Sue
When asked if I have a tattoo and what it is, I always smile and answer, “It’s my uterus.”
Do you see, in the centre, the heart within a heart within a heart? Thatʼs the womb. The hearts represent the love for the children that I have carried and nurtured within it, as well as the three hearts that my eldest son, Robbie, has had. Yes, three hearts.
At five-months-old, Robbie was diagnosed with an inoperable disease of the heart muscle. That was his first heart. We almost lost him several times, and he was on life-support for six long months.
After almost a year, he received a new heart and a new chance at life. We returned to our home and started to put our lives back together. I had another child and we named him Luke.
When Luke was five-months-old, Robbie started getting fatigued and running out of breath. He was in heart failure, again. His new heart was rejecting him, and his only hope was to be listed for a second transplant.
Just after Robbie’s fifth birthday, we got the call that a heart had been found. The surgery was complicated and the recovery was long and difficult, but our family was once again able to return home.
On each side of the centre heart there are vines that reach out. These are the fallopian tubes. There is a heart along each vine that represents Robbieʼs donors and their families. They are heroes and are forever in my prayers.
At the end of the vines are two other hearts. Those represent my ovaries, and the two children that I was blessed to conceive and give birth to. They are my life.
Why a uterus? At the age of 41, I discovered that I had cervical cancer. I had a hysterectomy. So, I threw a going away party for my uterus. Yes, that’s right, a party—one still talked about to this day.
Three weeks after my hysterectomy, I had the tattoo done. It’s for me, for my children, for the strength of women during adversity, for the donor families, and to remember that I am a survivor.