MEMOIR
BloodlessAUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND 12 July 2009 |
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Barren is the ugliest word I know. It speaks of death. It reeks of utter loneliness.
It’s a word that the dictionary says applies to me.
It applies to fields where nothing grows. It applies to urban landscapes where homes are not built. It applies to my body.
You see, I am unable to reproduce myself. A simple case of blood, tissue and genetic matter failing to weave its magic and grow within me the necessary parts to create new life.
I always knew that I was different. I could never put my finger on what was wrong, but I knew I wasn’t like all the other girls. In the changing sheds of adolescence, new found self-awareness of their bodies had started to sit on the other girls’ skin like a sheen of self-important sweat. I knew that I was not part of this conversation.
There had been no blood for me. No bittersweet initiation into budding womanhood. I don’t know how I knew, I just did. Call it intuition.
By sixteen, my underwear was still unblemished. The doctors thought something might be wrong. I could have told them. Instead, they took their scalpels to my soft belly to look inside me. What they expected to see wasn’t there. Didn’t exist. I was as empty as a just-birthed womb.
They stitched me up and left a ribbon shaped scar right under my belly button. A flesh-carved ribbon to remind me of my non-achievement.
The doctors liked my unformed body. They were eager to examine it, with their cool hands and sterile equipment. There was no comfort for me, just curious eyes. I finally drew the line when a group of fifteen medical students filed into my room to dissect my case. I felt like a carcass.
The nurses in my ward were unused to girls my age being admitted for medical complaints. They assumed I was in for an abortion. Their rough hands and manner told me they hadn’t bothered to read my notes.
On the day of my discharge, my stitches were due to come out. The nurse unpicked the thread holding my delicate skin and fragile psyche together and pulled. It ripped right through to the heart of my barren soul.
She took my hand and placed the bloody strands of nylon in them.
“Here’s something you can show your children,” she said. She obviously hadn’t read my notes either.
For as long as I could remember, my mother’s tampons had always been visible on the bathroom shelf, but before I arrived home from the hospital they were secreted away into a drawer. Just in case those tightly bound cotton bullets somehow wounded me. I didn’t mention it. Neither did she.
I was now something apart, different. There would be no babies for me. Unlike my friends whose lives stretched out with unknown promise, my future had a foreseeable end.
My girlfriends were clumsily sympathetic. The told me of the agonies of period pain and how lucky I was not to have to experience it. They didn’t know that to me, flow of blood could never mean pain. To me, the flow of blood meant eternal life.
My traitorous body gave me the dubious gift of being a desirable girlfriend. No chance of complications. No need for contraception. No chance of permanence. This body of mine was here temporarily. It had decided not to leave a stain or mark.
And so I started to view myself as semi-permanent, like a hair color. Sometimes black, sometimes white, but mostly gray and shadowy. I wore this new shade like a veil, covering my concave abdomen where emptiness rested. This was where my secrets existed, and I did my best to conceal them from myself and the outside world.
It didn’t matter so much at sixteen. What did I want with a baby then? My friends swore that they too would go childless to make me feel better. It didn’t. It served to remind me that they had a choice in the matter, whereas I was imprisoned in my own fate as surely as any criminal.
I would accidentally come across books that dealt with cosmic and karmic matters. In one, I read that people who found themselves childless in this life were being punished for mistreating their children in a previous life. I pretended to be angry that someone would write this, but it had struck a chord. Punishment. It was my fault. Somehow, I had done something to deserve this. Maybe there was something terrible in my blood or bones or soul that determined my line should end with me.
Being childless as a teenager wasn’t such a big deal. As an adult it was.
Serious relationships always begged the same old questions. “When are you two going to start a family?”
Sometimes I’d smile. Sometimes I’d avoid the question. Sometimes I’d say that I hated children, couldn’t stand the sight of them and wouldn’t ever consider destroying my figure having them. Sometimes I’d just tell the truth and say I couldn’t conceive.
This was the answer people didn’t want to hear. They would rather think it was vanity that stopped me than barrenness.
Barrenness. Barren. Like a pretty tree that won’t bear fruit. Useless.
