The last frontier

Today I went to an appointment with a new OB/GYN. He was recommended by one of the nurses at my RE. Good news is that my surgery is officially scheduled for next week. I'm scared but so ready for it!

Yeah, so... the OB's waiting room. Another world unto itself. A world so far away and strange. It's like a torture chamber for an infertile woman. So different from the RE's office waiting room. Thankfully A was there to keep me company and share annoyed glances with me. Everyone there seems to be happy. They talk to each other and compare pregnancy stories. Can you imagine something like that happening at the infertility clinic? People there barely look at one another. Everyone is enclosed in their own worries and struggles. But not at the OB, no sir. In there they gasp in amazement at the photos and sonograms some of the women bring. The husbands joke with each other about the unusual cravings they've had to put up with. Can you visualize husbands comparing stories at the RE? "Oh yes, the movie selection in there is great, it really puts me in the mood".  That would be the day. At the OB everything is colored by a cheery and blissful tone. There is no palpable fear or sadness... no avoidance or shame. Two worlds so different from one another.

Many times I've sat in one of these waiting rooms as an infertile but this time was specially difficult. I felt the heat burning under my skin. I was amazed that I didn't self- combust right there. Being in such close quarters with so many pregnant women was a bit too much. I couldn't escape. I had nowhere else to go so I buckled up and put on my trustworthy "happy face". I smiled and tried to act as normal as possible. But these kind of smiles never reach my eyes.

There I sat staring blankly at my phone trying to do anything and everything to keep occupied. I repeated in my head like a mantra "do not look at the enormous pregnant bellies".... "do not look". It didn't work. I looked at them... and I envied them. Yeah I know, envy its not good for the soul... at all. But it is an emotion provoked by the most primal desires. In these situations I embrace envy and sadness and all the conflicting emotions I may feel. There is no point in fooling myself or denying the truths I've come to know so well.  It takes way too much energy to lie to yourself. I long for my own pregnant belly. More importantly I long for my own healthy baby. I long for the day in which all of this becomes a distant a memory and not a painful reality. Until that day comes I guess I'll be keeping busy as a jaded infertile trying to keep my head above water. Trying to decipher riddles and questions and doubts. Still hoping... always dreaming.