OK. What this week. So many years, so little ready memory. Alright. Early May, 1997. Had a regularly scheduled GYN appointment. A check up. Yum. A pap smear. Love those. Wish I could have one every day.
Went in the door, to meet my doctor, who was by then, a friend. Saw me, my mom, my sister and a handful of others. As soon as I entered the door of the exam room, she remarked, “hey, you here for your first prenatal for #2?”. Um, no, but thanks for pointing out I haven’t lost all the weight from my first baby. Gee. Feeling good about myself now. It seems she had an uncanny ability about which I had not yet learned. She knew. When others did not.
As she went through the exam, she asked again, could I be pregnant. Don’t think so, I said. Aren’t you late, she asked. No, I have a wide range of cycles…24 days, 30 days, 36 whatever, and that day, was like, day 33. Well, let’s just run a test to be sure, she suggested. Whatever.
I sat in her office later, perusing uterine charts and looking at molds of fibroid cysts, and milk ducts, not really even contemplating the test. I wasn’t pregnant. It would be the second time. Wouldn’t I know? I did immediately with #1. I’m no idiot. Her nurse, smug and secretive, entered. So, when did you want to have another baby? Oh, sometime, we’re not real sure, I answer, as I flip through laminated diagrams of the vagina. So, she leers, how about now?
(choke, swoon, cough, *spin*, room growing dark, cough again, must. sit. very. still.) Now? Like right NOW? Why yes, Mrs. Tannery, your pregnancy test is postive. You’re 5 weeks along. Aren’t you excited? I was thinking stunned. Um, astonished. Unprepared. Dizzy. Faint. Excited was not in my vocabulary at the time. Holy S&*t was, though. What happened to Natural Family Planning? Getting to know my cervical mucous? That day, or night, I said, oh sure, it’s safe? Ha ha. Best laid plans, so to speak. Now I just had to tell my husband, who was not anticipating this any more than I.
I will say he was magnaimous. We had our 14 mo. old with us, so he could hardly be anything else. We were on a busy downtown street in Atlanta, in rush hour, going to eat dinner. He was new in his career. New in fatherhood. We were new in nearly everything. Except, it seems, fertility. That, we were well practiced in. So when he was about to turn left on Peachtree, and he asked me about my regular check up, I simply answered, Fine. I’m fine. Everything is good, and healthy, and so is the new baby. Well, that’s just great, hon, just…(screech of tires, near clash of metal, lights turning red, cars converging, brakes slamming) Whaaaaaaa? Yep. Buckle up. He did. We did.
On January 21st, that sweet surprise will be 8. Hard to believe.
You wanna leave a link to some memory of yours? Or even someone else’s? OK, do it, and I’ll try my damndest to figure out how to show it here. I think I can, I think I can…you could always tell me how…
Remembering…
Running2ks
