The First Appointment. The nurse at the gynecologist’s office sits, pregnant, in front of her computer. She looks up at me as I look down at her. I need another appointment. A dozen people are waiting in the lobby, which is decorated with icons to fertility- oil paintings by Mary Cassatt and oversized madonna and child statues. Art to identify with. Two women stand behind me, one menopausal, the other in her second trimester. I have learned to identify these things. “I need to schedule another appointment, please,” I say to the pregnant nurse. “You’re a new patient?” This question helps her to know if I reside in the computer. “Yes.” She asks me who my doctor is. I tell her. “What do you need done?” she inquires in full volume. I feel as if she just asked to see my used tampon. In a low voice, I reply, “ He said I need an endobiopsy.” When you can’t get pregnant, they stick things in you and take things out of you and examine them. I have learned this. “Oh, you are seeing Dr. Black for INFERTILITY.” I believe she screamed the word. I look at her belly and think, Easy for you to say. “Could you use another word?” My nose tickles from the tears I won’t cry in front of her. I continue softly. “I prefer to call it fertility counseling. “ Infertility," I say the word, but it resonates as though I too screamed it, “is a diagnosis, and we haven’t determined that yet.” She is flustered. I don’t fit into her system. I am proud that I remained calm on the outside, because on the inside I wanted to flail around the lobby and smash the darling little baby toys that lay scattered in the Kiddy Korner. “That’s just what the doctors call it,” she snips, defending her cruelty. I realize she is someone I have to ward off. There is a raw, little girl inside me. who doesn’t understand why these words sting. I must protect her. I become quiet, and look down at the counter and keep my voice low. “I know that’s what you need to put into your computer, and I know that’s what the doctors call it among themselves,” I say, “but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.” The pregnant nurse gets up and moves to the back of the office to retrieve some papers. I am reeling from this confrontation. She is unmoved, unaffected, unperturbed. I feel my chin cramping as I steady my jaw from quivering. I promise myself I can fall apart when I get to my car. “I think you did the right thing,” says a voice behind me. I turn and see the menopausal woman, coiffed and polished, tanned from golf, I suspect. Her face calms me, and I see she understands. “Twenty years ago, I couldn’t say that to the nurses, but I wanted to. Good for you. You took care of yourself.” I cannot talk, because I am trying to still my trembling chin. I want to let her know how much I appreciate her remarks, but I can only nod lamely and mumble thanks. Her business is completed by another nurse, and the second trimester woman moves in, a little closer to me in line. As I wait, I am conscious that everyone in the lobby has heard the word INFERTILITY spoken in reference to me. I will never even see their faces or know their names, yet they will see a part o f me no man has ever seen. Now they all know. In order to stay calm I do not look anypne in the face. The belly comes closer and I try not to look. But I want so much to look, to touch pregnant bellies. I want so much to see what they look like naked, to witness the dark line and the poppedcork navel. The belly speaks to me. “ Hang in there,” it says, and I look up to where the words have come from. The mouth is warm, and the eyes are soft, and I know that this is a mother. I probably will never be a mother, but I like looking at her. “Unless they’ve gone through it,” continues the second trimester mother, “it’s hard for them to understand. We went through it too.” I noticed she didn’t say the l-word. Her eyes fill up with tears. “It still hurts just to think about it,” and she smiles, embarrassed. I cannot hold onto my chin any longer or the tears behind the effort. “Yes it does,” I say. The pregnant computer nurse sits down just in time to see me cry. I hate that she saw me cry. These days, my privacy is so important to me. My feelings are private. Even if my INFERTILITY isn’t. Next Appointment. The doctor comes into the room, and he is busy with my chart. I am naked from the waist down, with a flimsy paper blanket hiding my vulnerability. I know that I will lay down, and put my feet into the cold stirrups designed, I'm certain, during the 18th century witch trials. Discomfort and humiliation. Oh goodie. I focus on one of the square tiles on the ceiling and wait. He descends between my.legs, and sits on his chajr as he snaps on his rubber gloves. His voice is gentle as he tells me what he is going to do. “You’ll feel a cramp, no worse than a menstrual cramp.” I say OK. Memories well up...being a kid pulling down my pants for a booster shot. To bolster my courage as I did then, I squench up my eyes, as if that will make it less painful. He slips in a long, white tube and I feel the cramp. I breathe hard, but it doesn’t