Merriam Webster defines a miracle as:
- An extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.
- An extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment.
- A divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law.
I’ve written before about how I’ve been described as a medical miracle. It was also a miracle that I was able to conceive given my age and the fact that chemotherapy causes a woman's eggs not to be viable. Doctors have been referring to my pregnancy as miraculous, but none of us knew just how many odds had been defied until I gave birth.
While I was on the operating table during my c-section, Dr. OB exclaimed, “That's one old postmenopausal ovary!”
“Postmenopausal?!? Really?!?” I asked with surprise in my voice. I had been in menopause following treatment, but time had reversed some of the symptoms. Postmenopause occurs after menopause is completely over, and that's not typically the case for women after chemotherapy.
“Yes! Everything here is very sad and aged. One squeaked through, though, although we’re not sure how!”
This conversation transpired while the pediatrician was examining our daughter, Roya.
During my hospital stay, I started thinking about what the doctor had said. If my ovaries were postmenopausal, that meant that I had the ovaries of a woman in her 50s. A woman who is postmenopausal has no more eggs and thus no more periods. There was no way that I should have been able to get pregnant, and yet, Roya was here. She made it through the creaky, wrought iron gate that is my reproductive system. And, I'm so thankful she did!