I kept it a little quiet, my appointment for the tube/fallopian/picture exam. Hys...something something ogram. Do the words matter? Today started as an "I just should have stayed home" day. My car was dead. Not even a turn over. Dh's bug kept sputtering, sputtering, almost as if knowing that I wouldn't want to ACTUALLY make it to the diagnostic imagining clinic. Dropping my lesson plans off at school, I was flustered, hurried - the copier machine jammed, and then ran out of paper, and I was afraid once we finally got going, that we would run out of gas somewhere on the runway.
As we drove away from the school and through the morning traffic, I remember locking eyes with several students, smiling and waving. I think that was a cruel trick.
As I sat in the cold room (AGAIN) in my scant little gown (AGAIN!) getting ready to have some doctor make casual conversation (AGAIN!) while he played in my privates, I thought about the baby that dh and I would have, whenever.
The baby has no name, but is mostly a face and a warm blanket right now. Dh has said he will stay home with the baby while I work, and I always think about how I'll call him from work and say, "How's the baby? How are you?" and he'll say, "Horrible," or "tired," or "screaming," or "sleeping," or whatever the baby is doing at that time, and when I come home from work there will be a tiny warm little body that I can love that we created. That's what I was thinking about when the Dr. opened the door.
He was polite enough, explaining uncomfortable this, you'll feel a little pressure here that. The usual. I watched the iodine travel on the screen as they took the pictures, thinking how it calming it was, the liquid spreading like watercolors. It looked like a jelly bean. It was only when he switched to calling me "Ma'am", and told the technician that "We weren't going to get it," that I even had any inkling that anything was wrong.
Fully dressed, I waited for him while I stared at the picture of my fallopian tubes. "I'm sorry to have to tell you bad news," he said, and I just steeled my jaw, glazed my eyes over. The last time I was in one of those rooms I made the technician upset when a single tear rolled down my cheek after I saw the heartbeat. I didn't want to repeat that.
He was very clear and precise, showing me how the liquid was just stuck. I expected that perhaps the right tube had not healed correctly. I was right. What I did not expect was the left tube. It was blocked as well. Clubbed, I believe he said. I don't think I fully understood the implications of what he said until he started talking about infertility clinics and support groups. He must as well have been speaking Swahili.
I walked out into the lobby and saw an expectant dh waiting, where I, spent, just burst into tears. I couldn't get the words out until we were sitting in the warmth of his car, and even then I couldn't look him in his face.
"If I can't have any kids, I at least want it to be my choice," I exhaled into the air. He just held my hand and wiped my tears. The only possible thing he could have done for me at the moment.
2 hours later, I'm just sitting here. I feel like the butt of a joke that is completely over my head. It's been lodged in my head for so long that this word, infertile, sits next to me, unwanted. An aspect of myself that I refuse to embrace. INFERTILE.
I am guessing that in our future there will be much talk of infertility clinics and what is covered and what me and my jelly beans will do. I called Momma and told her to which she said, "Sucky." "Big Sucky," I replied - both of us at a loss for any intelligent exchange. She'll call the clinic and see WHERE WE GO FROM HERE - and that's the edge of a cliff, right there it is. I'm still sputtering wondering how I wound up here. Looking at possible causes, I see STD's, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease and the like, NONE OF WHICH APPLY TO ME.
Dh and I? We'll just soldier on. We don't make a big deal about stuff like this because we don't want "The Old Alex" - the one that has panic attacks she can't control and is depressed and lost - to come back. She's been gone awhile. If she NEVER comes back it'll be too soon.
I can already feel myself becoming detached. Like I was after the laparoscopy. Where's my broom? I've got something else to sweep under the rug.