Start at the Beginning, Please

If you have come to this post, I assume it is because you have clicked on the Fertility is a Mindfuck link in my sidebar. If you are here to read this series, the posts are in reverse order and I don't want you to ruin things by reading the last chapter before the first. So find your page down button, close your eyes, and hit the key until you think you have given yourself carpel tunnel. Then, open your eyes and enjoy.

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It's All Rather Anticlimactic, Actually

Chapter XI

Dr. Miracle recommended we not tell anyone of our fragile pregnancy. We didn't.

My neighbors figured it out rather quickly as I quit drinking with them on the weekends, but we told none of our family. None of our friends.

The twelve week marker came and went. Everything was textbook. My progesterone was fine. Those nasty cysts? Had disappeared just as they should have. I went from high risk fertility patient to totally run-of-the-mill pregnancy. We were fine with that.

My transition from the first trimester to the second coincided with my mother's birthday. We bought her a birthday card that read Happy Birthday Grandma and took it to her the afternoon we celebrated at their house.

My heart was pounding when I handed her the card. I had kept my mouth shut for so long, and it was finally going to be my moment to celebrate with my family. My mom held the card in her hand and talked and talked until I had to finally tell her to open the damned thing already.

I was absolutely sweating as she opened the envelope.

She read the front of the card and made a bit of a sarcastic face. It looked as though she believed I had bought the wrong card. I started to laugh. She looked so confused.

I inclined my head at her to get her to read it again, but you could tell things just weren't processing. Until the light in her eyes changed. She looked at me and burst into tears. I told her this was her birthday present because I was too cheap to buy her anything else.

I don't think she cared.

From this pregnancy was born LittleBird. For all intents and purposes I had a textbook pregnancy. Everything went smoothly. I never puked. I never had any trouble. In retrospect it all seems rather anticlimactic. Just what was the big deal again?

I will save the stories of my C-section and VBAC comeback for another time.

I hope you have hung with me through this story. There are lots of other bits I was not able to fit in. I am sure they will come out as independent posts sometime in the future. This whole phase in my life is just a piece of who I am. I do not define myself by these events, but they have shaped who I am and how I perceive the world.

I promise to return and regale you with stories of my in-laws and our vacation. See you Saturday!

Oh, and By the Way

Chapter X

We had a blue line. Now what?

Most OBs aren't really interested in seeing you until after you are 12 weeks. We had never discussed what would happen if I actually did get pregnant, so Hubbie and I were kind of at a loss as to how to proceed.

I told myself I wasn't going to let myself get excited about it until I had a blood test.

On Monday, I surreptitiously called my surgeon's office from my job. I couldn't even believe the words coming out of my mouth. It was such a shift in paradigm.

I was told to come in for a blood test the next day. They wanted to know exactly what my body was doing and how it was doing it. I was less than two months out of surgery. I went, and expected the results would take some time.

They called me the same afternoon of my blood work. Yes, I was pregnant.

My relief lasted as long as my exhale.

You need to come in for an ultrasound now.

What? Um, ultrasound? Is this the regular routine?

No. Apparently not.

My pregnancy hormone levels were...unusual. They wanted an ultrasound done. And they wanted it done now.

I called Hubbie. We made arrangements to meet.

The day I took that first blood test, I was 4w 4d pregnant. The HCG test levels have a wide span to account for the difference in women's bodies. The average HCG levels for a woman at 4w 4d gestation is anywhere from 5-500. My HCG levels? 12, 913.

The nurses asked me again about the date of my last period. April 1st. Absolutely no doubt about it.

Dr. Miracle came in. He asked about the date of my last period. Dude, I am not going to forget that April Fool's joke.

They asked if twins ran in my family.

Oh god.

We looked at the ultrasound monitor. There was something there. A tiny blip in my uterus. It was the correct size for the dates I had been telling them.

But what were those? Those giant circular things on the monitor?

Those were cysts. I was not even two months post-op, and the cysts were back with a vengeance.

I was to come back for blood work in two days and a follow-up ultrasound early the next week. I was to stop any strenuous exercise, especially anything that involved bending. As in not even tie my own shoes for risking these cysts to burst.

