She aches just like a woman

I found out today that I've been pregnant for five years. Sounds odd, I know, but that explains why I haven't ovulated, maybe even the pounds I may, or may not, have gained (hard to tell without a scale around). I always knew the pill did something to the ovum, it had to or you couldn't be safe the whole time the way the packet promises but I never understood exactly what. Then last week I read that it suppressed ovulation. Fine and dandy, if a little odd. I had a momentary panic about if my body would remember how, when the time came, and then brushed it off as silly. Of course it does, just give it a few months. Then today I finally understood in full - the estrogen and progesterone mimics the hormones of a pregnancy, suppressing ovulation, building up the lining. I had to sit for a minute after I read that information, digest it. It is not stated so directly in any other literature I have read thus far, academic, medical, or even the fact sheet that comes with every prescription. I am not surprised, now that I know why - for some reason I am vaguely disturbed and almost saddened by the news which stands in contrast to my stated (and actual) very strong desire to not have a child in the present time. I think somehow to find out that the last five years of blood have been a sham is the worst blow, almost as if it makes me less of a woman. The feminist writing I have been reading, not only responsible for my current shameless/righteous writing, makes me feel ashamed of my discomfort - why should I be upset at the fact that I have been prevented from full fertility, when that in fact was my goal? Why should the method matter, so long as it is temporary and relatively harmless? But it takes me back to a dream I had a few years ago where the trauma was even more clear. I was a surrogate mother, really just a host - the fetus was implanted, like a ball of dough expanding, until suddenly it was cut out, returned to the rightful mother, snatched away in an instant and I felt more bereft, empty, alone than I had in a very long time. I woke up because of my tears, hands pressed against my stomach looking for the child that was there and then gone. I cannot explain the dream, the motivation for it, my heartfelt reaction (I mourned, literally mourned, for a day). I cannot explain my present uneasiness. I wonder at my own connection of womanhood to motherhood, which seems to be the only real link between these experiences, and I am frightened by the meaning and responsibility therein.