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,

Women Who Inspire Me Series: Post 1

I've been thinking about starting this blog series for a while and just haven't gotten around to doing it.  I guess that's a hazard of having too many great ideas and not enough energy/drive/will power to actually get them all done.  Anyhoo, it's been pressing on me for a while and I want to start it, at the very least.  Hopefully, I will finish it as well.

Most people who know me well know that I have long been a champion of all things female.  I feel that there is not enough celebration of, respect for, or admiration for the 50% of the population who play a large role in insuring the population continues.  I realize that not everyone feels that way, and that's ok.  But I do, and my blog has always been a place for me to celebrate and challenge what it means to be female in the world I experience.  In my quest to capture what it means to be female, I have been fortunate enough to come across some amazing women who have inspired me, challenged me, and encouraged me to continue my journey.  I would like to pay homage to those women with this series.  With each new post, you will see women who are different ages, have different lifestyles, who express themselves differently.  What I hope you will notice is the same courage, determination, strength, and beauty that defines all of them.   These are the women who inspire me:

Blondie
The woman I want to start this series with is a dear friend of mine.  Let's call her "Blondie".  Blondie and I have known each other all our lives.  I find it fascinating and awe-inspiring that I have known this girl for so long and yet she continues to inspire me.  She's always been "spunky", as she was called when we were kids.  When I was younger, I thought of her as fearless.  Now that I'm older, I realize Blondie is not fearless, she is courageous.  She has fear (just like all of us), and yet, she continually steps into situations and experiences that post people would shy away from.  Blondie loves to experience life and she strives to live life to the fullest.  She does not let fear or self-doubt keep her from what she wants.  That's amazing to me.  She wakes up every day with all the same or similar feelings and emotions I do and she makes the decision to keep fighting for her dreams.  In order for you to understand what an amazing feat that is, you need to know a little more about Blondie.

Blondie was born and raised in a less than stellar environment.  She was put down a lot, criticized a lot, and told she was bad through and through.  Her love of life was criticized as being rebellious and perverted.  She struggled in school, and instead of her learning difficulties being identified and addressed, she was told she was lazy and rebellious and was punished repeatedly.  I think it's safe to say that Blondie was misunderstood and misidentified for much of her childhood.  I'm pretty sure that most of the adults in her life weren't confident she would ever make anything of herself.  Yet, Blondie didn't let her rough childhood define her.  She chose to make something good out of it.  I'm pretty sure her determination and ability to be an incredibely hard worker are the result of her childhood experiences.  Blondie also managed to completely ignore the things she was told as a child and instead learn to believe in herself.  She is one of the most beautifully confident women I know.  She is aware of her flaws, but she does not try to hide them.  She is honest about who she is while still being proud of who she is.  She is always working to make herself better without losing sight of how great she already is.  That's a huge feat for a any woman, much less a woman like Blondie.

Today, Blondie is a wife and the mother of 2 beautiful children.  While she was pregnant with her second child, she put herself through school so she could pursue a career she thought she would be good at.  While raising her children, she has worked part-time to help provide financially for her family.  Her work schedule and life schedule have been chaotic and not easy to deal with, but you won't hear her complain about it.  She simply gets up every day and does what needs to be done, while looking fabulous, I might add. :)  She has made some hard choices and been criticized for those choices, but she has stood by them because she believed they were the best thing for her family.  At times she has been afraid that she was failing miserably, but she has never allowed the fact that she will make mistakes stop her from trying to be the best wife and mother she can be.  She is, honestly, one of the best mothers I know.  I have watched her be a mother for more than 5 years, and I am continually in awe of the masterful way in which she balances love, patience, discipline, and encouragement.  I can only hope that one day I am as good as she is at being a mother.

There's so much more I could say about Blondie and how much she inspires me.  There is no way to capture it all in this one post.  What I do hope I captured was the amazing woman she is.  Blondie inspires me to continually work to be the best version of myself that I can be.  She challenges me to be confident in myself, to be a hard worker without complaining about my circumstances.  She encourages me to keep fighting for my dreams and to not be afraid to try.  Knowing Blondie makes me more courageous and more determined.  I am a better person because she is in my life.

