Sunday, May 20, 2012

Dispatches from the clinic

When you spend enough time in a fertility clinic, you'll eventually grow to hate the place. In treatment cycles you start every day in the waiting room, after blood work but before ultrasound. Many of the faces are the same, day after day and month after month. We don't acknowledge this familiarity because it's a shitty club that nobody wants to be in, but we take comfort in other clinic veterans. Oh, you're still here too? Glad I'm not the only one.

The newbies are just adorable. They walk in, usually with their partner, beaming and full of hope. They're giddy until they nearly pass out from the bloodletting that accompanies the first visit. Woozy but still smiling they put on a brave face and take wobbly steps to a chair in the waiting room. They have no idea how many hours their ass is going to spend in one of those chairs in the coming weeks and months. We clinic veterans are too jaded to take them under our wing and let them know what lies ahead. They wouldn't believe us anyway.

I'll see you there tomorrow my friends, old and new. Don't be offended when I don't look up from my book. I'm not much for small talk in the morning anyway.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I have my fingers, toes, legs, and arms crossed for you in your endeavor! I know that you are already a great mom, and that another parasite will round out a nice even number.