It was "that time of year again"
You ladies know what I'm talking about...
The Yearly appointment where you are escorted into a cold-sterile-room, that is, if you don't count the cheesy landscape pictures cut from old calendars stuck to the ceiling - and you know why their on the ceiling BLAH.
Next you're asked to fully-undress, a thin sheet drapes across the examination table and acts as the draftiest robe you've ever donned, and the hygienic-paper crunches beneath your cheeks where you sit to wait.
While waiting - fully-naked, and half-covered the nurse peruses your chart and there she finds a few facts she'll need you to confirm.
I knew it was coming,
But the words stung, like a cold extremity aches as you warm up after snowy-play.
"3 pregnancies and 2 births?" She asked.
And there it was; the truth and with it, a twinge of pain from inside the deepest part of me. And I simply replied "yes"
But that outwardly-quiet simple "yes" caused the inside of me to call-out....
Do you know I wanted number three, really-really wanted her?
Do you know number three was a little girl?
Do you know I saw her heart pulsing strong and quick
And do you know I starred helplessly, and cried, when the monitor pictured a motionless body and a heart-without a rhythm.
Do you know when my four-year-old asks me "when are we going to get another baby"
I answer him, "when we get to heaven"
No, the nurse didn't know, it was just a routine question, at a routine check-up, that's 6-months over due.
And then she left,
Alone in the sterility - cold, still naked, emotions stinging, with the lingering empty promise: "the doctor will be in soon"
I pulled the ratty-thin sheet around me a little tighter, which helped to relieve the chill, and somehow my own arms encompassing my gut dulled the stabbing from within.
48 minuets later I was free to leave with a clean bill of gynecological-health, an order for labs, a free sample of birth control and the emotional pieces of me in check.

Hugs

On MOPS Tuesday's I visit the Chick-fil-a with two friends. After eating our chicken, and licking all the drips that trickle down the sides of our kids free cones the children disappear into the wonderfully clean, sound-proof-booth that is the play place. And the girls get to talk.
Sometimes we talk about shoes and new wardrobes, but today after a refill of diet-lemonade, or was it tea? We started talking about the real "stuff" of life.
Like loss, our crappy world, infertility, etc.
When someone is grieving - we hug them. When someone is happy - we hug them. When we want to say I love you - we hug. When we want to say I'm sorry - we hug.
And, it's a funny thing the human reaction.
While some are renewed and strengthened in the embrace of another's arms, others melt into a soppy pile of tears as the emotions we thought we had under-control come rushing back to the surface; and with wounds re-opened and more painful than the initial injury we fall-to-pieces.
Me, I'm a little of both; but mostly the wounded, fall-to-pieces, soppy pile of tears option. That doesn't mean you shouldn't hug me - just consider this your fair-warning of my natural human-reaction.