I was on estrogen replacement for years after my hysterectomy. I had few concerns about taking it, since I was young when I had my ovaries removed, and the benefits outweighed the risks.
I'm not on it now, but am thinking about going back on it. The hot flashes are a killer, and I won't even go into the vaginal dryness.
When I did IVF, they put me on big doses of estrogen and progesterone. After my son was born, I kept on hormones because I was going to do IVF again. No other child was forthcoming (after many other IVF rounds), and after what was apparently the last try, I stayed on a light dose of estrogen with progesterone half the month. I have a good doctor who is not irrational about the research (some doctors simply panic and say no to hormones, some know nothing about whether it's safe or not, and a few do the reading). After all the hormones in IVF in super huge doses, I'm not afraid of a light dose of hormones now. I would be more worried if I wasn't on progesterone.
My sister has made me worried about taking estrogen as her friend got breast cancer and her doctor says the estrogen supplementation was involved. That does make me nervous.