A quick glance and I’m distracted. Colonial photos of BC. Can’t get enough. Not of colonialism. Of history.
“Maybe in another lifetime I’ll be some sort of weird historian.”
“Maybe I’ll be a paramedic,” another shares from behind the bar.
Quick thoughts quickly said. In the middle of a quick lunch.
Maybe I’ll be a man.
Maybe my snack with replenish me. Been running around all day, we are moving after all.
Got a bit more to fit in though.
I’ve sat alone in doctor’s appointment rooms, many times. They really should make them more soothing. The lighting, bland paint, nothing to read. The family photo is cute. Judgment makes for a bad distraction. I feel weighted.
There’s no good way to sit with it all. Waiting for your moment, waiting for the chance to express calm, confidence, honesty. Waiting to give. Waiting to be given. I’m a flurry of contradiction. I hate that I care how to carry myself right now. It is your right, they say. My eyes feel hot.
This meeting is new territory. I’m not waiting to be educated. I do not feel it, but I do believe it - I am the dictator of action this time.
She finally joins me.
“…. pregnant, but I don’t want to be.”
“Oh.”
Not what she was expecting? Doctors must have to expect both nothing and everything. Was she not ready for something with layers todays? Something to be navigated? But that’s the thing. I don’t want us to have to peel through what I am or am not saying. I do not want to have to help her through this. And I most certainly do not want to explain myself. I do not envy her, but it doesn’t matter. I keep the bulk of sympathies for myself.
She turns to the desktop, typing away, likely looking at my file. My herstory. Formulating her plan of action. Navigation.
“Is…. this your… second pregnancy? First?”
It hit me wrong. Second? Why not, have you been pregnant before?
“I’ve never been pregnant before.”
She gets to work. Everything about this feels incomplete though.
The pee cup. If that isn’t representative of the medical experience, I don’t know what is. For all the technology and science and magic, bodily functions keep the medical experience on earth. No miracles here. Just peeing into a cup. This scene is played across both sitcoms and dark dramas.
Quickly it is official. I have now “been pregnant before”.
She gave me a daft explanation about there being a center that’s not a physical space…
“Call this number….and then… and then… and so….”
My pumping heart, it muffles her words.
A heaviness tightens. Twisting compressions. It’s gaining life, like a parasitic weight feeding off of insecurity and stress. A compact led ball somehow floating in the upper chest. Sheer willpower and the awareness of those hot eyes keep it from falling. Hold it.
“So, this can’t just be done now?”
I’ve never had words quite like that come out quite like that. They didn’t even feel like mine. Assertive and angry, but so so small. Desperate even. I don’t want to be this person.
I take back my opinion on doctors’ appointment rooms. They are meant to be bright and cold and sterile. What I wouldn’t give for it to be the procedure room that it often is.
I’m here for validation. I’m here to be told it’s ok to just be me.
The ball falls. Tears of frustration carry me out of that building. I’m trying to be less, not more. All I can feel is more.
I made my decision. I made the call. Yet I must confess to more, ask permission from more, submit to more. I know I should be grateful. Less, less, less. I need less.
Back at the new house. The internet man is here. I wonder what he thinks of the sad woman on the phone. Back turned. Breaking into a private realm, a big part of his job, must be mildly interesting. There is space here though, enough to stay away. I feel like housewife with secrets, seen from between big glass windows, brooding on her patio. Just give me a fancy robe and a mid day glass of chardonnay. It’s a beautiful September day.
The call, it goes somewhere, not in town. “Yes, it is a bit of a process.” The voice dips and slows at the IS but follows up with a confident finish, almost a rush to get it out. Yes. It ISss, abitofaprocess. She can’t be anything other than direct after all. But she doesn’t like to say it. Yes, It IS, a bit of a process. Hard stop.
Two days from now I’ll have a call. It might have been three. Friday. A call to make another call to have an appointment to see a doctor to get what I want or a call that is the appointment to get what I want, I’m not exactly sure. It’s a bit of a process.
So, I wait as I am - more than; waiting to be allowed to be less.
The doctor from the morning, she calls back. “I talked to ---, I got the ok from ---, We can do this now. Do you have about ten minutes?” She was what I wanted to hear hours ago. Confident, personable, unwavering, prepared. A confidant. An ally.
I put her on my Bluetooth as I drive up to the old house to grab another load. The shyness that I sometimes get, as if those on the sidewalk can hear my conversation, does not appear. She asked the questions. Married. House. Work that pays. But also.. IUD, out by choice. An almost over-ripe age of 31 and 44.
I am surprised, it’s not so much what my life is, just that I have one in general that serves this situation. I become to her, more than my frustration. I am a fully realized person not just a falling weight in an appointment room.
“This can get done today if you can get to the lab for blood work before 4.”
One paper sheet to give to the lab attendant. Out of a full sheet of check boxes – just 1 - pregnant ✅ .
“No no, I have not been pregnant before.”
Catchphrase of the day.
“I’m told to come back on Monday, Tuesday if I’m busy”.
“Oh well the results will be ready tomorrow.”
Ladyyyy I already know the results. It’s with a more endearing than vindictive internal tone. I’m feeling like myself already. She believes I’m here to only confirm a pregnancy. Maybe it’s my more relaxed, motivated demeanor – my relief has made me brave. Her assumptions don’t allow her to infer that I’m returning after the weekend to get more blood taken. To confirm a change from this current state that I feel she would congratulate me on if she could. I should have informed her. It would have been good for us both.
One more stop.
“I’m here for a prescription, the doctor sent it over said it should be ready.”
“Name?” The ladies shuffle in the back. Something catches their attention, old eyes croaks, “Give it ten more minutes”. A shift in demeanor. Something unexpected with one more step than usual.
“Do you want to talk here or….”
“Honestly I don’t care.”
Thankful they didn’t send old eyes. She looks like she may be a god-fearing woman.
We joke about the funny name of the medication. She knows the least about me. Her job is to hand out the medication to an informed client. She may have the easiest job of them all. Or – she has decided to make it that way.
Blue pills. Orange pills.
“Do you want a bag?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Maybe in another lifetime I’ll be a man.
… Or maybe I’ll be a historian.