Happy Friday!

It's been a long week.  I won't say it's been a necessarily tough week, but it's definitely been long.  Returning to work after a holiday weekend is always hard.  It's ten times harder when you worked most of that "holiday" weekend.  After returning to work I thought things were going fairly well, then I started feeling "off".  I was crazy emotional and felt the urge to cry at the drop of a hat.  This is not usual for me; far from it in fact.  As most of you who have been following this blog for the past year know, Mr. Darcy and I have been trying to get pregnant for almost 2 years now.  Feeling strangely hormonal can indicate that a woman is pregnant.  Being the logical creature that I am, a small tiny hope crept into my mind - "What if this is it??".

Then, two days into my week, by basal body temperature dropped.  For those of you who are not familiar with fertility and how a woman's body works, a drop in your basal body temperature towards the ends of a woman's menstrual cycle is usually a sign that any egg that was released was not fertilized and the uterus should start shedding it's lining in preparation for the next cycle.  This is not good news for someone who is trying to conceive and is hoping they are pregnant.  My ever hopeful self desperately hoped that the drop was a fluke and that the next day my temps would be back up and I could still possibly be pregnant.  Tuesday was filled with more hormonal ridiculousness - headaches, nausea, high levels of emotions.  Wednesday morning my temp was down again.  It was a sure thing now.  All hope of being pregnant was completely gone.  All there was to do now was wait for this cycle to end and the next one to start.  The headache and crazy emotions hung around.

Thursday morning I woke up to a searing headache and another drop in temperature.  By this point I knew the headache was hormone related and all I could do was wait until my cycle started and hope the hormones would balance out.  I took the first half of the day off so I could rest.  While resting, I decided I had had enough of letting my body run my life.  I got up, got dressed, and went to work.  It was a slow day at the office and most of my clients ended up cancelling their appointments any way.  By the end of the work day my headache had subsided substantially and I decided to go ahead and go running as planned.  Physical exercise can help balance your hormones, and I was hoping it would help with mine.  Plus, I have been running consistently now for that past 7 weeks and I was determined to not let anything get in the way of my continuing this, including feeling crappy. (Side note: I ran my first 5k on Thanksgiving morning.  I actually ran 2/3 of the course and was super proud of myself for doing it.  Big shout out to my wonderful husband who pushed me to do it).

So, after work yesterday, I went running.  As I started running, I began to feel better.  I hit a mile and barely felt winded, so I kept going.  I kept going until I had done 2 miles, and when I finished I realized I had shaved 30 seconds off my mile time.  As I was running, I focused on pushing through everything I had experienced this week.  As my feet pounded the track, I imagined pounding into the ground all my frustration, all my fears, all my sorrows.  Got a headache - pound, pound, pound.  Feel like a weepy, weak lump of a person - pound, pound, pound.  Still not pregnant - pound, pound, pound.  I will keep going - pound, pound, pound.  I refuse to be a sad, mopey wreck of a person - pound, pound, pound.  I will fight to be the best version of me I can be - pound, pound, pound.

After my running/therapy session, I went home feeling super proud of myself and physically feeling much better.  With the mental clarity that running brings, I found myself laughing at the humor in the long week.  I don't know about any of you, but, when I'm tired or hormonal, some really silly things happen.  So, despite the fact that this week was a long week, there were some really funny moments.  Maybe you can relate to some of these:

It might have been a long day if you hear Dean Martin sing "Rudy the red-beaked reindeer" as something entirely different, and then realize with a sigh of relief that a song that old could not really be that inappropriate.

You might be crazy hormonal if you find yourself getting weepy-eyed over the words to "Hark the Herald Angels Sing".  That is a happy song, right?!?

It might have been a long week if you find yourself laughing gleefully and doing a little jig when your last client of the day calls 30 minutes before their appointment to say they are not coming.

