The concept that one faces when having to speak about your life’s experiences can be extremely scary; yet having had to face the knowledge that you’ll never biologically be able to have children of your own is both heart breaking and painful. As a woman you go through life in stages or at least I did. I knew as a little girl that I wanted to fall in love with a man that would sweap me off my feet, that I would have this fairy tale wedding and that we would have a family where we would be happy and nothing in my little mind could change that.
Life on the other hand lined my plans up like little bowling balls and started to knocked them down piece by piece. It started off by me becoming a young woman and my grandmother and mother sitting me down and giving me the talk. I’m not sure if we all got it but I sure did. The please look after yourself talk the one where they tell you that your body is now ready to make a baby talk. Well my body sure set me up for heart ache or that’s how I allowed myself to think for many years.
It started with painful cramps and missing menstrual cycles, having seen doctors who in the past could never put an explanation to what really was wrong with me. I could see the concern in my families eyes when yet another appointment ended up with me walking home with yet another bag of painkillers and one step further to no answers. I met a fabulous man who gave me the fairy tale wedding and who literally swept me off my feet and naturally the pregnancy talk and planning for a family began. We tried for the first 3 years of our marriage where we then eventually approached a doctor who performed a laparoscopy procedure and could finally tell me after 18 years of no answers, missed menstrual cycles and tears of frustration that I had not only polysistic ovarian syndrome but also endometriosis. I could finally put myself into a box where I could tell myself this is what you have. It’s funny how having just confirmation that look this is what is wrong and that there was still the possibility of having children gave us hope and restored my faith in doctors. It also took years off my shoulders of having to explain to people why we had not conceived as yet, of having to listen to them tell me to “relax your stressed too much. Don’t think about it and the baby will come” .
It still frustrates me today having to tell people that this is my body and that yes I may still not have all the answers as to why I may not have been physically given the chance and opportunity to conceive a child, have them grow under my heart and deliver them in what people would say is the stage that actually makes you into a woman, but I’m still human and I have feelings too. I’ve had to accept that through the two laparoscopies, the ovarian drilling the countless injections and thousands of Rands spent on fertility medications and procedures that I will remain infertile. Having to accept this took years of tears, begging God to please give me just one child, having to go through the feeling of letting my husband down asking him whether he made the right decision to remain with me, and then finally understanding that I am not a victim I am not less of a woman because I couldn’t bare my own children what I am is a woman made stronger with circumstances and that there are other ways of being parents. I have but one wish in all this and that is that no other young woman experiences the long walk I had without getting the diagnosis that I now have. With the polysistic ovaries I became insulin resistant and eventually a diabetic, but this doesn’t stop me from becoming a mother. That I know will happen and when it does whether it’s through surrogacy, ivf or adoption that my life wouldn’t be what it is today if I had not experienced this walk it’s made me emotionally stronger, fearless and appreciative of the love I have in both my husband, family and friends and my sister.
Find Nordette’s story from last year here
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