yesterday, apparently, was pregnant lady day at the GYN
I was the only non-spouse or parent there without a burgeoning belly
a non stress test was sending the whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh of a tiny determined heartbeat into the hallway
nurses were happily announcing, Another labor check! while handing off manilla folders bedecked with hot pink post-it notes
If I had been someone else
If I had been my earlier self
it would have been sheer unadulterated hell.
As it was, I felt like an imposter. I felt other. I felt--- I felt my infertility acutely... and felt, something like shame?
As I have said a bazillion times, I am holding the brass ring.
I know it, and revel in it, even in the midst of 2 and a half year old 2 and a half year olding....
And yet, even with the ring,
even with the best thing ever
I fear there will always be this otherness, this shame, this tentative outsiderness, this longing, this whatever-it-is. This infermentality.
3 comments:
I'm sporting the belly and I still have that mentality every time I go to my OB appointments or am in the MFM area... I always feel like an imposter. I don't know if it ever goes away...
I am sorry you see yourself as 'other' or that there is some shame in your view.
Kate, I am a longtime reader and a non-infertile... I have 4 little ones that we've easily conceived, but I believe that we are now done. I go for my first GYN follow up (since my last baby) in about 5 weeks and I will ALSO feel out of place. There is something for all women about passing through the fertile years no matter how it happens that is tough. And I too will now see myself as "other" in that place.
Loves to you and your beautiful Della!
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