It’s Mother’s Day weekend here in the U.S., and while we know so many women will be celebrated and celebrating, we also know that there are women who won’t. Our mission is always to celebrate what we all love about the Renaissance festival while telling the stories of powerful women. Author Whitney Rowlett shares her personal journey with infertility while running a beautiful Maypole fertility dance daily during her tenure at the Texas Renaissance Festival. We’re honored to hold space, and hope you’ll find something beautiful, and perhaps healing, in her story.

For many, many seasons, I had an important, symbolic job at my home faire (and several others). Surrounded by folks of all ages and presentations, I had the opportunity to lead hundreds, if not thousands, of people in a twisting, joyful dance around the maypole. We had expanded the participant dancers to include a wide variety of characters, showing that the dance was a celebration for everyone. It was wildly successful!

It was a fun tradition, slightly softened for the public, but still deeply resonant and meaningful. The maypole, of course, is a fertility dance found in multiple cultures, with a wide variety of interpretations and traditions. Out on the festival path, it makes for a beautiful interactive performance, and one that patrons can join with minimal instruction. It was also hilariously potent: everyone knew what we were doing, and more than once, a dancer who didn’t take a moment to remind the maypole that they didn’t actually need its magic this year would find themselves, or their partner, suddenly planning for a family.

This was one of my primary roles as a performer and choreographer for years: bring together a group of performers, musicians, and patrons to do a collective dance for joy, happiness, and possibly from time to time, fertility. I have a box of maypole garlands stuffed to the brim, and have oftentimes called myself the unofficial Handmaiden to the May Queen. I spent hours researching and testing weaves and patterns, working out how to involve as many patrons as possible with the least amount of friction, ensuring everyone had a wonderful, picturesque time.

Year after year, I listened, and danced, and laughed along with people calling on the maypole to either bless them with a family, or perhaps asking for a few more years before they were ready. I celebrated with performers and patrons alike for whom the magic worked. I laughed along with the dancers and we performed our yearly “Its not time yet” ritual before the show opened. Deep inside, every time my hand touched one of the ribbons, I was reminded that none of this was for me. 

I am infertile.

I’ve known for years, and pushed that diagnosis deep down inside myself where hopefully it wouldn’t make too much noise. It sat there when I was told that I was good with children, when people casually remarked that my children would be adorable. It festered while I invited mothers-to-be to take a ribbon and dance for their health. It wallowed when partners danced together to give themselves a little push. It ached whenever someone casually asked why I hadn’t had children yet, but I couldn’t let myself speak the words out loud. 

Recently, I underwent a total hysterectomy, bringing my infertility journey to an end. It has been a fairly smooth recovery physically, but mentally, it has been a lot to unpack. I learned a lot about myself post-surgery. I learned that I had endometriosis. I learned that there were several enormous fibroids situated in such a way that ensured my infertility. I learned that my uterus was badly malformed, embattled, and tired. But, for the first time, instead of thinking of my body as something that I was fighting against, I could only feel compassion. 

Through that compassion, seeing my own body struggling against itself, I thought about how many other women there were with me, silently facing a world that tells us that without children, we are somehow less. That until we can create life, we aren’t really a woman. How many of us are there privately mourning, enduring fertility treatments, smiling at showers and birth announcements and holding a tiny seed of sorrow deep inside, knowing that its not a discussion that much of society is ready to have. 

Eventually, while laying on the couch with a heating pad and two cats trying their best to make me feel better by standing on my incisions, my mind drifted back to the maypole. It no longer felt ironic that I was the steward of that fertility magic – now it felt bittersweet but powerful. True, that magic would never work for me, but I did have a chance to work that magic for so many others. The magic didn’t stay in me, it moved through me. Finally, peacefully, I was able to accept that this was going to have to be enough. Somehow, it was.

I still have all my garlands, a few of the ribbons, and innumerable amazing memories of my time as the May Queen’s Handmaiden. I’m looking forward to embracing my role again, this time without the seed of sadness inside me. This time, it will be with my heart wide open.