My Mother and Menopause

  

Three Generations: My mother, my grandmother, and me

I spoke to my mother about menopause and what things were like for her. My mothers experience going through menopause was a little different then the average woman. My mother had a very difficult delivery of me (sorry mom!). The most major issue my mother had after delivering me was a recessed bladder. My mother had to have a bladder sling after I was born. She continued to have problems with her recessed bladder continuously dropping in spite of the sling. When she was 47 she was told she would have to have the problem surgically corrected and that would include a full hysterectomy. Having a full hysterectomy at 47 threw my mother into full menopause. This was a lot more difficult for my mother then other woman because there was no gradual progression for her or her body. Her and her doctor spoke and later decided that my mother would have hormone replacement therapy to help treat the unpleasant side effects of menopause. My mother followed the doctors orders with the hormones but after a few months decided to stop because the good did not out weigh the bad. The hormone therapy was supposed to help with night sweats and bad dreams but it did not help my mother at all. In fact she didnt get more than a few hours of sleep a night. Shortly after using the hormones my mother noticed additional side effects such as hair loss, dry skin, and weight gain. During the time my mother was taking these hormones was there were, and still are, concerns being voiced by some doctors about the usage of these hormones significantly increasing the development of breast cancer. My mother and I both have extremely bad family histories of cancer in general but mostly breast cancer. My grandmother (my moms mom) just passed away in november from breast cancer. My mothers father passed away in 2006 from colon cancer and his mother (my mothers grandmother) also passed away from breast cancer. So with the prevalence of cancer in our family my mother chose to stop the hormone therapy. Though it was a difficult process (for all of us) my mother went through menopause without the use of any hormones and is happy with her choice to do so today. Luckily menopause is not something I have to be too terribly concerned about any time in the near future so hopefully doctors will come to the conclusion about hormone replacement therapy because as bad as my mothers family history is with cancer, mine is worse because my

fathers mother also had breast cancer, though she survived it. So unless there is concrete evidence proving no link between the usage of hormones and cancer I will make the same choice as my mother not to take part in the replacement therapy. 

Me and Nan(R.I.P)

summer '07

I miss you and love you so much. You still are and always will be my hero

STDs

STDs tend to have a very harsh stigma attached to them and those who may have any one of them. Like most other issues, especially health and medical related issues, a lot of the time people tend to develop these negative connotations because of ignorance or a lack of knowledge.  A lack of responsible sexual behavior can most certainly lead to the development of STDs but many people don’t take into consideration, the number of other ways that can lead to this same result. It is very unfortunate that those who may have developed an STD due to a blood transfusion, unknowing come into contact with infected blood or bodily fluid, a medical worker at a hospital for example, or been transferred an STD by their mother during the birth process. Another type of person who may develop an STD that people may not consider are those who are committed and monogamous to their partner, practice safe sexual practices and uphold high values but, unknowingly to them, their partners have been unfaithful and contracted an STD and infected their partner because they were not honest. This situation is the hardest to deal with. If people would encourage their friends or loved ones to be fully informed about the status of their health. If I were to ever be in that situation and had someone close to me tell me that they thought it was a possibility that they could have an STD I would infatic about encouraging them to get tested. I would tell them some of the many problems that they could be causing if they didn’t. I would tell my friend that, by prolonging getting tested they could very possibly be causing significant and possibly irreversible damage to their body. Many STDs, if left untreated, can cause many side effects and a lot are irreversible and/or can be very serious like infertility or cervical cancer.  If a person is not certain that they do not have an STD they could very possibly be responsible for the spreading of that STD. Honesty is extremely important to me and that includes honesty to your partner about the health risks they might have as well as honesty to themselves by having a complete understanding about their bodies. 

My future children

My personal choices and thoughts about my future family and the children I may or may not have most likely differ from the majority of other women. I am 100% certain I want to have children in the future. My personal wish is, when the time is right, to have 2 children. Now the way things may different to most is that I know for a fact neither of these children will be birthed by me and if things follow my wishes only one of my 2 hopeful children will actually be of blood relation to me. I guess I should explain: I am a lesbian and I plan to have children with my partner of 3 years no when we decide the time is right for us. Now I personally do not want to give birth to children. The pregnancy process is something I can do without if given the option. Now this works out quite well with my girlfriend. She absolutely and without any doubt or questions wants kids and wants to be pregnant them. Now obviously, our children can not, biologically, be BOTH of ours. Our personal plans are for her to give birth to our first child which will biologically be hers. Now the subject of the father is still up in the air. She has a particular donor that she wants to use. I do not know this man and am not particularly comfortable with him being used. I would prefer to use an anonymous donor. Recently my girlfriend brought up the idea of using my brother as a donor for our first child which I havent come to a decision about. As far as our second child, my girlfriend wants to birth our child but with the use of my egg. I am open to this because it would of course allow me to have a biological son or daughter but I dont find it to be a necessity. Both me and my girlfriend will have parental rights of any and all of our children. Whether or not I have a biological connection to my future children will in no way, shape or form have ANY effect on my love and connection to my children. I believe that there are many other and more important aspects other than biology to make a strong family and parent. I am completely confident in mine and my girlfriends ability to be an excellent parent and I have the utmost confidence that we will build a fantastic family regardless of the fact of whether or not it may be the typical or "normal" families that people are used to.