Back when I was first contemplating the pregnant woman hanging clothes in Sophia’s painting, I was also contemplating my own family history with fertility.
I’m the first in my family (as far as I know) to be diagnosed with a “reproductive” cancer. No history of breast cancer, ovarian, or uterine. The cancer in our family has been on the male side, skin cancer for the fair-skinned fisherman who was not a fan of sunscreen and lung cancer for the heavy smokers.
And yet, I remember learning when I was in college that “hysteria” meant “womb sickness,” and thinking that my family had a long history of hysterics. And when I first saw a therapist and was greeted with considerable fear and concern about the process, I wondered if there were women in my family history who had been locked up for their hysteria. I remember being glad I was born in the time I was, when we stopped putting hysterical women in asylums. The women in my family are all a little crazy.
Fertility has been a dangerous time for women in my family. There are at least two major cases of postpartum depression, one in my generation and one in my mother’s, that were so dramatic I can’t discuss them here. Menopause, too, has been marked by more-than-the-usual drama. These are family secrets, and at this time I’m not ready to reveal, but they do play on me.
The one and only risk factor I seem to have for ovarian cancer is that I am childless.
I have registered for genetic testing, to see if I have the BRCA gene. I don’t think I do– only 20% of ovarian cancers are because of the gene, and there’s no history. But it is important information for my sister and her daughters. It will be 4-6 months before I can get an appointment for the genetic counseling. I’m not sure how that can be, but I’d guess it’s because of an increased fear about the gene throughout the population.
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When I was first diagnosed, I couldn’t help but think how beautiful a word “ovary” was. And since I didn’t “need” my ovaries anymore, how easy it would be to just take them out. I still think it’s a beautiful word: ovary, ovarian, egg, fertility. Like hysteria, another beautiful word, that reminds me for some reason of Ophelia bedecked with flowers…. floating down the river. Sad, romantic, tragic words.