallopian tube, a small fibroid at the base of my uterus and a small cyst. Per my husband, they kept me in the back about an additional 45min before they let him come see me. When he got back there, I was in and out of sleep and whenever I woke up, they’d ask me my pain levels and they were always bad. It took them a while to control my pain so much so that they began talking about if it would be better for them just to keep me overnight. When they finally got it together for me, they wanted me to use the bathroom to ensure that I could go home. I did. I only remember them asking me about my pain level once and I remember looking at the toilet seat in the bathroom because drugs or no drugs, I’m generally not sitting on a public toilet (haha !) The nurse said “don’t worry, we’ve cleaned it for ya, it’s completely clean”…I don’t remember it but I’m sure I just sat down and went to the bathroom. My husband said we were the last people to leave that section of the hospital because I kept falling asleep. My next memory was sitting in the passenger seat of his car pulled over at some kind of gas station, taking more pain medicine. Soon after, we made it home.

We slept in the guest room of our house because the mattress was firmer than the one in our bedroom. They put me in bed and my husband slept on a pallet next to the bed because he wanted me to stretch out however I may have needed to. The next five days consisted of light meals, pain regulation and sleep. My grandmother did everything during the day and when my husband would get a chance, he’d come home, make a meal in the crock pot (since my grandmother can’t cook) and take the night shift. My house stayed clean, the laundry was done and I was able to just relax. Everything went as planned. We hosted Thanksgiving the following week at our home as well. My dad, his lady and my cousin drove in to be with us. We had a full house, and it was awesome. I was able to do a bit of entertaining, but I would start hurting after a while of walking around. I turned into the person who needed the electric cart in the grocery stores. It was alright. I didn’t want to be stuck in the house when they came and the doctor did encourage me to walk as exercise so I did what I could and whenever we’d get home, I’d take medicine and lay down for a couple of hours.

On the date that this entry is posted, I am still in recovery. I am not in pain anymore but the side where they removed my tube is still pretty tight which limits me on the amount of bending or twisting that I can do. It’s uncomfortable but it is not painful, so I get through it without the pain medication. I could take it but it makes me sleepy, so I choose not to. My extended family left two days after thanksgiving, so the house is back to being our little bubble. It’s been a journey. I am happy to have finally been able to get to this point and be in recovery. Statistically, my chances of conceiving naturally are 50-65% with the scar tissue removed. I also started taking my prenatal again this week to help get things prepped for baby when we begin trying again. I have a post-op appointment coming up soon but i’ve already seen the test results of my surgery. All tissue removed has come back benign with 0 indications of cancer found. Praise God! With a stage 4 diagnosis, I’m certain that cancer would have been a worry that my doctors just didn’t want me to think about but they had to test for anyway.

At the post-op appointment, I can just ask about the fun stuff. When is the best time to begin trying again. From what I’ve researched, it is safe to begin trying after 2 months of this kind of surgery. The internal inflammation and wounds will be healed enough by that point that the chances of ectopic pregnancy or implantation inside of an already inflamed uterus are significantly decreased and safe for both mom and baby.

If true, this means January would be a great time to start trying again and like I’ve been saying for the past few weeks, I could be pregnant by my birthday in February. It’s exciting to think about! What an awesome 30th birthday gift from God if that happens. Time will tell and God is ultimately in control so we will see what he chooses to do in our lives going forward and I will keep you updated every step of the way RIGHT HERE! The onesie we bought for our baby is sitting in our room and I look at it everyday. I have to look into how to post pictures in this blog so you all can see it too. It’s the cutest and it could be the outfit we bring baby home in when the time comes since it’s so small. We shall see!

Thank you all for being here, please feel free to leave me a comment below! We’ve gone up 7 more subscribers since the last entry which made me smile knowing that through this series, we’re building a little community. Until next time, God bless you!