Do you choose to remain powerfully feminine when your pelvic pain hits?
Do you even know that you have a choice?
I will never forget one of the worst pain episodes of my life. I had endometriosis in my mid-twenties, and one afternoon I was meeting with some of the Ob/Gyn physicians at the hospital where I worked to discuss adding physical therapy services for the women in our community with pelvic pain, birth injuries, pain from breastfeeding and so on.
Literally, I was in a meeting with a group of Ob/Gyn’s discussing improving our treatment for women with pelvic pain at that hospital. Amazing, and embarrassing!
Right in the middle of the meeting, I began to feel the familiar pelvic pain that I got with my endometriosis that began as a gripping, cramping, and then progressed really quickly to knocking me off of my feet with dizziness. I was now trapped on that bathroom floor unable to return to the meeting.
The pain was familiar to me, so I didn’t panic, but I was terribly embarrassed that I couldn’t continue with my day. Getting a group of busy OB/Gyn’s together in a room is not an easy task, and I couldn’t stand having to cancel the meeting. The doctors at the meeting were worried that I was possibly hemorrhaging from an ectopic pregnancy. They gave me a pregnancy test and called my husband to come and meet me at the hospital. To me it was just another month of gripping period pain that I thought just came with the territory. “There’s nothing to do, but to be on the birth control pill.” was the refrain that I heard from many doctors over the years.
As I suspected I didn’t have an ectopic pregnancy, and I was fine in a few days until the next month arrived. Fortunately for me, my pelvic pain subsided for several years during and after my first pregnancy. So, that was a relief. But, what I learned years later now informs my entire perspective on how healing pelvic pain is not just an issue of helping a woman feel physically better, it’s an issue of enhancing her access to her core feminine power.
What?
Let me tell you a little story. Years later after the birth of my second daughter, my pelvic pain came back with a vengeance. I was admitted to the hospital and the doctors nearly took out my appendix. The pain was excruciating. At this point, I had had two babies vaginally without pain medication or an epidural, and I can honestly say that this pain was worse than my labor and delivery pain. The difference was that during labor and delivery while the pain was really rough at times – there was a point during my labor with my second daughter that I was biting my husband’s hand so hard