Despite its ugliness, I have decided to claim the word. Like nigger or dyke or fag, I am going to embrace the word that has the ability to wound me. I will train myself not to jump when I hear it. I will teach myself to say it out loud with a smile on my lips. By applying it to myself I will starve it of its power.
There is freedom in acceptance. Fighting only tightens the ropes and makes it harder to release yourself.
So on the downward slope of my thirties, I have finally accepted my body’s inability to nourish, nurture and form new life. My hips are not built for childbirth and the space between them is as flat as a newly plowed field.
But even barren fields can still be beautiful and fruitless tree can still have roots.
And sometimes even emptiness can have meaning.
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I am absolutely in awe of this essay. There is much sadness, but yet some peace here. The way the nurses treated you makes my heart ache. How could they be so callous to a young woman?!
You wrote, “This body of mine was here temporarily. It had decided not to leave a stain or mark.” Your body may not bear a child, beautiful Zara, but it brought this piece into being. You leave a mark every time you write. Those words touch people, move in their thoughts, and that’s life, too. Thank you for that creation.
Comment by D.R. Haney
2009-07-12 21:57:26
I applaud your honestly. It was a bracing read. I’m still kind of reeling from it.
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-07-12 22:02:13
You’re an angel.
Comment by Lenore
2009-07-12 22:09:28
i won’t try to tell you it doesn’t feel like punishment, but regarding what you read:
punishment for behaviors in a former life. huh.
i don’t think so. it just doesn’t sound right to me.
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-07-12 22:17:26
No, it’s not right at all. I’d like to punch that smug writer right in the chops!
Comment by Zoe
2009-07-12 22:09:39
your honesty is brutal and your words beautiful.
I know just how you feel.
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-07-12 22:17:59
Thank you, darling girl. X
Comment by Simon Smithson
2009-07-12 22:55:45
God, this made me twist in my chair. I’d like to punch that smug writer smack in the kisser as well.
Apart from the emotional content, which hit me like a ton of bricks, this was hugely well-written, Zara.
Comment by D.R. Haney
2009-07-12 23:19:21
I agree about that horrible reincarnation remark. Claptrap from a know-nothing. I will enthusiastically join you in abusing the writer, Simon.
Comment by Simon Smithson
2009-07-12 23:20:56
He doesn’t stand a chance.
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-07-12 23:30:10
God, where have you boys been all my life?
Comment by Zoe
2009-07-12 23:38:00
when you two are done with that writer, I have someone I’d like for you to beat….er, meet.
Comment by Simon Smithson
2009-07-12 23:38:20
I feel a Labyrinth moment coming on:
‘Should you need us…’
Comment by D.R. Haney
2009-07-13 03:29:49
I’m really starting to get into this idea of joining Simon in a crusade to abuse evildoers. I mean, when women are saying, “Where have you been?” and “I have someone I’d like you to meet/beat,” it calls up something very primal.
Comment by Simon Smithson
2009-07-13 04:52:12
Doesn’t it just? We’d be the white hats!
Comment by D.R. Haney
2009-07-13 13:14:50
It’s about time. My black hat is falling apart.
It literally is.
Comment by Colleen McGrath
2009-07-13 02:36:04
Zara, one more time you are writing about the most difficult thing and doing it beautifully. I am hugely impacted by what you’ve said. And I hope you do really know a person cannot be defined in such a way. This is one part of who you are, not a whole, and it goes to helping shape you. You are shaped beautifully so yes, there is power in owning it. It’s yours. Congratulations. Very powerful.
Comment by Zara
2009-07-13 10:25:13
Thank you Colleen. I’m pleased to say it doesn’t define me any longer, it’s just a part of me and it goes some way into making who I am…
Comment by Irene Zion
2009-07-13 03:43:56
Oh Zara,
The nurses were so cruel. Nurses are supposed to be kind and supportive.
Past-life misdeads are only believed by idiots.
You are perfect the way you are.
You are whole the way you are.
Comment by Zara
2009-07-13 10:28:15
Some nurses can be total bitches. Thank you for your words, Irene. They always manage to erase a whole lot of shit for me, and that is magic.
