The ugly line

All to often you hear girls talking about what they hate about themselves, they talk about everything from chunky toes to wobbly tummies. The advice that is given to them is to learn to love every inch of their external selves, to embrace the differences and forget about being skinny and focus on being healthy.

I personally don't care about my chubby thighs or pudgy fingers, the part of my body that I hate the most is the large jagged scar that runs from the bottom of my belly button to just below my hip line. It's something I can't change, something I can't remove and oddly enough, something that essentially saved my life.

That's the thing with most surgery, they don't do it if they don't have to. Without the ugly line on my tummy, I would have eventually had a 3kg cyst burst around my vital organs. If I could pick a way to leave the earth, a giant cyst rupturing inside me wouldn't make the list.

So, why do I hate it so much?

I hate looking at my stomach because it's a constant reminder of my internal imperfection. It's there every day and when I look at it I just feel angry. If it wasn't there, my life would be different. I'd have a full set of reproductive organs and maybe I'd have a family already.

But it's there because it has to be.

My doctor got up me when I complained about it.  She said that although it makes things harder it's better than not existing, which was the alternative. She's a lovely lady who had twins via IVF due to similar circumstances to my own. She's incredibly positive and exactly what I need right now.

Tomorrow I have to get yet another blood test, show yet another doctor my scar, explain my story again and get another scan to try and find out what's hiding underneath. Worst case scenario, we'll need to add another scar. Best case, it's just 1 hour and 20 minutes of my time spent.

Learning to love part of yourself is hard. Learning to love something that symbolises what you see as a major flaw is harder.