My throat felt swollen and the tears were burning behind my eye lids. But I couldn’t let myself go there….not yet… not yet…

I couldn’t remember which way I had come from or what direction I had to go to catch the bus home. It didn’t matter right now though, this large green space with not so much people around was perfect. I just needed to walk around until they both….yes finally, also the older one was sleeping. I could finally let go.

There I was. Somewhere in a central London park with my hands tightly grasped around the handlebars of the double buggy, where both my children were having an overdue nap. I couldn’t be more grateful for this as I didn’t want them to see me crying.

The explanations, the drawings and complicated words from the consultant that morning went around in loops in my head. Before this appointment I had always heard that ‘they don’t recommend surgery when you are too young’ etc. Now I understood a little more about why. I had a newfound understanding of how complicated it really was.

Before this day I thought the biggest issue with surgery was that it wouldn’t last a lifetime and likely would have to be redone after X amount of years. So I thought: as long as I am aware of that then maybe this could in fact be the answer for me? Maybe I could ‘get fixed’ even if it only was for a few years? But at least it would give me the chance to live my life as I want to live it, now. Now when I am still young, and I am a mother of two young children that I would like to care for and play with without feeling physically limited – and to be able to pursue the active professional career that I really want to do. What if I could get better, at least for now?!

But there was no simple solution. All the different procedures came with so many risks and no option could give me any certainty about actually taking my problem away. And even if a surgical intervention would improve my prolapse, there was a big risk it could cause another problem instead. A problem that didn’t even exist before… There were too many risks and no guarantee a surgery would even get me better than I was today. It was such a disappointment.

I felt stuck.