Comment by Matt
2009-07-13 07:31:22
Zara,
I want to wholeheartedly agree with everyone else on the brutal poingnancy of this piece. It’s very, very courages of you. Bravo.
And speaking for myself, I’ve always found that while the places usually thought of as barren–such as the deserts of the American Southwest or the Australian Outback–may appear frighteningly delicate, they are also staggeringly beautiful.
I suspect this may apply here, as well.
Comment by Zara 2009-07-13 10:26:34
Matt, what a beautiful thing to say. I tell you what, whenever you’re in need of a pick-me- up, TNB is definitely the place to come.
Comment by Matt
2009-07-13 12:27:47
Zara, I must confess to a slight Freudian slip: that “delicate” is supposed to be “desolate.” Working on my 1000-word entry seems to have knocked something loose in the old cabeza. Hope that doesnt ruin the sentiment for you.
Comment by Zara
2009-07-13 12:31:06
I’ll take delicate over desolate.. but the sentiment is still just fine with me.
Comment by Matt
2009-07-13 12:55:08
Whew! *wipes brow*
Comment by Kimberly M. Wetherell
2009-07-13 07:37:42
woah. what everyone else said, times ten.
your girlfriends were sweet, but no one really understands, do they? we forget the magnitude of choice when we have it.
Comment by Zara 2009-07-13 10:29:53
It’s true. It’s very hard to put yourself in another person’s shoes. Although one good things about having shit happen is that it really does give you more empathy. And that is a good thing.. Thank you Kimberly.
Comment by Rich Ferguson
2009-07-13 10:49:21
Hey Zara:
I admire the hell outta you for writing this. Took a lot of guts, my dear. Guts and honesty. I like that in a woman. Hell, I like that in anybody. Thanks for reminding me of that.
Comment by Zara
2009-07-13 10:58:25
Hey Rich. Thank you for saying that. Some days I feel braver than others. That’s when I screw up my eyes and hit ‘publish’. So, I’m deeply grateful for comments like yours.
Comment by Marni Grossman
2009-07-13 12:19:15
This was so beautiful, Zara! Anything I say will, necessarily, be a repeat of everyone else’s comments. But they bear repeating, don’t they?
You may be barren in a technical, medical sense, but I hardly think the word applies on a cosmic level. You’re full, in fact, to surfeit, will humor, kindness, talent, and beauty.
Comment by Zara
2009-07-13 12:25:23
And you, Marni, are far too kind. Thank you.
Comment by jmb
2009-07-13 15:37:16
Mama Zion said it better than I ever could.
Barren is a tragic term
but it does not mean you don’t produce fruit.
Blessings and peace
be with you
and yours
and may your eyes be opened
to the goodness you bring
Comment by Zara
2009-07-13 15:49:10
You help me open my eyes. I thank you.
Comment by chiwan
2009-07-13 20:19:40
that was intense. and after all the words and the emotions and history, amazingly simple.
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-07-13 20:40:42
Thanks for your words. I appreciate you reading.
Comment by N.L. Belardes
2009-07-13 20:30:09
I have sat here pondering whether to click “add comment” or not. I will just email it to you.
Comment by D.R. Haney
2009-07-14 01:04:56
I can’t help but wish that you’d shared it.
I think this is one of the standout pieces I’ve ever read on TNB.
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-07-14 10:57:34
Duke:
Nick said it was okay to share his beautiful comment so here it is:
I remember once walking into the barren desert in the Valley of Fire and the hills looked like chocolate. The honeycombed rocks that we crawled through were like red candy that water dripped through. A petrified tree lay like a candy bar across a path, but at the same time was fenced in. No one could get to it. Under rocks were scorpions who twitched their tails. Petroglyphs scratched by a once-thriving culture had been scrawled in sun shapes and little shamen, telling tales of the past and gloriously marking rocks for future generations. They were Ancient Native American ribbon scars on the red clay. I can still imagine the day a red-tailed hawk perched above the petroglyphs high on a rock wall. Far below, sidewinder trails had whipped the sand into a foam. Sometime around that day in particular my father died. I walked to a round chamber of rock half hidden on a soft-sand trail. I could feel the energy. This was a meeting place. I climbed high up a
wall and sat in a perch. You could practically hear a grain of sand fall. I imagined elders on other perches. This was a chilly place. The rocks were cool to the touch. The sand had a hint of orange. Only the spirits were left. But they were holier than anything I ever felt. They were alive.
