“Part of Life”

Dear Doctor,

I wish you would have believed me. The first time I visited you about my period pain I was thirteen years old. You said the pain was normal. You used the word "complaining". You told me to use paracetamol.

The second time I visited you I told you I was missing weeks per month at school. I couldn't walk for the first two days each cycle for the pain. You prescribed me something stronger but it didn't help. No referral. No gynaecologist.

The third time I visited I cried, I begged you to help, you told me I was a woman now and my pain was "part of life". I was fourteen and I cried harder. I had to "learn to cope". I saw myself as weak.

The seventh time I visited you, I was nineteen, I was at university, I knew my pain wasn’t normal, my flat mates saw me screaming on the bathroom floor and told me they were worried. I got my referral.

I didn't visit you an eighth time. I had been to the hospital, been scanned, sat in the whirring MRI machine praying they would find something, something that could be treated.

They did.

The consultant told me, I had been born with a birth defect inside. Two uteruses sharing one small cervix that isn't wide enough. My blood had been collecting inside of me. My body contracting harder and harder each month to try to push it out.

I didn't visit an eighth time, because as much as I wanted to tell you I was right all along, that I wasn’t complaining or weak. Instead of visiting I changed GP practice. I realise now that girls deserve to be listened to. To be believed.

Today I am cared for by a gynaecologist who listens to me. I take muscle relaxants to ease the contractions, I am having surgery next month to allow me to carry children. I feel heard. I feel believed. My periods will never be "normal" but at least now I am in control.

@spooniefighter

Natalie, UK