Hey everyone, remember when my OBGYN office used to be like my own personal "Cheers"? When I would fill up this blog's pages with plucky anecdotes about how I was on a first name basis with all the receptionists, how I would kiki with the lady who drew my blood on a weekly basis, and how and how they embroidered my name into a personalized pair of stirrup covers (ok, fine, the last one isn't true)? Well, for the last month I've been doing that thing where I transfer "make OBGYN appointment" from week to week in my planner without ever actually checking it off.
Look, it's not that i'm afraid of coming face to face with the fact that my gynecological VIP status has expired (what do you MEAN "last name"?! It's me! Becca!! Remember? Life hands her a wonky uterus and she makes lemonade?), but there is certainly something causing a great deal of resistance to walking through those doors again. I'm sure there is some level of low-grade PTSD associated with the place where so many life-altering moments occurred, but that's not all of it. And sure, there's the fact that I'll find myself once again in a waiting room full of women comfortably resting hands on successfully swelling pregnant bellies, but I suppose I can handle that as well at this point. I think this resistance falls most closely in line with my current desire to revolt against reproductive convention. There are certain questions I don't want to have to answer, other questions I don't know how to answer, and there are answers I don't want to know. And then there are the questions I am most afraid of : the ones that have no answers like : did the surgery work? is my body going to do what it is supposed to do when called up to do so ? Will I have to become a regular here again? and if I take longer than a few more years to decide what's what in that department am I going to be slapped with that ridiculous scarlet A for "Advanced Maternal Age"?
The truth of the matter is, it's just a darn annual exam, ya know? Get in, perhaps feel awkward for a few seconds, get out. We all know the drill. But for me (and for so many of us), that space is charged with so much more. I can never go back to being the version of me who came in for an exam purely as a formality. Now I have levels that need to be reassessed, I have new uterine architecture to be surveyed, and I have to come face to face with my obstetric failings in an unemotional, clinical way. I've separated myself from this experience in many ways, and I guess this is just one of those things that unavoidably closes that distance I've been working to build. There are so many moments in our journeys forward where we need to continue to take steps even when they feel crunchy and unsteady, this is one of those moments. Time to pick up the phone...
Look, it's not that i'm afraid of coming face to face with the fact that my gynecological VIP status has expired (what do you MEAN "last name"?! It's me! Becca!! Remember? Life hands her a wonky uterus and she makes lemonade?), but there is certainly something causing a great deal of resistance to walking through those doors again. I'm sure there is some level of low-grade PTSD associated with the place where so many life-altering moments occurred, but that's not all of it. And sure, there's the fact that I'll find myself once again in a waiting room full of women comfortably resting hands on successfully swelling pregnant bellies, but I suppose I can handle that as well at this point. I think this resistance falls most closely in line with my current desire to revolt against reproductive convention. There are certain questions I don't want to have to answer, other questions I don't know how to answer, and there are answers I don't want to know. And then there are the questions I am most afraid of : the ones that have no answers like : did the surgery work? is my body going to do what it is supposed to do when called up to do so ? Will I have to become a regular here again? and if I take longer than a few more years to decide what's what in that department am I going to be slapped with that ridiculous scarlet A for "Advanced Maternal Age"?
The truth of the matter is, it's just a darn annual exam, ya know? Get in, perhaps feel awkward for a few seconds, get out. We all know the drill. But for me (and for so many of us), that space is charged with so much more. I can never go back to being the version of me who came in for an exam purely as a formality. Now I have levels that need to be reassessed, I have new uterine architecture to be surveyed, and I have to come face to face with my obstetric failings in an unemotional, clinical way. I've separated myself from this experience in many ways, and I guess this is just one of those things that unavoidably closes that distance I've been working to build. There are so many moments in our journeys forward where we need to continue to take steps even when they feel crunchy and unsteady, this is one of those moments. Time to pick up the phone...
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