Comment by D.R. Haney
2009-07-14 20:17:50
Okay. I am going to fucking cry.
Thanks a lot.
Comment by Gina Frangello
2009-07-14 18:09:17
Zara, I’m coming to this conversation a bit late. Novel-revising-hell, and I’ve been M.I.A. on TNB and in most other aspects of my life these past few weeks.
I also did not menstruate. I had one period at the age of 17, and other than that, nothing. At 19, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome and told that my testosterone was too high and my estrogen virtually nonexistent. I was proclaimed infertile (though in my case the possibility of severe medical intervention down the line, hardcore fertility drugs, were later dangled in my face like a carrot that could make me a “normal” woman.) While the rest of my friends were trying not to get knocked up and taking Midol, I was bloodless, without need for contraception. Finally, because my body kept growing cysts, I was put on the pill so that I would get my period, but even those periods were barely more than spotting, and the birth control itself was, of course, redundant.
I am still not quite sure why I just . . . didn’t really give a shit. Perhaps it was all that testosterone, ha. I knew that this was all “supposed” to be making me feel awful, incomplete, less than a full woman–I knew that on soap operas and talk shows and in self-help books, women were willing to risk their lives to bear children and grieved profoundly if their bodies couldn’t pull it off. If it makes sense, I felt less than a woman for not CARING, more than for not having productive ovaries, for not ovulating. I felt guilty and embarrassed, as though people would think I was lying if I said I didn’t mind, so I kept quiet about it. I endured people’s pity and tried to bear it graciously.
A friend of mine who went into premature menopause due to childhood Hodgkin’s Disease became suicidal when, at 16, she had the menopausal reproductive system of a 50 year old and was told she could never have kids. She threatened to stop her cancer treatments. She cried for days, and for years she believed no man would ever love her because she was barren. This is what I believed my response was supposed to have been like.
But it wasn’t. Like I said, I don’t know why.
I met my future husband when I was 22. Before we ever even kissed I told him I was infertile. He didn’t give a flying fuck. We talked vaguely about adopting someday, but mainly kids were not on our radar. The next 8 years or so passed just that way, full of travel and independence and focusing on each other and our work.
Then I turned 30 and it hit me. That sudden, intense desire to become a mother. Doctors urged me to go on fertility drugs, and because I thought this was what I was “supposed” to want, and what everyone else seemed to want me to do, for 2 months I tried Clomid (no ovulation, though I did get a charming brain disturbance where I hallucinated.) Then I came to my senses and realized I was going against all my own true feelings. I did not crave pregnancy; I craved a BABY. The next day, I went back on birth control pills, and within a week we were beginning adoption proceedings for China. Everyone said we had “stopped too soon.” Everyone said, “Who knows, you could have had one of your own.” Those who didn’t take this line thought it was “heroic” of us to adopt. But it wasn’t about heroism any more than it was a “consolation prize.” To me, it was just the clear way to become a parent.
I realize I had a “choice,” or at least the illusion of one (those fertility drugs may well not have worked–they don’t for many women who waste years and fortunes on them.) I realize you have no choice, no option in that vein, and I don’t mean to trivialize that. Yes, the sense of being able to choose your own destiny is a powerful thing.
Still, here is what I want to say. We adopted twin 9 month old girls in 2001. They are 9 years old now and up to my chin! It was the best fucking thing I have ever done in my life. I got two babies, an international vacation, and I still fit into my size 2 dresses when it was all done. Hell, yeah. Nothing not to like about that.
Okay, so here the story veers–or rather it does not veer at all; the circumstances just change, but the true things all stay the same.