The days passed, and I had my second set of blood work done. My numbers were doubling appropriately, but don't forget that your progesterone was terribly low. Low to the point that it was a miracle that anything had even implanted. Did you fill that Rx for supplemental progesterone pills to add to the prenatal routine until week 14? Good girl.

We passed the weekend trying to pretend that everything was normal and numbly walked into our ultrasound appointment early that next week. I laid on the table, Dr. Miracle flipped the switch. We all waited for the image to stabilize.

The blip was still there. And its little heart was beating.

We had a baby in there.

Dr. Miracle congratulated us on a job well done. He joked that this was definitely a baby. Last week? Too early to tell. Now, we had a heartbeat. We had a baby in there. But...

But?

But that given my condition and the circumstances, I had more of a chance of losing this baby as of keeping it. That we could tell people if we liked. However, it was his personal opinion that if I were his daughter, he would not tell anyone until after the 12th week.

We walked out of their with our heads spinning. We were pregnant! I had a baby in my belly! I had low progesterone! I had cysts in danger of rupturing if I weren't careful! And if they continued to grow in size like before there was the possibility of surgery while I was pregnant. If I hadn't already lost the baby, that is.

We could have cried, but we chose to laugh. No matter the outcome, this meant that I could get pregnant. In spite of it all, at least I had been able to manage that.

Now, we had another countdown. Another window to get through. Five weeks down, seven to go.

Climbing Through Windows

Chapter IX

My third surgery was scheduled for February. I grew incredibly fearful the months prior. In Sweden, I had been made to sign a form giving the surgeons permission to "remove" parts of me that were deemed harmful. I understand that if something found during surgery looked cancerous or otherwise maleficent that they needed the permission to take necessary precautions. I was told that more than likely, everything would be fine but that there was the possibility (though slight) that they could give me a hysterectomy.

It was a god-awful feeling. Going in for surgery not knowing if you were going to wake up with all your parts. As the time of my third surgery neared and my anxiety peaked, I finally got the courage up to ask Dr. Miracle if this were a possibility.

He assured me that he had never give anyone a hysterectomy without speaking with the patient first. I appreciated his candor, but after living with such a fear for such a long time it is hard to erase it with a mere pat on the back.

That, coupled with the fact that this was the surgery was sobering. This was the surgery that would determine whether or not I even had a chance of conceiving children. For two years I had been living in limbo. Not knowing if it were even possible for me to ever get pregnant.

I was about to find out.

My surgery lasted between three and four hours. My husband was prepared for it, this time. When Dr. Miracle came out to tell Hubbie that all was well, my husband asked him to rate my condition. On a scale of 1 to 10, just how bad was my endo?

The nonchalant rating? Around a 7 or an 8.

This man literally sees the worst of the worst. For him to rate me around an 8? I don't want to be that special.

My recovery was just as painful as my initial surgery. Lots of scraping and cauterizing, and an inability to pee.

There is a special place in hell reserved for nurses who are lazy or insensitive about cathing their patients.

Our post-surgical consult with Dr. Miracle was very straightforward.

• There had been lots of endo in all the same places
• All the same organs had been attached in the same places
  
• He'd been able to get nearly all of it
• The surgeons in Sweden had not fucked me up and had done a fine job
• My tubes were surprisingly fine and clear with not a bit of scar tissue
  

Which transitioned me to my next stage: Pregnancy.

I needed to get pregnant, and I needed to get pregnant now.

Because of the aggressive nature of my endo and its location, Dr. Miracle told me I had a three month window to get pregnant.

Three months.

He did not want to discuss what my options were if I missed this three month window. I can't remember if I even asked.

I left the hospital with an hourglass hanging over my head, and a Rx for an antibiotic that I had to take for a two week course. A medication that would be fatal to any fetus.

So hurry up and get pregnant, but hang on for a couple of weeks until after you take this medicine.

What kind of sick joke is this!?!?

I took the medication as March passed us by. My body began to heal from the surgery, and we ramped up the babymaking.

