Menopause and the childless woman
In a soft voice the woman said, “since going through menopause I feel like I have lost sight of who I am, and I think being childless is part of that lostness.”
Recently I hosted an online session for women post-menopause. I was curious as to what made them gather there; they spoke of a search for balance, a sense of losing oneself along the way. One spoke of the ten lost years since her last bleed and that she didn't know who she was anymore. Words spoken of searching for spirit, of wondering if there was a way to tap into a more soulful, spiritual way of being connected to their joys, their sorrows, and the world that they live in.
As words were shared, hearts slowly opened like new flowers. It was discovered that all the women in the circle were childless. Each woman connected to the other by the knowing of the never-knowing of motherhood. In that moment that we each understood this, we smiled tenderly. There was recognition in these faces. We saw each other and we saw ourselves reflected in every face. It was a powerful moment.
What can menopause mean for the woman who never bore a child? What does losing fertility mean if you never experienced the bearing of its fruits? Is it the pain of the sowing of seeds that never came to be? Is it the sense of a gift given and then thrown away, discarded, unused? Or is it a bird that is finally free to sing her own song?
Is it the pain of the sowing of seeds that never came to be? Is it the sense of a gift given and then thrown away, discarded, unused? Or is it a bird that is finally free to sing her own song?
Our youth-obsessed culture is reflected in the way we are told so little about menopause and its impact on our lives, both in terms of changes, and opportunities. As younger women, I guess it makes sense that we didn’t even think to ask about it, because we've been conditioned to feel that menopause is like an unmentionable stain on the fecund flowering of our youth. It’s something way off in the future. If talked about at all, it is mostly presented to us as an ending, not a beginning. As I look back over my own childless menopause transition this saddens me. I find myself wishing that I had been better prepared by women who had gone before me, so that I could have harnessed more of the power and poignancy of perimenopause. Now as a postmenopausal woman, I want to help women so they may see this transition in all its many facets and, where needed, tap into the healing power it too can provide.
I find myself thinking about the time as perimenopause approaches. The body knows that the leaves are starting to fall from the bough, and for some it surges and urges and cries out for conception before the chance is lost forever. For women trying for children, there can be an urgency to this time. There may be profound joy, or fathomless grief. For women who have chosen to be childless, things may not be so clear cut any more. Life can become a series of ‘what ifs’ and ‘what could be’s’. If single, every stranger becomes a possibility. If coupled, then emotions and dynamics take on their own complexity.
In many ways the liminal state of perimenopause can be seen as a gestation and birthing of life beyond menopause beyond fertility. For women who have chosen to be childless, there can be a feeling that they do not have the right to complain about the symptoms that are the birth pains of this new state of being. And then there can be quiet relief in the realization that periods have bled themselves into oblivion. Matters are now out of our hands. Life becomes what it is, in this moment now. A new kind of peace can be drawn like a line in the sand.
But birthing is a concept that moves beyond fertility.
Can it also be that menopause extends a powerful invitation to women to birth other things she wishes for into existence? Is it that her belly can become a nesting place for dreams and wishes as yet unrealized? What power lies in this visceral knowing that maybe now she can become a mother of invention?
Menopause can be a place for birthing an even deeper sense of self into being.
I remember when I was in my early 40s, a male friend of mine and I were talking and he asked me how I felt about the fact that I did not have children. His curiosity and compassion were genuine and gentle, and I realized I had never been asked this question in such an open and caring way. It took me a few moments to gather my thoughts to answer him. It is very easy to make something sound black and white when, in reality, it is many shades of grey. I am a childless only child. My life will not be handed down through DNA. My bloodline ends here. The stories of my family I've carried with me will have no direct descendants to pass on to. On some days there is grief in this, and others there is relief. I can't remember my exact words, but what has stayed with me is that I recall saying to him that there were some mixed emotions around being childless, but there are also other things I hoped to give birth to.
It is very easy to make something sound black and white when, in reality, it is many shades of grey.
Gestation comes from the Latin ‘gestare’, which means to bear, or give birth to. We talk about the gestation of a fetus before it's born, but we also use gestation to talk about ideas, art, creativity. I think about these words falling onto the page. The work I do. The paintings I paint. The form I've chipped from stone. The plant medicine I make… and I see stories, lineage and so much more birthed into each of these creations. These are my children, and my hope is they will carry the potency of legacy and lineage. Passing through menopause has brought this into much starker relief. I can see this more clearly because in the absence of any human child of my own, a different kind of mothering responsibility is rising.
In some ways, I would like to think that in these, my post menopause years, I can become more than the mother I ever thought I might be. A mother of no child, and yet a mother for all. I find myself thinking about children in this world, and the children to come. I feel a growing and urgent responsibility to help birth in a better way of being in this world, and of being in relationship with this world. I want to help us women, help them to find ways to navigate the world we have handed on to them. I'm angry about what we've done to this world and their futures. I want to be a good ancestor.
And when it comes to the end of my days, as I prepare for another kind of labour; my transition from this life to the next, I want to know that I was brave enough and bold enough to birth the creative offspring I feel growing inside me in these years beyond menopause.
I want to know that I was brave enough and bold enough to birth the creative offspring I feel growing inside me in these years beyond menopause.
The women in the circle keep coming back to me. Glimpses in fragments of memory. The lostness and searching in them touched the same in me. Why is it that we lose ourselves in menopause? What happens that we feel we have lost the very essence of who we are? Can it be as simple as shifting hormones or is it that we come face to face with the understanding that we are no longer of a form that we are told we should be. It's as if society wants us to fall victim to the loss of the flowering of our youth. Yet this birthing into a new phase of life is actually an invitation for us to truly step into our power. There is beauty in that. It is time for society and for us to see that and to fall in love with what can be gestated and birthed in the years of the no-longer-fertile woman.