Days When It Hurts To Be a Woman

I love being a woman.  I love that I am different from men.  I don't wish that I was anything other than who and what I am.  However, there are some days when it hurts to be a woman.  There are days when it is dark and painful to to live as a female.  On those day, I don't wish that I wasn't a woman, but I do wish that my life and my story as a woman was different.

I've blogged before about my struggle with infertility.  My husband and I have been trying for 3 years to conceive.  Almost 2 years ago we got pregnant and then we lost the baby.  Since then we've had a series of unfortunate medical issues and scheduling conflicts that have only made it harder to attempt to get pregnant.  Still, all excuses aside, we should have already had at least one child.  Yet, for some unknown reason we have not been blessed with one.

Not being able to conceive and carry a child to full term has an impact on me and the way I view my femininity.  For some reason, I'm not sure exactly what, not being able to have children feels like an insult to my womanhood.  It's almost as though I feel like less of a woman because of it.  I know that may sound ridiculous to many of you, but, in a world that for centuries has revered the reproductive abilities of women, I feel like a failure as a woman because my body has not been able to reproduce.  It's almost as though my female membership card is not fully validated unless I can have children.  This would be different if I chose not to have children; but I did not.  I want children.  I want to be a mother so very desperately.

As you can probably imagine, or as you might know if you have tried to conceive, every month presents a roller coaster ride of hoping and praying while you wait to see if you were successful, and then grieving and processing when it is apparent you were not.  This month was no different for me, except, perhaps, I didn't have quite as much hope.  I can feel a numbness and a resignation creeping into my heart and I do not have the energy to fight it off.  In the past few months I have told myself that it is probably for the best and that, clearly, I was not meant to be a parent.  I have told myself that my life is happy and wonderful and that I will not feel the pain of not being a parent too greatly.  I have told myself that I must have done something to deserve this, and so, I should not complain.  And I have quietly agreed with each of these crazy, ridiculous thoughts because 3 years of hoping, praying, grieving, and processing is a lot of work, and my reserves are starting to dry up.

Today I am at the beginning of a new reproductive cycle, which means I am bleeding.  Menstruation is not an experience for the faint of heart.  That's why I firmly believe that any woman who has a regular menstrual cycle is pretty much capable of anything.  Since my miscarriage, my cycles have been incredibely painful.  I cramp for days and feel generally disgusting.  My cycle has created numerous embarrassing moments over the past few months that have left me feeling powerless over my body and it's apparently twisted way of expressing it's womanhood.  Today I had one of those moments, and it led me to ponder this strange conundrum of being able to have a monthly reproductive cycle, but not being able to reproduce.  How strange, how cruel that I must endure the pain and discomfort that signifies I am a woman of reproductive age and yet I CANNOT have a child.  It's as though my own body is throwing taunts and insults at me, and doing it when I am most vulnerable.  How do I endure this?  What do I do with this?  I have always viewed the ability to have children as a redeeming quality of having to endure a monthly cycle.  What am I supposed to do with it or think about it if I do not have the ability to do something useful with it?  What is the point?

I don't have an answer.  I don't know what to think.  I am saddened and weary from the pain and the heartache.  If I am trying to be positive, I would say that I am grateful for the heartache because it means I still have some hope.  But I am not being positive.  I am angry at my body for betraying me and then throwing its betrayal in my face.  I am hurt that I have failed at something that is fundamentally a part of being a woman, and I am scared that there is nothing I can do about it.  Today it hurts to be a woman,