What makes you a woman? Is it your hair or makeup, your breasts, your ovaries, your vagina? Or is it a mind thing, is it how you feel regardless of how you look?
When I was growing up I just always believed it was how you felt. It wasn’t the mechanics behind being a woman who made you one. It was for better or worse how you felt.
One day that changed for me. It wasn’t a lasting change thank goodness, it was a moment of pity and anger that changed the way I viewed the world if only for a moment.
I had always had a rough period. It lasted longer then it should and was often way to heavy for comfort. So when a wonder drug Depo Provera hit the mainstream I knew it was the birth control of my choice. A shot every 3 months and no period? Umm ok…. Let me just run down to the Dr and get me some… So I did. And for the first year, year and a half it was AMAZING. Better then amazing it was well I don’t know what is better than amazing but it was that. Then the cramps started, and the spotting, was just for a day or two at first then nothing. However then it started happening more regularly so off to the doctor I went. I was given an extra shot saying it’s rare but sometimes it’s needed. Well that didn’t work, now I was spotting everyday for weeks. My doctor gave me a pill to try. It was a hormone called progesterone it was supposed to stop bleeding, another fail. So month later I was back at Dr where an estrogen supplement was given to help. So I started taking that as well…. Yes as well. Not instead of but as well….and it didn’t work either. Then I started to feel tired all the time and heavy. One day I was in so much pain when I tried to breathe it brought tears to my eyes. It did not pass for hours, so I did what anyone would do in my situation… I called my mom.😀 I will not get into anymore details however it was discovered that I had a blood clot in my lung the size of the palm of my hand. Did you notice when I said before I started taking estrogen as well, well turns out I was supposed to discontinue taking every failed attempt at fixing me when a new one started Oops, guess I should have just known that. Lesson learned
It was in the hospital that tests were finally run… again FINALLY run (for those wondering yes I have a new doctor now lol). It was from the tests they determined I have an underlying blood condition, it is a clotting disorder, and with it came with challenges and one devastating blow. I am unable to carry a child.
I never wanted children, even as a young child I knew I didn’t want kids. Let me tell you, sitting in that chair hearing those words I was…. crushed. Hearing I couldn’t have children made me in that moment want a herd of them. I didn’t know what to say so I uttered ok. Listened to the rest of the changes and left.
I went home climbed into bed and cried.
I felt a slew of emotions. The one that stuck out was inadequate, I felt as if I was fundamentally broken, defective, like I failed at being a woman. It was silly to mourn to the loss of something I never wanted until that afternoon when I learned it was no longer an option. There it was I hated and felt cheated out of choice.
It was in the days and months that followed that I hated myself. It was a real low. I felt like I had failed at something that was so easy to win at. What are women if not baby machines.
Yep, I called myself a baby machine. Looking back what was I thinking? It wasn’t my organs that made me a woman. I had known this before yet forgotten it when I was up against a challenge. I am a woman for so many reasons and what makes me, is the sum of all things not just biology.
Many years have passed since I found out I couldn’t have children. I go days without thinking about it. I still don’t want children of my own. I have been blessed with a beautiful niece and my pseudo nieces and nephew. I don’t feel the same way I did then at all. I carry no hard feelings toward the situation. I know I am not inadequate I am the way I was supposed to be. Perfectly me.
Sacred Venus 
Sometimes in life we end up some place other than where we thought we were going. Like when you think you’re going to Paris and you end up somewhere in Holland instead. When my son was diagnosed with Autism. All the hopes and dreams *I* had for him were gone, never to be realized. But what I found was that I could find a beauty and serenity in the situation we were in even if it wasn’t the situation we wanted. I am a man of reason, meaning, I believe there is a reason for everything. There is a reason we ended up in Holland rather than Paris. And Holland can be quite a lovely place in it’s own right.
You already know this but perhaps someone else doesn’t. But you are more than just the some of your body parts and what they can do. You are not a body. You are a soul, you have a body. And every soul is precious.
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