There is nothing remotely romantic about fertility sex. Chart. Ovulate. The whole I really don't want to talk to you right now but I am ovulating and I need your sperm so shut up let's have sex and be done with it. Then try not to let it take over your every conversation, your every waking moment.

I got my period on April 1st.

I remember shaking my fist at the ceiling and laughing and crying that what a terrible sense of humor the universe must have. April Fool's Day? Come ON!! That is just too obvious of a joke!!

One month down. Two to go.

April passed, and we tried to keep our sense of humor. We had tickets for Music Midtown and were grateful for the distraction. I was due to get my period that same weekend.

I didn't get it.

We went to the festival Saturday. Watched The Offspring and in the back of my mind was the niggling thought Shouldn't I be starting now?

Sunday morning I got out of bed, took out a pregnancy test and peed on the stick.

I didn't tell Hubbie. I just got up and did it.

I waited. It was positive.

I brought the test into our bedroom with a sheepish grin on my face. Hubbie had that same look.

We both agreed that it was premature to get excited about it, but holy shit! It was positive!

Now what the hell were we supposed to do?

My Friend the Witch Doctor

Chapter VIII

Stage Right: Marital Reconstruction

Stage Left: Medical Intervention

Stage Center: Immigration Application

The same January as my second surgery and subsequent fleeing back to my parent's house a second time, my mother had a doctor's appointment.

During the time her vitals were taken by the nurse, my mom spilled. I don't know if she was friendly with the nurse or merely talked out of anxiety. In any event, my mom spilled about her oldest daughter have endo. Of two surgeries and no idea what to do next.

She almost said nothing about it. But she did.

The nurse, in the friendly and chatty manner only a Southern nurse can talk, told my mom of a phenomenal doctor who had taken care of her and "fixed her right up." That he was the most wonderful man in the world. That I needed to call him, pronto.

His name? Dr. Miracle*.

My mom came home incredulous with the news. What were the odds of her nurse having this kind of information? She gave me his number and urged me to call.

I sat on the info for a couple of days. I didn't really have much hope. I'd been told I had an incurable condition. What was this guy going to do for me?

I called him, anyway.

They didn't want to see me until I was at least six weeks post-op, but booked me for an appointment for the moment I passed that marker. I was surprised how quickly they were able to see me. He was a specialist, wasn't he? Isn't there supposed to be a long waiting list?

It took an appointment or two for me to determine exactly what kind of specialist this Dr. Miracle was. Not just a specialist. The specialist. As in women fly in from around the world to see him.

Now, I was in his care.

Between my working in the States to sponsor my husband for his green card and getting my relationship back on track, I had my medical exams. Over the following months I was poked and prodded. I had consults. Blood as drawn, tests were run.

I had an abnormal PAP. Abnormal enough that I was recommended for a colposcopy. As if having a giant ViewMaster shoved up your vagina isn't uncomfortable enough, the biopsy that ensued because of my abnormal results was unspeakable.

There was talk of surgery. It was obvious I had endo, but Dr. Miracle would not know the extent of my condition nor the damage done by the Swedish surgeons until he was able to look for himself.

The sum of my consults were: The surgeons in Sweden may have done a fabulous job, or they may have completely ruined my chances at conceiving a child. There was no way to know. The surgery would not be scheduled until my husband was present in the US because once the operation was complete, I would have an incredibly narrow window of opportunity to get pregnant. If I were not ready to get pregnant? Not even a topic of discussion as the window of my fertility was closing faster than a subspace wormhole. It was literally, now or never.

The remainder of that year was filled with immigration logistics, medical appointments, and middle-of-the-night international phone calls. I purchased a condo for us to live in. My husband scheduled the shipping of all of our worldly goods to our new home. I flew to Sweden for our second wedding anniversary, and my husband had his interview at the American Embassy the next day.

This time, we knew better than to let all of this stress get to us. My surgical schedule was based on whether or not he cleared his interviews. Our nerves were shot, and we were scared as hell about the future. But we kept talking. We weren't going to make the same mistake again.

He cleared immigration. My husband entered the US just before New Year's Eve as a card carrying member, and my third surgery was scheduled for February.