ease, it intensifies. The nurse strolls into the room. I am now gripping the table. She is chewing gum and glances over the chart. He pulls out the long tube, and she holds a bottle up for him. The long white tube spits something into it, something red, some part of me. I want to grab the bottle. I don’t want them to have it. “Well, we’ve got an excellent sample,” he observes, looking proudly at the bloody bottle. “You had a bad cramp. I am sorry. I guess it hurt more than I thought it would.” I try pulling myself up from the table. I know now how women feel who have had abortions. Robbed. Raped. And worse, accomodating. I look at the bottle in his hands as he leaves, and I remember back to the world before I was born, thousands of years ago, when menstrual blood was sacred. When it was coveted and drunk for power. I dress very slowly. The doctor peeks back in and says he has ordered an operation called laparoscopy. He wants to look inside of me. With his tubes and his scalpel. He says they’ll insert a tube into my navel, to look for endometriosis, the silent sterilizer of women. If they find any endometrial “sites,” they’ll burn them off with a laser. I visualize cigarette burns on my womb. Something is wrong with this picture, but the matter-of-fact tone of the doctor and the institutional sanction of the words — laparoscopy, endometriosis, laser therapy—throw me off. I nod my consent. He leaves. I cannot move well. I want to lay down, curl up. But there is the lobby to walkthrough, and the pregnant scheduling nurse to see again. The Operation. The morning comes early, and we dress in the dark to go to the hospital. I lament my morning tea, as I watch my husband drink his with enthusiasm. We drive in the dawn, and I listen to him prattle on about a problem he is having with his children of a previous marriage. “ Can we change the subject?” I say. He apologizes and we ride the rest of the way in silence. At the hospital, I take off my clothes and put on theirs. Then Iwalk into the operating room—the “well-patient approach,” as my escorting nurse calls it. I have just seen my doctor in his street clothes, and we have spoken about the laparoscopy and what they will do. I lay down on the table in the room where people in blue scrubs are busy preparing for me. I am not introduced to any of them. This strikes me as strange, that I will never even see their faces or know their names, or what they like to eat for breakfast, or if a lover ever broke their heart. Yet they will see a part of me no man has ever seen. My private parts. I exchange a few words with the anesthesiologist, then a new person walks in. “ Hi. Who are you?” I ask, trying to be cheerful. He laughs, and I recognize my doctor, who looks entirely different in scrubs with surgical glasses perched on his nose. Then I feel sleepy. The next thing I feel is cold. So cold. I shiver violently, and the recovery room nurse asks me if I want to drink something. I heave at the suggestion, unable to answer. She covers me more with covers and then leaves me to shake them off. I drift in and out, shiver, questions about drinking water, shiver, pain. Big pain in my stomach. Big pain. When did they give me that big pain? The blue people have done things to me I don’t understand. Yet, I remind myself, I consented. A nurse answers a phone in the distance. I scream but it comes out a moan. I hear her words, “...yes, she is having a bit of a hard time... long time under...heavy medication...she’ll be alright, but won’t be down for a while, tell him... not to worry... Easy for you to say, I think. Finally, I am ready to sit up. At least the nurses think so. I feel like a grenade had exploded inside me and finally I lower myself into the recliner. When I Took up, there is my husband’s expectant face, hopeful that I am fine. I smile. Then I sleep. And wake. And drink water, hoping to pee. “We can’t let her go home until she voids,” I hearthem tell him. Idrift off, and wake, drift off, and wake. It is three o’clock now. I have seen three shifts of operations move in and out of these daysurgerychairs, and I am still here. All of them could pee, which seems to be the only ticket out of this place. I walk to get the juices moving. Maybe then I’ll be able to “void.” I feel the urge now. I am excited as a kid who gets to have candy. I go to the toilet, happily unassisted. I sit carefully and relax, hoping it will come. For inspiration, Iturn on the water in the sink. There is a little pain, and I relax, expecting it. The pain gets worse, and I still try to relax more. The pain rams down. I am not relaxed now. I grip the sink at my side, and lift up to ease the stab, but hot throbs rampage through me. I’m in trouble. It won’t let up. What do I do? I pull the chain, and hear the patient alarm go off. In seconds, a nurse is there, she asks no questions but says she’ll be back with a wheelchair. I can’t stay quiet now. I groan. I am transferred to the Design by Gail Swanlund Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1989 25
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz