Apprehensive

I have currently been reading the book "The Giver" for one of the classes that my students are taking.  While I totally didn't like the book or the society it showed, I did take away one concept that I want to try to use more often--being more precise with my language.  In the book, people are punished for not saying exactly what they mean, but it does make them think before they speak.  I will obviously not get into trouble for saying the wrong thing, but I do want to be more precise in the words I use.

Having said that, what brings me to the title of this post is my feeling towards my impending specialist's visit.  This is the first time I've been to a "real" OBGYN instead of my family doctor.  I like my family doctor.  She's awesome.  She hasn't made me feel like motherhood is out of my reach.  She mourned with me during my miscarriage, has been frustrated with me during this almost three year frustration of trying to conceive again, agreed with me that PCOS seems to be the likeliest explanation for my symptoms...Well you get the picture.  She's awesome and doesn't treat me like an idiot.

I finally got a referral to an OBGYN that specializes in fertility issues.  If this doesn't work, we're done---there are no REs within a three-hour radius, and I'm not driving to the super-big city multiple times a month---even if I was to magically receive a large amount of money.

What is making me apprehensive?  A lot of stuff.  She's a new doctor who doesn't know me, who doesn't know that I am well aware of the fact that I'm fat, or that I'm working out and taking my Metformin now to try to lose that weight.  She's not experienced my sorrows, my pain, my joy.  I'm just new patient #200 or whatever.  Is she going to treat me as a woman, or just another statistic?  Will she look at me in disdain because of my weight?  Will she tell me that fat people shouldn't be moms?  Will she tell me that I have no hope of getting pregnant again?  Will she give me hope, or take it away with a single sentence?  Will she be so clinical that I leave the office in tears?  Or will she be like my doctor? 

I just don't know, and I hate the unknown.  It's going to be scary, seeing someone I don't know.  The appointment is the day after our three-year anniversary of Elizabeth's loss--that's not going to help anything. 

When I called, the first available appointment was then--that's like a four-month wait.  I guess it's probably normal for this kind of situation, but it seemed weird.  Then I got the paperwork packet to fill out...The hardest question?  "How many times have you been pregnant? miscarried? had an abortion? had a live birth?" 

It just hit me wrong.  It's so clinical.  And how do I answer it?  I was pregnant once.  I know that.  I know I had a miscarriage, but according to the emergency room, it was a "spontaneous abortion".  Because I wasn't out of the first trimester, the world of medicine classified it as an abortion.  Because I believe that life begins at conception, it was the loss of a life, thus a miscarriage.  I see abortion as a definitive choice that a woman makes to end the life of her baby--you may not agree with me on that, but that's where I stand.

I think I'll wait to fill out the paperwork.  I have two and a half-months to do it, after all.  I'm still going to be apprehensive every day until then.  Of course, maybe God will have mercy on me and this appointment won't be necessary because I'll be pregnant before then and the appointment will be the "happy you're pregnant" visit and not the "we regret to inform you that you're not" visit.  God has been big on giving me "growing" experiences in the last three years, so I imagine that this one will be another one.

Apprehensive?  Yeah, until I find a reason not to be.