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January 24, 2005
I haven't forgotten...
When you spend time in an Ob's office while struggling with fertility or after having a miscarriage, you develop your own set of 'rules' about waiting room etiquette. Such as:
1. Not taking children to appts. if at all possible (truthfully, I leave Katie home from any appt. if I can avoid taking her because toddlers and waiting rooms are not a fun mix in general).
2. I have never looked at an ultrasound picture in the waiting room - only in the exam room or my car. This came from sitting in the waiting room after losing Aaron, and watching a woman and her mother ooh and ah over an u/s picture.
3. I try to avoid pregnancy/baby things with anyone I am with, or anyone in the waiting room unless it's initiated by someone else, and there are clearly no other women in the room who might be having fertility/miscarriage issues (if it's me and a pregnant woman and an elderly woman, it's a safe bet).
There are just certain things you never forget, and there are certain experiences, like infertility and miscarriage, which shape your perceptions and actions. Those are not things I ever would have thought of 5 or 6 years ago, but now they're just kind of automatic.
On Thursday, I went to my appt. and it was a busy day in the office. After I saw my dr., I came out to wait for the end of my one-hour GTT (which I passed, thankfully),sat down, and checked some papers. There was a woman two seats down from me who was blowing her nose, and I assumed she had a cold like so many of us. It wasn't until the ultrasound tech came out and called her in that she bustled by me, and I saw tears streaming down her face. Once her name was called, she just couldn't hold it in and went into the reception area crying. I knew she must have had a miscarriage. I don't know this for sure, of course, but it seemed pretty probable.
It was then that I looked around and realized that EVERYONE in the waiting room that day was pregnant. Every single patient, and many of them with children in tow. Nobody was sitting around chatting pregnancy talk while I was out there, or anything like that, but I felt such deep empathy for the person next to me. How horrible for her to sit and watch all of that, when things were clearly going so badly for her.
And I felt guilty. Not guilty for being pregnant, but that I was so self-absorbed that I didn't even notice her crying. I don't know that I would have been able to do or say the right thing, but still, I feel like I could have done something if I'd even paid an iota of attention.
It all made me realize why it's important to not forget.
Laura
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