At 35, all of a sudden I began to menstruate. I didn’t think all that much of it. The periods were still very irregular, though they were not brought on by drugs for the first time in my life. At 36, I became pregnant. I took 3 pregnancy tests because I could not believe this was actually possible, but it was.
Everyone acted like it was a miracle. Some people, when I told them, yelled things like, “Thank God!” as though all those years I had been grieving and praying for pregnancy, when in fact I had been mothering 2 daughters and could not have cared less. Again, I felt a pressure upon me to act the way I felt I was expected to act, though in reality the responses of most people, even those closest to me, did not really resonate with me.
When I miscarried, I found myself officially a member in a whole other kind of club of womanhood. Like the Pregnancy Club, the Miscarriage Club has many members. Like the Pregnancy Club, it was a club I had never planned to join. In this case, being a member is no damn fun either.
After the miscarriage, my doctors said my pregnancy had been a fluke. They said it would not happen again–I still had almost no estrogen. They offered me more fertility drugs, and again I declined and went home. We planned to adopt from China for a third child.
Three months later I was pregnant again.
My son is now three and a half.
Zara, I don’t mean this to be one of those “oh, I thought I was barren and now it turns out I’m not–isn’t that fabulous!” stories. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I adore my son and I would walk through fire to protect him. But if I love my son madly and intensely, it’s because I’m PARENTING him, not because he was inside my body. I feel no differently towards him than towards my daughters. Being pregnant and giving birth did not make me a mother, or a woman, or anything I had not already been–well, except a little fatter. It did not transform me. I had already been “transformed,” so to speak, into a mother years before–but being a mother didn’t make me a woman, or a whole person, either. I was that way before my kids came along. That was never about what was inside my womb any more than you are what is underneath that scar the doctors gave you.
If anything, being pregnant allowed me to see very clearly what some (not most, but a surprisingly sizable number) of the people in my life “really thought” about my previous infertility and my attitude about it and my adoption of my daughters, because once I was in the Pregnancy Club, they spoke more freely around me because they finally believed me to be “one of them.” But rather than making me feel closer to that particular club of womanhood, it only confirmed that I have never really had much interest in it and its ilk.
Girl, if you ever want to parent, you will. My friend who almost offed herself at 16 due to premature menopause is now the mother of a beautiful baby girl from Ethiopia. This world is a big and magical place. And love is always a choice. Nobody on this earth has ever loved another person strictly because they came out of their body. If love is that limited, it ain’t love. Parents have to choose every day to be REAL parents to their kids, and that has nothing to do with a blood tie, but with a life bond.
And if you don’t want kids, then fuck it, don’t go adopt any. You are an amazing woman either way. And the complexity of your mind has probably only been deepened and made more interesting by feeling a bit like an “outsider” all those years, because really, most people worth knowing have been outsiders of one type or another.
This is the longest freaking response I have ever written on TNB (and I am, I dare say, rather prone to long responses.) I should have sent you an email like Nick. Sorry.
You need to take that final step outside of the box those asshole book writers and medical professionals and even your glib, clueless girlfriends tried to put you in. Kick it out from under your feet, girl. Let it be 100%, irrevocably gone. I have never met you, but I can see you are way more than that, and there is not one single thing that a “typical” female reproductive system could give you (including a baby) that you either don’t already have or couldn’t get in another, probably hell-of-a-lot-more-fun fashion.
Okay. I’m done. Sending you much love from here for telling your brave story.
Comment by D.R. Haney
2009-07-14 20:26:57
Wow. And wow to the below.
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-07-14 18:48:20
Gina, thank you for taking the time to leave such a fantastic and inspiring comment. Once again. I’m blown away by the insight and compassion and support that this site offers.
I can relate to your story, although it differs to mine in some aspects, I know exactly what you are talking about. It doesn’t matter where the baby comes from, it’s where it ends up that is the important thing.
I feel dreadfully sorry for those women who have ‘unexplained infertility’ and they try and try and try to fall pregnant to no avail. I’ve seen how it can ruin people emotionally and financially. I’m lucky in that it’s pretty clear cut with me and when there’s no possibility then there’s no other action but to keep going forward. I had always thought of surrogacy and then one day realised that for me, that option was simply about vanity. Suddenly I realised there were all these babies out in the world that needed love and mothering and why should I go to the extreme of surrogacy just to have something of ‘myself’ when there were all these children just waiting.
