Womanhood

What makes someone a woman? Is it her physical attributes? It is an innate caring and nurturing that you are born with? Or is it her ability to conceive and carry a child, thus proving her evolutionary purpose? If she is unable, is she not a woman?

I know I must not be the only person with infertility, wondering if they were really a woman. My body is not doing what it was designed to do. It is akin to a man back in the caveman days whose family is starving because he is unable to catch or gather food.

We are lucky that we live in a country in which I can do many things. I can educate myself, I can help clients make prudent financial decisions, I can commit to a marriage, I can teach children in Sunday School, I can be a good daughter, sister, friend, member of society. But, I can not be a mother. Without some sort-of medical or legal intervention, I can not have a child. It is hard not to feel like a failure under that circumstance.

Logically, I know that simply bearing a child does not make me a woman any more than wearing a loincloth and beating his chest would make Ryan a man. However, in those dark moments, when reason and common sense give way to bitterness and confusion, these are the feelings that can take residence inside a broken heart.