After my surgery, I entered surgical menopause overnight. Everyone keeps telling me how lucky I am—and they’re right. I know I am. But alongside the gratitude came a sadness I hadn’t allowed myself to touch for a very long time.

In addition to my appendix, the tumor, and part of my peritoneum, the surgeons also removed my ovaries and fallopian tubes, as well as my uterus. In practical terms, that meant my estrogen and progesterone levels dropped almost to zero overnight. Everyone experiences it differently. Some women feel the effects immediately, others days or weeks later. Some supposedly hardly notice it at all. So far, I’ve been relatively lucky. I get hot flashes, but they don’t last long, and I haven’t experienced the kind that leave women waking up drenched in sweat, needing to change both their pajamas and bedsheets. Lucky. So far.

I’m thirty-eight years old. I’ve lived a little. I was fortunate enough to have a son, who will turn five this year. Lucky again. More and more often, I hear about young women going through what I’m going through now, and many of them have it far worse. Some are only twenty years old. Their adult lives are just beginning. They haven’t even started thinking about having a family yet, or they’ve tucked that dream away into the familiar category of “someday, after…” After I finish university. After I find a stable job. After I meet the right person. After we buy a home. After…

I was exactly the same.

At every gynecology appointment, my doctor warned me not to wait too long to have children. She kept reminding me that I wasn’t getting any younger and that, based on what she saw on ultrasound, I might have serious trouble conceiving within a few years. To be honest, I can’t even remember exactly why anymore. I used to have fibroids. Or maybe she simply enjoyed scaring me. I asked a friend what she thought. She told me that life would never be perfectly arranged and that if I wanted children, I shouldn’t wait.

So eventually, I didn’t.

My former husband desperately wanted a child, and I worried that if I delayed too long and my doctor’s predictions turned out to be true, it might put additional strain on our marriage. The marriage eventually fell apart anyway, but I didn’t know that at the time. I made the decision I thought a “good” wife and future mother should make.

In 2021, our son Mikuláš was born.

So technically, I’ve done it. Mission accomplished. In a strange way, perhaps I even owe a little gratitude to that alarmist gynecologist. I also have many women around me who have already gone through menopause or are going through it now, so it’s not some mysterious concept I’ve never encountered before. For years I’d been reading articles, listening to podcasts, and trying to prepare myself for perimenopause so that the transition would affect me as little as possible. In theory, sudden menopause shouldn’t have shocked me. It shouldn’t have thrown me off balance.

After all, I’d already had everything.

Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself.

But deep down, there was still a quiet longing.

The beginning of motherhood wasn’t easy for me. Then my family fell apart. I tried to enjoy every moment with my son, but there are things I wish I could do over. Moments I wish I could relive differently. Not necessarily better—just more present. I wanted another chance to experience all of it from the beginning. Another chance at a complete, happy family.

There’s another reason, too.

The more time I spend with my son, the more I see how different children are from adults. Sometimes, honestly, they’re better than we are. I was never particularly drawn to children before I became a mother, but through him I fell in love with them. And now that possibility—that whole chapter from the very beginning—is simply gone.

Meanwhile, everyone keeps reminding me how lucky I am. I already have a child. I’m alive. It’s only menopause. Every woman goes through it eventually.

So I never really gave myself permission to stop and ask how I actually felt.

Not what I should feel.

Not what grateful people are supposed to feel.

But what I genuinely felt underneath all the gratitude and relief.

A few weeks ago, I was talking on the phone with a friend across the ocean. The kind of friend who says exactly what’s on his mind.

“You didn’t freeze your eggs? Why not? You always said you’d like more children. You’re not that old. You could easily have had another child in a few years. I honestly assumed you’d frozen them. I know you’re not with anyone right now, but what if you meet someone? Or you could have done it just to keep the possibility open for yourself. I don’t understand.”

A monologue.

Then one sentence landed.

“Just to keep the possibility open for yourself.”

That was the sentence that broke something open.

The tears came instantly, and I couldn’t stop them.

For years, I’d made decisions for other people. And in the end, many of those things hadn’t worked out anyway. The second child wasn’t something I wanted for a partner. It wasn’t something I wanted because society expected it.

I wanted it for me.

It was my own wish.

Despite all the uncertainty, I had truly loved being a mother.

“Are you crying?” he asked. “We’ve known each other for two years, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard you cry. But nowadays you can use donor eggs. You could still have a child that’s sort of your own.”

“How?” I said through tears. “I don’t have a uterus.”

Then I started crying even harder.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I didn’t think. I’m terrible at this stuff. I honestly didn’t understand how it all worked. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it would hit you this hard.”

“It couldn’t have occurred to you,” I replied. “Because I never talked about it. I always took everything in stride. I focused on the positives. I was grateful for what I had. You couldn’t have known.”

Then I paused.

“Actually, I don’t think I knew either.”

And that was the moment it all finally caught up with me.

Since then, I’ve cried several more times. Every time, I’d stop myself after a few minutes and think: That’s enough. You’re lucky. Be grateful. Look how well things have gone. Think about all the people who have it worse. Think about how expensive children are. Think about how lucky you are to be alive.

And all of those things are true.

But grief doesn’t care.

Grief doesn’t ask how much money you have in the bank. It doesn’t care whether you have a partner, how many children you have, or whether you still have a uterus.

You simply have to go through it.

At some point, after enough tears and enough acceptance, a day comes when you stop crying. Not because someone convinced you to stop. Not because somebody reminded you to be grateful. But because you’ve finally made peace with the new reality.

You can’t rush that process.

Everyone does it differently.

These days, I no longer think comments like, “Well, at least you already have one child,” or “Be glad you don’t have more, they’d drive you crazy,” or “Forget menopause, the important thing is that you’re alive,” are particularly helpful.

Anyone experiencing loss needs something much simpler.

They need to feel seen.

They need to feel heard.

And if possible, they need space to be seen and heard even in their pain.

My parents have always been there for me. They have helped me, hugged me, and loved me more than I can ever express. But we never really talked about difficult emotions. That’s simply not how things were done.

Negative feelings weren’t discussed.

Talking about them was considered weakness.

Or a waste of time.

And above all: don’t talk about them publicly.

So whenever I cried as a child, I usually heard some version of:

“Oh, come on. Stop crying.”

What I understand now is that I never truly dealt with the sadness or fear. I simply postponed it. Indefinitely.

And it accumulated.

The older we get, the more life happens. Much of it painful. One loss piles on top of another until eventually something has to give. Either we break under the weight of it, or we learn how to carry it.

In my experience, the sooner you’re willing to sit with it and really look at it, the sooner you can stand back up and move forward.

This isn’t universal advice.

Everyone is different.

Everyone is in a different place.

Everyone needs something different.

This is simply where I am right now.

And this is what I need.

It’s not an easy path. In some ways, it’s the opposite. If you’re not careful, you can get lost in the sadness and struggle to find your way back. That’s why many of us need time to learn how to do this. If we weren’t taught healthy ways to process emotions growing up, we have to find our own path later in life.

Sometimes that takes years.

It certainly did for me.

If you’re someone who stores away grief, fear, and pain for “later,” be aware that later eventually arrives. It may show up as depression. Anxiety. Self-destructive behavior. Addiction. Physical illness. Or something else entirely.

Find your way through it.

Find the people who can walk part of that road with you.

Because most of the time, healing doesn’t come looking for you.

You have to go looking for it.