I once read something from an adopted mother who told her child that she was glad she had been unable to conceive because it meant she was able to find her. (the child) I thought that was the best thing. I am lucky to be a stepmother to a fantastic girl and I am grateful that she lets me take a mothering role. I’m pissed off at the moment about all the hoopla surrounding Michael Jackson’s kids – who their ‘real’ parents are blah blah. HE was the father. Doesn’t matter whether it was his sperm or not. He was the parent. End of story.
Thank you again, for sharing your own story with me. You give me something to aspire to.
Comment by Gina Frangello
2009-07-15 07:00:49
Yes, that sentiment of being glad for the infertility because otherwise you would not have your (adopted) child is pretty much something I have heard echoed from every woman I know who has adopted, even those who did grieve it intensely earlier in their lives, and certainly is true for me. I am all the more grateful now that I didn’t actually persist with the fertility drugs, because (since I did later have a biological child) maybe they WOULD have worked, and then I wouldn’t have either of my daughters. I’m not a believer in “fate” or “everything turning out as it was meant to” (those things seem facile to me given all the tragedy and senseless bloodshed, violence, bad luck in the world) but I know that in my own life, I could not have ended up with 3 kids who were more right for me, however they came to be here.
Ditto about Michael Jackson. Not a fan of the guy but geez. The media practically pauses over a toilet he once used to belabor whether the shit was actually his, you know? Give it a rest. The guy is dead. However weird he may have been, the kids were his.
Comment by David S. Wills
2009-07-15 20:56:17
That’s a very honest, well written piece of writing.
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-07-16 13:06:50
Thanks David. It’s a bit gloomy.. but hey.
Comment by Erika Rae
2009-07-16 12:19:06
You inspire me with this piece, Zara. As someone who just had a baby, I must admit to feeling a little selfish…or irrelevant, perhaps…to even make a comment. But. Your writing is anything but barren. Your life is anything but barren. You are rich, Zara. And that nurse – who for all we know has a dozen children at home – is a desiccated wasteland of a person with the poison she spread.
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-07-16 13:06:14
Please don’t feel that way, Erika. The last thing I wish to do is make anyone else feel excluded. Your comments are valuable to me and I’m so glad you left them. Thank you for your words.
Comment by Jennifer Duffield White
2009-07-17 01:35:52
Zara,
This was achingly gorgeous writing. Barren can be beautiful. Yes.
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-07-18 01:08:34
Thank you Jennifer – for reading and for your lovely words.
Comment by Tina
2009-07-18 20:18:03
Kisses to you gorgeous girl xx
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-07-19 18:57:05
Right back at you xxx
Comment by New Orleans Lady
2009-10-10 13:07:38
This left me feeling heavy, sad, honored, blessed, appreciative, ……the list goes on. Through your words, I feel your pain. As someone who NEVER wanted children, I know now what a blessing my son was and still is for me. There is such beauty in your prose…I think it’s the pure honesty that I fell in love with.
I’m sure you’ve heard this a thousand times throughout life but I really want you to take a moment and meditate, pray, or just think about this…
EVERYTHING HAPPENS (OR DOESN’T HAPPEN) FOR A REASON.
Although you may not understand what you are supposed to teach and accomplish in this life, it’s all for a reason. Maybe just sharing your words and your honesty in a way that helps people, is reason enough. Maybe there is more of a reason. But I can promise, it’s not a punishment. The world does not work that way.
Maybe you are meant to rescue a child in need of a good home…something else to think about. Keep us posted.
Comment by Zara Potts
2009-10-11 15:53:45
Thanks for reading and for your comments. Yes, I agree – everything does happen for a reason. I’m okay with that now. Took awhile, but I’m good with it.
Comment by sheree
2009-10-11 15:30:37
Powerful write.
