My own story of being a woman - sorry this is such a long post

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hello,

I'm taking a deep breath and daring to share something here that I wrote a while ago, in response to an article I found during a little googling I was doing in response to some recent major cognitive dissonance.

I’m going to throw a few terms/phrases out there and I apologize in advance if they are a bit graphic, but these have been very important in my personal experience. And I think that these (and other) brutal and undeniable physical experiences were part of what shaped the roles that jews and women have traditionally played, and continue to play today. I believe these are uniquely experiences of biological women (not all biological women, but assuredly only biological women). I exclude pregnancy, labour, delivery, and motherhood as I don’t know much about those, but surely they belong in this list somewhere.

(It's weird: on re-reading, i realize I wrote this in the "you" voice... I'm not sure why. Anyway, here goes.)

getting your period suddenly at age 9, alone at school, and having to go to the nurse because you have no idea what’s happening or if you’re dying

washing bloody underclothes out in the sink because you were caught short on a “heavy” day.

Having your first blindingly painful period at 14, in the car with your Dad, coming home from the US. Having to stop at the border crossing and hobble hunched over to the public bathroom there; staying there for 45 minutes doubled over in fright, and pain, while your poor scared father and a border guard knock on the door asking if you are all right. You aren’t sure what to answer. You aren’t all right, but you don’t know how to tell them.

Dysmenorrhea : having debilitating menstrual cramps that cause uncontrolled vomiting and diarrheah and cause you to miss work due to being literally unable to get up off the bathroom floor and out of the puddle of puke. All the while bleeding clots down your legs.

Realizing that acetominophen and hot water bottles do nothing to ease the pain. Advil and codeine become your new best friends!

Menorrhageah : bleeding through every pad and tampon you wear because your menstrual flow is so abnormally heavy that you can’t keep up; staining your friend’s couch by accident; having to leave a work meeting because you suddenly feel the “faucet” gush; feeling shame about all this.

PMS mood symptoms that sometimes used to manifest as "crankiness" and sometimes as suicidal ideation so compelling that you have your plan all laid out, and you know if you can just wait a few days it'll pass and you'll be ok again.

Spending absurd sums on menstrual products.

Despairing and laughing at the reusable cups that your woke friends use, that IN NO FUCKING POSSIBLE UNIVERSE could hope to contain the quantities of blood you spew out, 15 days a month, every fucking month. If you don’t laugh, you cry, right?

bleeding clots the size of meatballs

worrying about falling pregnant

taking hormones to prevent falling pregnant, for years and years

the thing about sex being mandatory... whether you want to or not, whether you are hurting or not, whether you just want to get up and have tea with your mum who is visiting for the first time in months... it's just mandatory.

desperately wishing you could fall pregnant

taking hormones to stimulate egg production

having your eggs extracted by a needle puncturing your vaginal wall and into your ovaries (such fun.)

waiting, hoping, for a + sign on a little pee stick

seeing the + sign and feeling your heart soar

telling your closest friends, secretly naming the (infant? cell cluster? what is it? Dare I even hope?)… whatever it is, secretly naming it “Blueberry”

Checking the mirror for signs of pregnancy every hour. Are your breasts bigger? Am you showing? (at 6 weeks, not likely!) Do you have that pregnant “glow?”

seeing blood in your underwear 9 weeks later. Seeing more and more blood every day. Bleeding out your guts and your hope of a baby one day in the bathroom at work, and having to go home in the afternoon as pale a sheet due to blood loss, and numb from grief

Endometriosis

Uterine fibroids the size of clementines

More failed fertility treatments

the removal of fertility treatments from public health care, and private-pay being your only option

Dull realization that pregnancy and motherhood will never ever happen for you. Taking those pretty “I’m expecting” books off the shelf in your bedroom and putting them in a “to donate” box in the back room. Eventually throwing out the box.

Avoiding looking at babies for… a while, anyway. Until it hurts less. Someday it’ll hurt less.

continued heavy periods for 12 more years, and resultant severe anemia. Denial that it’s anemia: belief that if you just work out more, it’ll go away.

Rage at your uterus, which fails in its most basic function, and yet is still insultingly productive at creating and shedding its useless lining. Oh, and being a fibroid farm.

Blood transfusion. Iron perfusions. Medically necessary open-abdomen hysterectomy. Removal of pounds of flesh, cutting away of multitudes of endometrial adhesions.

Menopause.

If you’ve read through this, I thank you sincerely for your patience, and wish you a wonderful week.