My Final Mikvah
A new heartbreaking anonymous story gives an insight into one woman’s feelings as she prepares for her visit to the mikvah (ritual bath), a necessity in orthodox communities before husband and wife reunite. This immersion happens after a woman finishes menstruating, and it renders her ritually clean to have sex again.
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This process is deeply painful for those who are not able to get pregnant or for those who have lost a pregnancy, as it is a monthly reminder that their bodies are not carrying a child. (When someone is pregnant, she usually does not menstruate, therefore she does not have to go to the mikvah).
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This writer shares all of her emotions, as she dips in the water.
“I fill up the tub with water, take out my earrings, wipe off my makeup and get ready for the bath. I make my preparations as I have done many times before. I sink my body into the warm water and I look at my toes peeking out as I submerge and soak. I try to think of other things, like what we'll have for dinner and what I have to take care of at work the next day, and if it will rain tomorrow.
I add more water and watch the steam rise from the heat. I like it hot, especially on this night as my insides freeze with fear. I start to scrub and continue with my preparations, watching the soap swirl in the moving water. I continue to think about other things to distract myself, such as wondering how the season of the TV shows I watch will end, when my next student loan payment is due, and what our Shabbos plans will be.
When I am ready, I take as deep a breath as possible and call the attendant. She calls me in and asks me all the questions while checking my hands and feet. I have always hated this part, yet I simultaneously wish it will end that it will last forever.
I stand up and close my eyes while I savor the moment, then gently open them, taking in the view of the mikvah through my myopic vision without glasses. I smell the chlorine as I enter, slowly taking it one step at a time. I prepare myself to glide into the water and hear the call of “Kosher,” over and over.
I think of all the things I have prayed for over the 5 years of my marriage thus far, while I have toiveled (dipped), once, twice, three times, all the way to nine.
Prayers for a peaceful loving marriage, prayers for friendship with one another, kindness, laughter, prayers for financial stability and most of all for healthy sweet children.
In this moment I am grateful that my custom is nine times of tveila (dipping), to have the time, even though there will still not be enough time.
I finally let some tears fall into the water as I stand and fall for each immersion.
And all I want to do is scream.
Scream so loud that it shakes all the walls of this sacred space.
But I cannot because it just isn’t done.
I would scare all the other women.
And mostly because if I start, I will never stop.
It has been a few weeks since I have been here, longer than the average time as my body healed to be ready for this moment.
And the irony is not lost on me—that the distance between the last time and now is about the same amount of time that a woman who gives birth has to wait to be in this sacred space again.
But I will never be that woman.
I will never feel the motion of pressure and kicking in my womb.
I will never look at a sonogram screen and see if my child within me or wonder at its sex.
I will never hold a child within my body.
I will never know what the pain and pressure of labor is, or the intense indescribable love that comes at the end, as I meet the new soul that I labored to bring into this world.
I will never know what it is like to nourish a child at my breast and to watch it grow.
To see it gain recognition of my face, to laugh and smile, or call me “Mama” for the first time.
I will never know what it feels like for my child to do all the things children do, as the develop into their own unique and fascinating individual beings.
I will never stand with pride as my child hits a home run. runs a race, paints a picture, feels the fire and passion of connecting to G0d, Torah or witness as they discover their life’s mission.
I will never walk my child down the aisle or be blessed to see them bring new like into the world.
And I also think of all the times I know are to come.
I will hear from well meaning individuals who will tell me that at 40, I am still young enough to have children.
And I will hear all the many other things people like to say when faced with my barrenness, and all I will be able to do is smile politely and carry my truth as it burns inside of me.
It’s a funny little thing—that little small dot on my uterine lining, the stubborn blip that won’t go away.
It should seem unimportant and too little to count, and yet it has the power to change everything and has used its power to take my womb away.
So I scream and rage inside my head, of all that I have lost and will never have, of the lack of fairness, the sadness, the anger, the pain, the loss.
The magnitude of pain—too infinite to fit into the finite nature of words.
I stay in the warm cocoon, the womb of the water, for as long as I can.
And I finally take a breath, walk out of the water and leave my raging storm behind for the moment.
I linker to watch the water settle, and to see it for the last time.
I get dressed and return home to our forever family of two, and to start a new life again.”