Another excerpt from Persephone’s Children, @DundurnPress, publishers.
U is for uterus, uteri; also, for uterine fibroids. Benign growths that range in size from microscopic seeds to peas, to fists, to cantaloupes, to pumpkins. Black women are three times more likely than the rest of the female population to develop them, and have five times higher odds of harsher symptoms. Sistas, raised since slave days to be strong and carry on, suffer in silence — the heavier bleeding, the anemia, the excruciating pelvic pain. Earlier onset of uterine fibroids can lead to infertility, high-risk pregnancy, and miscarriage; to the increased likelihood of delivery by Caesarean section and of life-altering hysterectomies. Two of your three daughters have severe uterine fibroids. At times, you’ve felt guilty. Had you somehow cursed them with your genetics? Had historical traumas taken hold and expressed themselves on a cellular level? Had you passed on, biologically, the traumatic memories of mothers, of Mother Africa, of Middle Passage, like you had the wayward kinks and red undertones of your hair?
Excerpt from Blood Tithes: A Primer. Persephone’s Children publication date October 12/2021
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