“Pain is acknowledged in women. Relief is often optional.”

That’s from a new essay by Dr. Corey Babb, and we haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

Dr. Babb is the specialist at the heart of so much of what The Aziza Project does. His essay — called Functional Enough — writes about how medicine has quietly normalized a level of suffering in women that would be considered unacceptable in almost any other context. Women are not expected to be pain-free. They are expected to remain functional.

We’d love for you to read the whole thing. But if you only take one line with you today, let it be this one:

“Remaining functional is not the same thing as being well.”

That sentence is why The Aziza Project exists.

💜 An Update from Our Founder

Our Executive Director Stephanie has now made seven trips to Tulsa in pursuit of answers to her own complex gynecologic history — and the latest update includes an unexpected complication, an unplanned return trip, and an MRI result that may finally point toward the source of her ongoing pain.

We’ll let her tell it in her own words: Stephanie’s Story: A Second Trip to Tulsa, an MRI, and a New Lead

Here’s what we want you to notice: Stephanie could afford to fly back to Tulsa when she needed to. The women who come to us cannot. That gap — between having access to answers and not — is exactly what your donations close.

🌟 What We Funded in April

You may remember Steph from our April newsletter — the Oklahoma woman who spent more than 30 years searching for answers before finally being heard. In March, The Aziza Project funded her new patient appointment with Dr. Babb.

In April, we said yes again.

We funded $360 toward her follow-up appointment — because getting in the door is only the beginning. The answers, the next steps, the plan — those come from staying in the conversation with a specialist who finally knows your history.

That’s what your donations make possible: not just a first appointment, but the chance to keep going.

💜 Here’s Where We Stand — and What We Need

Right now, we’re bringing in about $254/month in donations. Our goal is $300/month — the cost of funding one virtual consultation every single month, reliably, so that when a woman finds us, we can say yes.

We are $46 away from that goal.

Could you be one of the people who closes it?

If you’ve been meaning to give — or to give a little more — now is a meaningful moment to do it. We fundraise through Zeffy, which means no processing fees are skimmed from your gift. Of every dollar donated, 75 cents goes directly to client care. The remaining 25 cents keeps the organization running — including our fiscal sponsor’s administrative support and the operational costs that make the work possible.

👉 Make a gift today

Women are out there right now, working through pain they’ve been told is normal. They are functional. They are not well.

You can help change that.

Know you are mighty,
Stephanie Berman
Executive Director
The Aziza Project

P.S. Forward this to someone who might give, share, or care. The woman who needs us next might be in their life right now.

Your gift is tax-deductible. The Aziza Project is a project of Visions Made Viable, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.