fertility is a measure of health
If there’s just one thing that I could plant in the hearts of my gals (young and old) that took to sprouting and flourishing, I think this very well might be it — Fertility is an accurate and reliable measure of a woman’s overall health and wellbeing. The word “fertility” itself tends to bring to mind conception, pregnancy, and babies, but in truth fertility is a state of being. To be fertile is to contain a threshold and capacity to create and bring forth into the world the things that are of your essence, your dreams, your spark.
In this way of thinking, I hope it’s a little easier to piece together how the things of life affect our fertility.
Simply put, in order to create, we must have the energy. To create means to cause to exist, to bring into being, to give rise to, to produce through artistic or imaginative effort. When we’re feeling run down or ceaselessly worried, overloaded, disheartened, underfed, lacking, or are experiencing painful periods every time we bleed, maybe feeling disconnected emotionally from our people, or not witnessed for our value in the ways we yearn for, these are all very real and valid things that affect our ability to create. Be it a baby, a completely different work of art, or even an exciting project.
So then, why is it that imbalance has become the norm? If so many women are experiencing a lack of fertility, why isn’t this common knowledge?
I feel like the further I’ve wandered into what it is to honor my womanhood and respect the needs of my body, physically and energetically, the mysteries I’ve felt distant from have come to surround me like the hug of an old friend. What once truly felt out of reach, now feels like a remembering of what I should have known all along. And as I think on my gals, and the stories they’ve carried of things such as fertility or lack of it, missing periods, long cycles, short cycles, allll the in-betweens… I want this coming home to these simple truths for them, too.
So dear ones, if this feels resonant to you, let’s talk about it.
There are just a few times in the life of a woman when being in a state of infertility is both normal and healthy:
— Pre-menarche, the years before we’ve come into our cycles. Ideally for a handful of reasons, this would be around age 13.
— Post-birth, ideally for a full 12 months postpartum we pause our cycling for the sake of rebuilding our nutrients that were exerted during pregnancy and birth. This design is also a natural spacer between children to prevent depletion in our bodies.
— Post-menopause, as our hormones begin to shift again and the energetic role of our cycle transitions from outward exertion to a more inward focus. We enter a new archetype again, still “mother” but with less day to day mothering, with new roles and responsibilities within our community at this time, and our fertile creative endeavors also have shifted from babies and bringing life forth, to expanding within the framework of this new woman we become. This ideally happens at age 50 and beyond.
Outside of these time markers, our fertility and ability to conceive is a reliable indicator of our picture of health overall. If in our cycle we don’t have a fertile phase (in our body as well as in our creative endeavors, you know those times when you’re feeling beyond eager to make the idea real and tangible), this is a solid message that our energetic and/or physical flow is blocked and needs caring for.
On a physical level, anovulation (not ovulating) disrupts the whole intricate dance of hormones that we’re designed to have throughout the month. Or even ovulating, but not having a state of balance within our uterine lining for a fertilized egg to implant. Estrogen and progesterone in particular (of course among others, follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone) play an incredible role in how and who we are in our day to day as women. And how many women can you think of off hand that are experiencing estrogen dominance? PMS, chronic fatigue, lack of luster?
The matter of whether or not we’re wanting to conceive right now (or ever) is a completely different conversation. But considering that most of us were never taught the basics of what our bodies need when we’re bleeding (both monthly and in our postpartum times), and that a big percentage of young girls are ushered onto various forms of birth control to “manage” their unruly periods before they’ve ever experienced what a normal and healthy cycle looks and feels like, I think this conversation is well past due.
The common theme in conversations with women who aren’t yet mothers and desire to be at some point in the future teeters between hopefulness and fear. “I hope that when I’m ready for a baby, I am able.” This very “walking in the dark hoping for the best” kind of feeling.
This huge topic of infertility and the messaging it provides women really fails to acknowledge that to read our cycles is to have the ability to identify the imbalances that are present that are contributing to a lack of fertility and ability to conceive. It doesn’t have to be this walking in the dark, guessing game of “I hope” when we have real cues to go off of. I see women approaching these years that lead to motherhood with this “fingers crossed” kind of mindset. Especially with the numbers of women using their voices and sharing their stories about the struggles of infertility (that are very real) and the heartbreak of conceiving but not being able to carry a pregnancy to completion.
More than this, how are we abandoning women in their menopause time when we’ve overlooked or failed to recognize the long term of the imbalances she’s dealt with for years, even decades?
Dr. Lia Andrews calls this the “Period Karma.”
Women struggling in their menopause transition instead of feeling exhalted and welcomed into the next role they are called to is not normal. It is not the design to be overcome with hot flashes, nightsweats, rage, or unpredictable heavy bleeding. As Lia says, this a result of compounded imbalances over time surfacing for the opportunity to finally be acknowledged.
Like with many things, it is so simple and yet can be turned into every kind of complexity possible.
If the house plant turns yellow, or starts to wrinkle, we see there is a need to be met.
If the body brings symptoms, she too has needs to be met.
Not masked, not ignored, not feared.
These needs may be physical, they may be psychological, maybe generational, maybe more. Probably all of the above. And I think that when we’re willing to see it for the macro of the big picture as well as the micro of the details, our whole life and the lessons in healing and vibrancy shift into a much more comprehensive and less distant, unreachable place to be. We find ourselves less caught off guard, not so much wondering “why is this happening”, and more able to look back and recognize the signs that led to this place that you now are.
And from that place, more able to govern and choose how to proceed in a way that feels most right and aligned for you,
to freely create the life you desire to live,
and to have the capacity to expand the edges of yourself that are here to do bigger.
Maybe the seed knows it will grow into a huge, colorful, aromatic bloom, or maybe as it’s edges continue to rise and broaden, it has no idea how it’s very being will feed the bees and be medicine for the people of the world who carry the wisdom of it’s value, and to all who gain light from it’s beauty. Either way, it’s fertility and wellness, it’s ability to grow, creates a ripple in all of creation that is beyond it’s own life.
And you, too.