Building a Community

The other day I worked with an older woman who said she wanted a pregnancy test. I was mildly surprised, because she looked too old to be pregnant, but I began filling out the entry form with her nonetheless. Then she said she was 59. Confused, I asked her when her last period was, and she said she hadn’t had it in 20 years. At this point I tried to give a basic biology lesson, but the woman didn’t want to listen. Instead she kept talking about the lump in her stomach. Finally I asked her when she last had sex, and she said it had been 15 years. By now I was at a total loss for words, because I really didn’t know how else to convince this women she wasn’t pregnant, especially when she refused to believe the negative pregnancy test. In the end, all I could do was suggest she visit a doctor and laugh it off.

This story stuck in my mind partly because it was humorous, but partly because it was one instance where EMC had become part an integral part of a community. The woman’s niece had brought her on the advice of a pregnant friend whom I had been working with, and the niece herself asked for literature to give to a friend who had gotten several abortions. These women were turning to us when they needed help, even with a crazy situation like this. Such a trust is the foundation upon which our best work can be built.