*Not his real name, obviously. I don't much think he'd appreciate my language on this blog.

I Will Follow You Into the Dark

Chapter VII

My dad's plan had been to keep me at the house by all means necessary until my mom could make it home.

She had left work early, driven to the airport to pick up my husband. To pick him up from a flight that my parents had paid for in order to bring him to me to try and fix things.

I stood there in shock for a span of maybe two seconds. My mom started crying. My husband walked towards me.

And I yelled What the fuck are you doing here?!?!?

He hugged me. And I cried.

I cried a lot those next few days.

We had to learn to talk to each other again. I had to take responsibility for my actions. As did he. We needed to talk without judgment. To work though such deep pain to see if there was anything worth salvaging on the other side.

We drove to Chattanooga for a night. It was my husband's final days before he had to go back to Europe. We needed to be in a neutral location. To just be a man and a woman. Not a daughter and a son-in-law hashing it out in my parent's living room, but a guy and a gal having a talk over dinner.

It all came to a head in the hotel room. We talked for hours. I didn't know a person could cry so many tears. I had been in a terribly dark place for such a long time. I did not believe I had any worth. Not as a wife. Not as a person. My husband pushed past his own pain, reached into that canyon of self-loathing I had disappeared into and pulled me out. I resisted. I kicked and screamed and fought with all the bitterness and hatred and sorrow that had become me, and he still would not let me go.

And when I asked him Why? Why he would want to stay with someone who made stupid choices, whose body was so fucked up that he may never have children, who ran away instead of making things better? His answer, in not so many words, was that I was enough.

That for all my flaws, for all the hardship we had endured, and all the hardship to come he loved me. That what-if children didn't matter. That I mattered. I was enough for him.

I have never been enough.

Not for my parents. Certainly not for myself.

I was for him.

The tide turned that weekend. There were still many more discussions to be had, but we were talking again. My husband left the decision in my hands. I knew where he stood. He was committed to making our marriage work. It was up to me whether or not he was enough for me.

By the time I brought him to the airport, my wedding rings were back on my finger.

The Second Go-Round

Chapter VI

I flew back to Sweden for my second surgery that January. To say things were strained does not even begin to describe the situation.

The day arrived. Same hospital. Different surgeon. The idea was do another laparoscopy to see if the medication had restricted the growth of the endo.

It was a bit calming to already know the drill. Knowing the surgical protocol. Knowing where I would be staying. What my care would likely be like. How my body would feel afterwards.

The surgery was short. The surgeon, blunt and to the point.

The shots hadn't done a thing. Everything was coming back. I was free to go.

Huh?

That was all? No game plan? No next step? No referral? No...nothing?

My husband doesn't remember it so bluntly. All I heard was The medicine didn't work. It's all coming back. There is nothing we can do to help you.

I had gone through all of this...for nothing? It hadn't made any difference at all? What was I supposed to do now?

We left the hospital with no answers. I had a condition with no cure. The prescribed treatment hadn't had any effect. I was given no direction as to where I should seek help. I was told I probably couldn't have children.

Good night and good luck.

I left for the States barely a week later. I was in no shape to fly, but I had a family commitment I did not feel I could miss.

I should have stayed with my husband and worked things out with my new family.

I didn't, though. I nearly killed myself getting on that airplane. The people in the seats around me looked scared. They knew something was wrong with me. You could read the fear in their eyes and their silent prayers that I wouldn't collapse because they didn't know what to do.

I made it home to my parents house. I convalesced. Physically.

Spiritually and emotionally, I was in crisis. My husband and I had married after eight years of dating with the intention of starting a family. Now, the likelihood of that happening was minimal. I no longer felt like a woman. I was unfit to be a wife.

I felt my body had rejected me. That maybe I was not fit to be a parent. My body had failed me; and I, in turn, had failed my husband. In my hormonal and grief-stricken state, I rejected him before he could reject me.

My husband, on the other hand, had other ideas.

Two months passed, and my birthday rolled around at the end of March. I had gotten a job to stay busy, and I had started taking a yoga class in an attempt to heal myself.

