I was trying to remember when the seed was first planted for Elizabeth’s House and I think I figured it out.  I was in my 30’s sometime after the birth of my second child and was at my annual check-up with my gynecologist.  As I lay on the exam table responding to the question “how have you been?” I pulled out my list of everything that was wrong.  “I seem to be really tired all the time, I don’t have much motivation, everyone gets on my nerves, and I’ve lost all interest in sex, I began.”  Before I could continue the doc scooted himself across the floor on his little scooty stool and began writing me a prescription for an anti-depressant.  When I aked the question ”you mean if I take these pills I will want to have sex?”  he responded “no, not necessarily – but you won’t care if you do.” 

As I was filling the prescription later that day the pharmacist informed me of the drug’s potential side effects, one of which was “difficulty in achieving orgasm.”  Now I was really confused.  I’ve lost all interest in sex and I’m taking a pill so I won’t care if I have sex but when I do I won’t even enjoy it.  Wow!  And so began my quest to find out if other women understood what was happening with me, or if something was really wrong.  Asking those questions led to many more and an awareness of how important it is for women to have each other during times of transition.  I took the anti-depressant for a year and then realized I had stopped caring about a lot of things, not just whether I had sex or not. 

And so began that road less traveled of looking inside myself to find the answers I still perceived as outside of me.  If I had an Elizabeth’s House back then, that journey could have been a lot smoother.