October 8, 1183
"Arydath.""Hello, Alsina," Arydath greeted her caller of the day, as heralded by Tarien's steward a few minutes prior. Alsina wasn't someone Arydath had expected to see any time soon--not so soon after her husband had knocked up Aydelle Ildaras--but she was still young, and it had been a reasonable amount of time since her youngest had been born, so Arydath had dismissed the unexpected visit as not too unusual.
Oddly enough, though... well, whether a woman was showing or not, Arydath could sense a pregnancy within minutes, and rarely was she wrong. It wasn't impossible that she was, of course. That said, she'd seen Alsina during all of her previous pregnancies, carried to term and otherwise. She'd never had an issue telling before.
"What seems to be the problem?"
"Uh, well..." The younger woman clasped her hands together, wedding band spinning between her fingers. Angry as she might have been at Aldhein, she must have had some hope if she was still wearing it at all. "I haven't had a course in a while, so I assumed I was pregnant, but I haven't been sick or gotten bigger or anything."The stress of Aydelle's baby, perhaps? Aydelle had said she'd told Aldhein near the end of August, which was plenty of time for Alsina to have missed a course if Aldhein hadn't wasted any telling her. "Sometimes stress can cause missed courses. With your husband's situation, that seems like the most likely explanation."
Alsina swallowed. "Yes, well... it's been a bit longer than that..."
Well. That was odd. "When was your last course?""I don't know. Beginning of June, end of May? They'd been a bit sporadic for a while before that too."
Huh. That sounded strangely like the latter part of the previous year for Arydath herself. Things had not exactly been pleasant since. "How old are you?"
"Thirty-four." That... wasn't unheard of. But surely there must have been some other explanation... "Is it possible that Aldhein caught something from some other woman, then passed it along to me?""I haven't heard of anything like that stopping courses, but I suppose it's not impossible."
In this business, sometimes it seemed there was little that was. "I have a few more questions, but do you mind if I fetch my mother for a second opinion? If it's bad news, then I don't want to trouble you before I know for sure."NEXT CHAPTER:
6 comments:
I don't know why about the afternoons lately either.
Hmm :S I really hope she is pregnant, I have a lot of trouble with the feelings infertility arouse as I personally was told I might not be able to have children. Lots of people whose name starts with A in this post! Had to reread a few times :P
Huh. I don't think thirty-four is necessarily too young for early menopause (unfortunately), but at the same time ... that is a bit young. And I can't think of any STDs that cause one's period to stop, but it's been a while since I had to think about symptoms of STDs.
What I'm most afraid of is that this is a sign of something really, really bad -- like an ectopic pregnancy or cancer ... early menopause isn't the end of the world, but either of those to things?
Oh crap.
*bites nails for Alsina*
Ekho: Sorry if this post was a little close to home. :S
If it turns out that Alsina can't have any more children, it will be upsetting for her. I don't think she was planning on having another baby immediately, but I doubt she thought that Riala would be her last. It would also make the fact that her husband is having a baby with another woman even tougher.
Morgaine: I'm not a doctor, so don't quote me on anything, but quick searching doesn't give me a concrete minimum age for early menopause (well, apart from, you know, having to occur some time after puberty). Thirty-four is pretty young, but I don't think it would be too young.
And yeah, I don't know of any STIs that would wipe out periods either.
You bring up a good point about early menopause not being the worst possible diagnosis here. Who knows if Naroni has a surgeon who could deal with an ectopic pregnancy at this point, and I'm not even going to think about cancer. :S
Early menopause can actually be pretty bad, overall weakening of the bones and such. But the earliest i've heard/seen it happen has been women in their 40's. But you never know :/
It's rare before that, but it does happen from time to time. I know a woman who was diagnosed with premature menopause during fertility treatments in her mid-twenties. Nowadays, at least it's somewhat treatable (she did end up having a baby). It can bring a lot of complications with it as well, given how prone to messing up everything sex hormones tend to be. :S
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