excerpts

Such a shame your daughter will never be able to have children,

Mrs Garlepp… I am so sorry… It must be really awful having to give your child injections… I couldn’t do it… Do you think they’ll find a cure soon?

I had spent the past thirty-five weeks reliving that scene in my waking hours and in my sleep. I was about to give birth for the fourth time. Any ‘normal’ woman would be prepared for the event knowing exactly what to expect during the birth and afterwards, but I did not consider myself ‘normal’ and I did not have ‘normal’ births.

The words kept ringing in my ears day in day out… You will never have children … you can’t have children… you…

The bottle of sleeping pills was on the bedside table. Could I do it? Did I have the guts? All I knew was that I wasn’t prepared to do this journey on my own. Pricking my fingers ten times a day, injecting my arms and legs, living everyday by the clock and on the edge of my nerves. My days seemed consumed with sugar tests. The tips of my fingers were amass with tiny black pinpricks and I hid them in closed fists. I felt like a human pin cushion. What made it seem too cruel was the fact that I was a useless incubator for human eggs. I couldn’t blame Michael for leaving me; anyone in their right mind would have done the same. I was the one at fault here-a freak of nature. Nobody would mourn my loss.

My mother was no fool; she knew instinctively that something was wrong. She told me this story years later. She had watched me at the tap trying desperately to quench my thirst. Then late one night when we were all in bed Mother sat with medical books opened on her lap and read about childhood diseases – Scarlet fever, poliomyelitis, diphtheria. She thumbed through page after page, studying the symptoms of each and every disease carefully. Mother was shocked when she came to one disease that matched my symptoms perfectly.

These were the words that jumped out at my mother and she was able to place a tick beside each and every one:

· lack of energy

· loss of weight

· excessive thirst

· poor concentration

· blurry vision

· poor eating habits

· excessive tiredness