I was trying to leave for my evening class, but my dad kept stalling me. Until my mom came home. She walked through the garage door. With my husband walking in right behind her.

Ready To Run

Chapter V

I was discharged with an Rx for decapeptyl depot. Translation? A series of shots: once monthly for a six month duration. The medication was to suppress my hormones by putting me into early menopause. Hot flashes and all.

I left the hospital with a sore belly, a sore ass, and a handful of paperwork I couldn't read. They don't teach you that kind of vocabulary in Immigrant Community Language School.

My husband was at work with his head and his heart buried under a stack of worksheets. My retired mother-in-law was "not available" to come and get me. My MIL's best friend picked me up and took me to her house. She put me to bed, made me as comfortable as she could, and gave me tissues when I cried.

The next few weeks were a blur. My recovery at home was not easy. I had no visitors, and every day I spent at home were days I lost clients in my consulting job. I went back to work well before I was healed. Lugging textbooks on the trains of metro Stockholm to see business clients who were whiny and pitiful regarding homework I had given them was disheartening.

Even more painful was the chasm between my husband and me. We had both shut down. He couldn't communicate how he felt, and I stopped asking. I couldn't take care of him because I couldn't take care of myself.

To say I was on a path of self-destruction is an understatement. I wasn't the same person my husband had married barely a year before. I felt like a ghost. No one saw me. I wasn't of any substance to anyone. I could go in and out of the hospital, and no one cared. I could go to work or not. I was replaceable. They aren't called substitute teachers for nothing. Even my husband had replaced me with his job. I understood why. I just didn't matter anymore.

I shattered into a thousand pieces of glass that cut everything around me. I was unlovable. Wasn't it obvious? What was there to love?

So I left.

I went back to the States to figure things out. I needed a break. I needed some space. I needed to feel seen. At least my dad would cook me dinner.

I left because it hurt more to stay. I felt we were at an impasse, and I took the juvenile path back home to mom and dad. I needed to lick my wounds. I needed to heal. I couldn't bear to see the pain and sorrow in my husband's eyes.

There was nothing noble about my decision. I left for every selfish reason you could name.

I packed all my medication with me despite the fact the shots weren't doing their job well enough. My dosage had been upped to every third week instead of every month, and that was further proof to me what a fuck up I was. Even after major surgery my body still couldn't get things right.

I couldn't hide for long. I had another surgery in January to figure out what the hell the medicine had done to my body.

---

Author's Note: I want to clarify that this post was my truth at the time of these events. It reflects the way I felt but in no way represents how other people viewed the situation. At the time I felt unlovable. Was I? No. Did my husband feel that way? No. It was my perception of the world at that time.

A Cat Named Frankenstein

Chapter IV

The surgeon stood at the foot of my bed. I suppose I had been awake for a while because I was back in my own room and no longer in recovery.

I remember that she looked at me and said: How in the world have you been walking around like this?

I blinked at her. I looked at my husband. Like what?

I had endometriosis. Not a little. Not a lot. A shitload.

The laparoscopy to remove the cysts revealed that my left ovary was attached to my bladder, which in turn was attached to my colon. One giant bundle of twisted tissue stuck together with endometrial adhesions.

Think spiderweb. On steroids, made of superglue.

My right ovary was attached to my abdominal wall.

Both of which left my fallopian tubes twisted up like a leftover ball of kite string.

Additionally (because why would multi-organ adhesions be enough), I had lesions.

Not a little. Not a lot. A shitload.

Think internal blisters. That burst. Bursting causes scar tissue. Adhesions form on scar tissue. Argumentum ad infinitum.

This surgeon had opened me up for a little two-cyst snippage. Instead, she spent three hours delicately disentangling my organs from one another and cauterizing every square centimeter of space she could find to dissolve those spiderwebs and seal off those blisters.

She couldn't understand why I didn't know. I couldn't understand why I didn't know. There had been no pain. No discomfort. No nothing.

I spent three days in the hospital. I could barely stand, I was so sore. Not only from the four incisions but from the massive amounts of scraping and burning that had been done. A side effect of which was a swollen bladder. You will never appreciate your plumbing until you can't take a piss on your own.

