Sunday 17 May 2015

Thanks for the best wishes

Yesterday I had a lot of people congratulate me on the coming family expansion. Unless they were actually congratulating me on developing another curious symptom in my decades-long struggle with intersex, that is. If they weren't, then it appears that they had only read the title of the blog post in question which carried said title. I do appreciate the sentiment, though.

For me to actually be pregnant would require so many medical and biological miracles that if I were to give birth months from now, you can easily just wrap that blue mantle around my shoulders and call me the Virgin Maya. Not ever having had a male inject his seed inside of me, nor the lack of an accessible vagina, the presence of a uterus or fully functional ovaries could in that case prevent the miracle of life from taking hold inside my abdomen.

All that I know at this point is that apparently my body thinks it's pregnant and that something appears to be growing inside my abdomen. This 'something' could be anything from a benign growth to mere water retention to full-blown cancer. Something is pressing on nerves leading to my right leg. Something appears to be pushing on my other organs, causing lots of other fun symptoms. Something seems to be generating the right hormones a placenta would produce to trigger this linea nigra symptom.

Admittedly that last symptom seems to be pushing things really hard into the 'proper pregnancy' territory, but that would still run into the other issues mentioned earlier. Unless all doctors so far have been lying about that as well and I do in fact have a fully functional uterus, ovaries and what not. The emotions I'm going through after yesterday's discovery range from a weird sense of elation at the thought of being pregnant to severe frustration and anger towards physicians in general for not just being honest and simply doing their job. Being left in limbo like this isn't doing me any favours, though maybe physicians are secretly getting a kick out of it. I don't know.

Tomorrow afternoon is my gynaecologist appointment. My hope is that he'll see the point of referring me post-haste to a fully equipped clinic for proper examinations. If he doesn't and just wants me to fluff around with more hormone/medication experimentation... then he'll be my ex-gynaecologist and I'll have another to visit. Answers are required at this point. If a physician feels he knows better than me at this point despite not living inside this body, he or she can go take a long hike.

Frustrations aside, yesterday's discovery was in a sense something both shocking and very beautiful. I had not expected to suddenly come across a symptom which so strongly links what I am going through right now with a normal pregnancy. I also hadn't counted on my emotional response to this finding. It wasn't until then that it occurred that for all I know I might as well have a real child growing inside of me. With maternal feelings kicking in I suddenly felt really guilty for subjecting my abdomen to so much punishment the past months. Every punch and other frustrated action aimed at my swollen abdomen felt like a crime.

That's not to say that if I were to hold my hands on my abdomen now and feel kicking inside, I wouldn't completely freak out.

...though I kind of like the ring of this 'Virgin Maya' thing.


Maya

1 comment:

Paul said...

I read that you received congratulations on your pregancy. I was bewildered that people hadn't taken your personal anatomy never mind the other part of equation required for this to be true into account. There have been no non-mythic recorded occurences of pathenogenisis in humans due to the epigentic requirements for that to happen. The nearest possiblity could be a teratoma (only possible, I assume, if you have ovaries) but I hope it is something minor. But for sure a gynocologist should take this serious.