The end of an era- Crossing the final fertility threshold
I have recently crossed a threshold. A threshold I hadn’t prepared for or been prepared for in any way. A fertility threshold that marks the end of an era, and ushers in the phase that will take me to the end of my days.
Menopause.
I am feeling and thinking and learning and unlearning heaps and heaps. And I can attest to the fact that I am not who I was a few years ago, which is unexpectedly delightful and disorienting.
It is a poignant time to have crossed out of fertility as my daughter at 17 is at the height of hers. Lots of feels there.
On my crossing day last week, I went back to the spot where I stood and willed my period to begin. 34 years ago, on a summer day as I walked onto my high school campus to register for classes, I prayed and pleaded to not be the only one who hadn’t gotten “it” before starting 9th grade.
“How embarrassing to still be a little girl,” I told myself. I had no idea what that would even mean to begin menstruating, other than to believe it would somehow make me something more than I was.
Woo! Did I become something more than I was from that point forward! The next 3 and a half decades, as you may relate to, were filled with wrestling with my fertility and celebrating it, becoming and uncovering more and more of who I am.
When ready to conceive I believed, similar to my 14 year old self, that being a mother would somehow make me something more than I was.
My Matrescence has definitely made me more than I was. And it continues to develop! Matrescence is the life passage of becoming a mother. It is the unfolding journey that changes everything about how we relate to ourselves and the world and how the world relates to us.
My Matrescence began with the conception of my first daughter. Her story is a story about loss, one that I have not spoken publicly about before.
The way my Matrescence began was full of a kind of heartache that I wasn’t prepared for, as many of us are unprepared for the grief that can accompany motherhood. It’s a story that has been hard to hold and express in so many ways and for so many reasons.
As life would have it, at this particular threshold in my life, I was offered the opportunity to speak about my entry into Motherhood.
This week, serendipitously timed with the marking the end of my fertility, on the Sage Family podcast, I gently open the story of our first daughter who we said hello and goodbye to in the same few moments.
And I do so, for the first time, in a way that is more transparent than opaque.
It has taken me 19 years to get to this point where I could talk about the many shades of Pregnancy loss.
I found myself in this ceremony of transparency with 3 intentions:
As a tender gesture towards myself- in appreciation of the fertility journey that launched me into Matrescence with all the complex realities often kept hidden.
As an act of reverence for my 3 daughters- one living and two in spirit form who deserve fully embodied recognition and honoring.
As an act of service to the world- those who share a similar path of heartache or need the chance to understand and support those who do.
It is episode 101. So perfectly numbered in the foundational-ness to our collective story of Matrescence.