“Despite its ugliness, I have decided to claim the word. Like nigger or dyke or fag, I am going to embrace the word that has the ability to wound me. I will train myself not to jump when I hear it. I will teach myself to say it out loud with a smile on my lips. By applying it to myself I will starve it of its power.
There is freedom in acceptance. Fighting only tightens the ropes and makes it harder to release yourself”.
Very powerful indeed!
Comment by Zara Potts
Thank you Sheree.
I have learned that fighting something unbeatable just leaves you shattered. Sometimes it’s best to open your arms and accept it.
Thank you for your kind and strengthening words. x
Comment by sheree
You’re welcome. Happy life looting and fairest of travels to you dear Lady.
I still love this piece.
Thanks Matt. Thanks for reading it again.
Dear Zara and Gina
Your words make me feel so much better as I am barren too.
I’m still coming to terms with my barren-ness.
Gina, like your friend I went into menopause early four years ago although I was 36 not 16. It was horrendous as overnight I went from feeling like an overgrown adolescent who went clubbing and enjoyed looking and feeling younger than her years to feeling like an aged crone (even though I didn’t/don’t look it).
To make it worse my husband is eight years younger than me so I felt terrible I was putting him through the grind of having a wife who was going through the menopause when he was in his late 20s!
One of my little sisters has just had a baby and the other is due in February. They both fell pregnant within a month of trying. I know they are trying to protect me from feeling hurt as one of them especially isn’t sharing her tales of motherhood or pregnancy. This is making me feel even worse – quite ostracized in fact.
I’m considering egg donation (from one of my lovely friends) but am inclined to feel it is trying too hard to make a baby especially for me instead of adopting one of the many children out there who need a home.
But I don’t know if adoption is the road for us either as I don’t want to have to wait however long you have to wait and go through the long and winding prodding-and-questions gauntlet you have to go though to be evaluated as suitable parents.
I think it might be easier to get some doggies and to be the doting Super Aunty and Uncle.
I have always been deaf in my right ear which meant my brain overcompensated by giving me super hearing in my left ear.
Perhaps this is what happens if you are barren. You develop other areas which would otherwise be neglected like developing a heightened understanding of what life is all about (with or without children), what it’s like for things to be unfair, how to be compassionate and understanding and strong for yourself as well as others.
Barren Zara, you are an inspiration to me. You have alway shown me how to laugh at things that aren’t funny and to be light about things that are heavy, without taking them lightly.
Thanks for this piece too.
Love
Barren Lazza
Dear Barren Lazza
You are so full of good things. So full of life and humour and love. There is nothing barren about you at all.
I do understand how you are feeling and it is a hard one to accept. It does make you feel lonely and un-womanly and all those other awful things. Nobody can make you not feel those things. I wish I could wave a magic wand for you and make you feel okay.
And maybe that’s true what you say – it does help heighten understanding. Then again, I’m not sure. You have always been one of the most empathetic and generous people I have ever met.
Lovely Lazza. You are such a light in my life. I hope you realise just how much you brighten up peoples lives by being in them. We are all so lucky to have you in our lives. xxx
Dearest Zara,
This piece was written before I became the TNB head I am today – so I’m just reading it now.
One of the good things I guess about this 3.0 phenom is this almost resurrection of these older pieces.
I am so beyond moved by how you’ve conveyed your experience. I echo everyone’s anger at the insensitive nurses, karma writers (fucking grrrrrr) and dumbasses. I also echo everyone’s sentiment that you are so full of life and the opposite of barren – my god – you flow with life – I’ve never even physically met you and I know this. I have no answers and have nothing meaningful to say. But thank you for this writing, thank you for being you – a tremendously giving and glorious human being. I’m glad I know you even better now.
Darling Steph,
Thank you so much for reading and your beautiful comment.
It means so much to me reading your words. I hope you know that I feel the same way about you. I think you are a glorious woman and I’m so thankful that I have such special people like you in my life. xx
Dear Zazza
I have started my own blog. Would you mind if I linked to your blog from mine?
Love
Barren Lazza xx
I would be honoured, Barren Lazza.
Lots of love,
Barren Zazza.
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