You *might* have run away hormones if, while watching a documentary about Arctic animals, you start crying uncontrollably when a baby beluga whale is stranded on a beach and might die, and then what to cheer madly when the tide comes just in time to rescue him.

You might have had a long week and/or be hormonal if all you can think about is getting home to gorge yourself on chocolate and ice cream.  Don't worry, I didn't do this, but it was mostly due to not having enough time to do it, rather than any great amount of self-control. :)

If you have no idea what I am talking about and have never experienced any of those things, well, at least you get to laugh at my awkward moments in life.  And now, the long week is almost over.  I have 3 days of rehearsals and a production at the end of the weekend to look forward to, and then this super long, super hormonal week will be over.  I then get to have more long weeks with, I'm sure, their own hurdles to get over.  However, as long as those weeks offer me more humorous opportunities to laugh at myself, I will be doing well.  Happy Friday, everyone!!  I hope your weekends are a celebration of rest and relaxation from whatever your week brought you. :)

Mother's Day - A Week Late

Last week was Mother's Day.  I didn't really put much thought into it until the day arrived, and then the feelings and emotions came flooding in like a tidal wave.  When you've had a miscarriage, the rest of the world doesn't really consider you a mother. Sometimes, I find myself wondering if I really consider myself as having been a mother.  It's confusing, and painful.  It's complicated because not everyone knows that you had a miscarriage.  It's frustrating because you want to talk about certain things but you can't do it without addressing the miscarriage.  When other's find out they feel awkward around you and don't seem to know how to respond.  When I think about it, I feel guilty that I am confused and don't know what I really think or feel about it.  On the one hand, to not acknowledge that I carried a life inside me for at least 5 weeks seems to devalue the life that I carried.  On the other hand, I feel as though I don't deserve to be called a mom because I didn't finish my race, I didn't complete the course.  It's terrible.  I'm stuck in this strange limbo land that I can't really navigate.

At church, they asked all the mothers to stand so they could honor them.  I couldn't bring myself to do it, even after my wonderful Mr. Darcy urged me to.  I just couldn't stand up.  I felt that standing up would have been more of an embarrassment than an honor.  I felt ashamed that I didn't have any physical proof to let others know I had experienced the joy of being a mother for a brief moment.  And then the sadness came flooding back, and I could feel the loss as though it was yesterday.  The ache was just as painful and the tears came just as readily as they did 5 months ago.

The grief surprised me, and then made me feel ridiculous.  Society tells us over and over that the bundle of cells growing inside a pregnant woman is not really a child until it is born.  If this is true, then the loss of that bundle should not be grieved because it's nothing of consequence.  While this theory might make some women feel better about ending their pregnancies or choosing to not bring a new life into the world, it also serves to shame those of us who have lost a child unwillingly and are grieved by the loss.  It makes us feel as though the pain and the loss we feel is silly, unwarranted, or somehow ridiculous.  The message is that we are just experiencing a hormonal rash of emotions that are not based on any sort of logic, and, therefore, are not legitimate.  The truth is, our bodies were created to bring forth life, and when, in the process of bringing forth life, our bodies fail, we experience death.  Death is a loss.  Death causes grief.  I did not lose a bundle of cells that I could or could not have lived without.  I lost a life that I dearly loved and desperately wanted to experience.  That loss causes me grief as a woman, as a wife, as a mother.  That grief should not cause me to feel ridiculous.

I know last week was Mother's Day, but I would like to take a moment to acknowledge all those women out there who have carried a life and lost it before they had the chance to hold it in their arms and watch it grow.  The world may not acknowledge us as mothers, but I think it takes the love of a mother to grieve over a lost child, to remember the life that was.  You may not have gotten any cards telling you what a great mom you are.  There may not have been any gifts from tiny hands wanting to express the love they have for you, but, I thought of you, and I want to honor you for road you walked, the sacrifices you made, the love you gave to your child.  Happy Mother's Day!