If you’ve been involved in any type of fertility treatments or know someone who has, then you know that you lose all sense of dignity. The nurses and doctors do what they can to make you feel comfortable at being half dressed constantly…but there is NO way that any of this can be considered ok. It is all wrong.
It took about a year for us to figure out something wasn’t working right. We (like many naïve couples) thought that getting pregnant would be simple….because everybodyyyyyyyys doing it. I went to my normal female doc who checked the “infertile” box (or a term that made me realize there could be an issue) on the paperwork. That was the first indication there could be a problem.
At some point, my doctor suggested a hysterosalpingogram. Back then I still wasn’t accustomed to how clinical this whole process becomes. Marvin Gaye and a little wine worked for everyone else but a few days later I was in a contortionist position trying to count the moments til it was over. I heard the nurse casually tell someone “ok, can you call the doctor now”? WHAT THE!? He isn’t already in here!? I started to sweat because I knew I could be in that position for hours while my doctor finished delivering the latest blessing. In reality he was pretty close. I will spare you the gory details (my first draft was apparently way too graphic) but Craig said he could hear me from the waiting room saying “Woa Woa WOAAAAAA’. Oh yeah. I am a warrior.
After the procedure I was a little woozy. Remember…this was early on, so I once again was convinced that this procedure would be the one. I could easily get pregnant after this. I counted on my fingers to see how long before the miracle baby would be born. April. Yes! We’d have an Easter baby who could be wrapped in pastels and a bonnet for church. What could be better? I saw Craig as soon as the double doors opened to the waiting room. I took a few steps toward him. Something wasn’t right. The room started to spin. Sidenote: Some people can get sick like a normal human. If I feel like I’m getting sick I will lower myself to the ground. Not the bed. The ground. No idea why. I had my wits about me enough to know that I didn’t want to lie on the floor of the public waiting room though so headed back to the double doors. Still spinning. Trying to find a place to lie down. I took three steps. << AND SCENE>>.
That is all I remember. I came to hearing my name over and over again and Craig (now covered in vomit) holding me and screaming for help. Nurses came out of the woodwork and I got me back to the same room and crawled back on the table (at least I was fully clothed at this point). Apparently I had a reaction to something but it only medical science knows the truth. 😉 Craig and I talked for a few minutes while I tried to force down the obligatory juice. It’s been ten years and Craig can detail every moment of that day how my “eyes rolled back in my head” and that he thought I had died in his arms. This would be Nicholas Sparks kinda stuff….but those always have happy endings.
They brought me a wheelchair and I tried to get comfortable. Some poor soul started pushing me out and then it hit me. NO! NO! NO! NO! STOP THE WHEELCHAIR! I wanted to walk out. I tried to get out of the chair, I put my feet down, tried to turn sideways so I didn’t think I was in a chair, etc. Nothing worked. I wanted to walk out. Not because I am some superhero (I think we’ve proven quite the opposite above)….but I was NOT supposed to be wheeled out of Woman’s Hospital. People who are wheeled out are caressing and gazing down to a newborn, oblivious to the world around them…they have a mountain of balloons trailing behind the wheelchair….and have a nervous husband trying to remember where he parked the car. That wasn’t going to happen. And it was devastating. Again.
Both of us were emotional wrecks. I was woozy, drugged and crying…and Craig (wearing now only remnants of vomit – they tried to clean him up) was trying to be strong but in a daze because he thought he had just watched me die. They put us in the car and I finally unleashed what I felt like were bottled up tears but had been streaming for a while now. We drove about a mile and I started to get sick again. I am not proud. I will lie on grass. Or concrete. Or Airline Highway. He couldn’t pull over because of traffic so I opened the door and tried to get out. He was frantically telling me to wait until the car stopped. I was already sick again and still crying. We were quite the power couple that day.
Coincidently, we had stopped in front of my old office building. I was trying to lose my guts like a ninja so no one from work could see me. And see that, once again, I was a failure at Woman’s Hospital and that I couldn’t even handle a simple procedure.
That was both a lifetime ago and yesterday. All of us in this situation know the drill. We are reminded of our failures month after month after month…and then endure painful tests and procedures which result in nothing but agony. Tomorrow will be a better day.
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