Wednesday, August 25, 2010

RE REdux

Things are going well here (knock on wood). It took us a while, but we're starting to settle into a bit of a schedule, and the babies are even figuring out that night time is for sleeping (and eating, but at least not for being awake for hours at a time). I have a lot of help (my mom comes one day a week, a mother's helper comes a few times, and now we have someone at night a few times a week for a couple months because we're exhausted). I can't complain. My babies are beautiful.

I was contacted by the RE's office a few weeks ago to find out how everything went in the end, and they invited me to come in and visit with the babies. I called to schedule it and they gave me an 11:45 appointment. I assumed that they gave me what was essentially a lunchtime appointment because there wouldn't be patients there who would get upset.

I was wrong.

Man I felt like shit. I pushed my double stroller in, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, and checked in at the front desk. In the meantime, a woman got up and went outside, leaving her purse behind on the chair, and stood with her back to the door. I wasn't sure at first, but it soon became obvious she was wiping her eyes and trying to pull herself together.

I felt bad for her. I felt bad for ME, too. I didn't want to hurt anyone, and now someone was outside crying, solely because of my presence. Man, what an awful feeling - a feeling I felt BECAUSE I am infertile and I know what it's like. A fertile person wouldn't have had a clue. I kept on not making eye contact with anyone and feeling terribly uncomfortable. A nurse went out to get her and she came back, grabbed her purse (also without making eye contact), and went through the door to the exam rooms, the nurse grabbing a box of tissues on the way. Sigh.

It was just weird. I know, everyone writes about feeling like they don't fit in anywhere (fertile world or infertile world), about wanting to be able to celebrate their pregnancies and children without feeling guilty, and so on. I felt all of that. I know I'm so, so, so lucky, even when I don't feel like it when I have one or two screaming babies in the middle of the night. I understand how that woman felt. And I understand how fertile women feel, when they offer to give their kids away, because although infertility sucks and isn't easy, quite honestly motherhood isn't easy either (but it doesn't suck like infertility does).

But I did choose motherhood for myself, and I would never hurt someone purposely. And so for yesterday, for those who are still going to the RE and who would have been horrified to see me show up with my double stroller and apparently nonchalant attitude, I'm very, very sorry.

3 comments:

  1. It's a shame that we really can't fit in anywhere. We've been there, we can maybe offer some hope, or at least a little empathy.

    I know that you didn't do anything on purpose to hurt those women, and I would love to understand the thought process behind your RE's office, booking you to come in when there are cycling women in the office. Grrr... not very sensative to you or them.

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  2. Wow. I would have been hugely uncomfortable. I have no idea what's going on there. All I can say is when I dealt with the office in Feb it truly wasn't the same office I had dealt with a year previously. That was really not cool of them to schedule you to come in when other patients were there.

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  3. When my RE released me, my nurse Keri gave me a big hug and told me to be sure to schedule a baby visit after the baby was born so they could meet the baby. It's funny, it's been stuck in my head ever since then. All the times I sighed internally when a woman came in with a baby, thinking, why didn't they get a sitter? Now I feel so bad, they're just like me, they're scheduled to be there. They went through the same things to get where they are. I'd want to encourage other IFers to keep trying, but at the same time, I wouldn't want to be insensitive. The whole thing is awkward.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts!