Women Who Don’t Know Better Will Believe Him and Leave Feeling Silly for Caring
Written by: Meredith Paci | Functional Health Coach
Last week one of my clients went to see a specialist. Her cycles stopped in her 30s, and she has been incredibly proactive about her health and overall well-being ever since. She knows this territory very well, and she approaches all of it with an abundance mindset.
She is on hormone therapy and is supported incredibly well by her healthcare team. She, her providers, and I have a great working relationship, and the care is collaborative. When one of her providers suggested we take things one step further, her team and I could not have agreed more. We all agreed that another set of eyes, from a different angle, could be incredibly beneficial for making sure nothing was being missed.
I have to tell you, although sadly I was not shocked in the least, I was absolutely horrified by how that first appointment went.
She was demeaned and dismissed, and it went one step further than being dismissed. She was made to feel silly and stupid. He told her that if she wasn’t trying to get pregnant, her hormones didn’t matter. He told her she was silly for worrying, or even wondering.
He had already told her he wasn’t going to help her. After about twenty minutes of being told how little her hormones mattered unless she wanted a baby, she realized she did not need to be treated this way any longer. Why was she still sitting there? When she stood up to leave, he told her to sit down because he wasn’t done speaking.
If you have never been through an appointment like this, welcome. I say that because most of the women I have worked with, as one-on-one clients, in consulting, and in mentorship, are not shocked at all when they hear this story. I wasn’t either, because I have been through similar appointments myself. It isn’t shocking, and it is no less saddening.
She walked out. She left upset, and she had every reason to be upset. What she said to me afterward is why I’m writing this. She was more upset for the women who would sit through that same appointment, believe him, and leave feeling silly for caring about their health beyond whether they have a baby.
I want to be very clear about something. Having a child is a beautiful thing and a gift when it is a woman’s choice. When I work with clients on fertility goals, I care about getting them pregnant. I also care about that woman while she carries her child, during the birth, and after it.
Then there are the women who don’t want children, and the women who can’t have them despite their best efforts. Is her brain less worth protecting? Her bones? Her energy, her vitality, her life? Last I checked, our sole purpose as women was not, and does not need to be, to bear a child. Respectfully, you would think anyone working in OB/GYN or fertility would feel the same.
She could walk out because she knew how she should be treated and she knew why she was there. Most women I meet don’t have that yet, and those are the women who leave believing him.
That said, whether she knows more or not, no woman should ever be treated that way.
This week’s blog is for all of you: any woman, anyone raising a daughter, anyone who knows or cares about a woman. It walks through how appointments too often go, how they should go, and what you can do to walk in prepared. Please read it. Please share it. [LINK TO BLOG]
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