I was so swollen from the internal trauma that the nurses had to catheterize me. Not Hey, let's put you on a catheter but a straight cath. Which meant they did it over and over as needed. I topped out at 1000 cc's of urine before the realized that they needed to be doing it more often.

In that span of three days, no one came to visit. None of my friends. None of my coworkers. Not even my in-laws who lived less than a ten minute drive from the hospital.

The communication between me and my husband was starting to break down. The past six months hadn't gone very well, and we now had an encyclopedia worth of knowledge thrown at us.

Neither of us knew how to handle it. He went back to work. I was left at the hospital. Alone.

Zero to Sixty

Chapter III

With the results of our first technicolor ultrasound in our favor, life was good. We could get on with our lives. Just one more pesky follow-up exam with the lab, and I would be done.

That follow-up appointment was scheduled roughly six weeks later. Hubbie and I went with a clear conscience. There was no reason to believe that things would be very different.

But they were.

The cysts had grown. A lot.

Within a few days, my OB got in touch with me after reviewing the results. It seems that between her measurements from the initial ultrasound and the two colorful scans my cysts were getting bigger.

They were doubling in size. Every six weeks.

Double. The. Size.

Surgery was the recommendation. About six weeks from our conversation. She had a time booked for me, if I wanted it.

Of course I wanted it, didn't I?

It was to be an out-patient procedure. Most surgeries of this kind take about twenty minutes, give or take. A laparoscopy to peek in, snip out the cysts, a few stitches and I'd be good as new. Depending on how I felt after the anesthesia, I could absolutely spend the night if I liked. Most women didn't, I was told.

I booked it for August.

I met with the surgeon. The physical therapist. Got a tour of the Women's Ward.

The morning of my surgery arrived. I had never been in a hospital for anything, and here I was in another country about to get filleted. Everyone was very kind. They even spoke to me in English as they helped me up off the gurney and walked with me into the operating theatre.

Their protocol was stellar. They asked me to read my name off of my armband. They asked me what kind of surgery I was having. They explained where they would be cutting and how the surgery would proceed. Did I have any questions?

Long, deep breaths into the mask.

I woke up. Three hours later.

Technicolor Isn't Just A Dreamcoat

Chapter II

I was scheduled to a lab that did ultrasounds in color. That in itself was pretty cool. I mean, who doesn't want to see their innards lit up on a TV screen? In full-blown technicolor, no less.

Hubbie came with me and was as supportive as one can be when your twenty seven year-old wife is having scans for masses in her abdomen. We were both stressed out and scared. My enduring all the poking and prodding and him standing by helpless. Not good for either psyche.

Technicolor LabCoat gave me the ultrasound. And it was incredible to look at. All the reds and oranges and blues and greens. I didn't even have to smoke anything for this show.

We had been forewarned. Red = Bad. Very, very bad. Red meant bloodflow, and bloodflow meant tumor.

My result? A lovely dark brown color. No blood flow. No tumor.

Relief lasted the span of my exhale.

If not a tumor...what?

Chocolate cyst. That's when I first heard the term. Damn you, Dr. Sampson. Only a man would take something so wonderful as chocolate and apply it to a medical condition.

Technicolor LabCoat explained to us in layman's terms that chocolate cysts were cysts filled with old blood. And he gave us a demonstration.

Watch this! he motioned to the monitor.

Distracted, we looked up.

Wham! Up shoved the vaginal transducer against my cervix. We watched the image of my abdomen on the TV screen. The fluid in the cysts began to swirl in a lazy circle.

Cool! we said.

Wham! Wham!

Seriously, dude. We get what's happening. I'm not a pinball machine so lay off the fucking flipper.

We left the office in good spirits. A tad sore, but we felt a spring in our step and a lightening of our mood. A nice contrast to the semi-desperation we had felt the weeks prior to this visit.

We had determined that I didn't have cancer. That my condition was not only treatable but likely something that would solve itself.

How naive we were.

Mass, Not Just For Catholics

Don't adjust your monitor. You haven't stumbled upon the latest poorly written Movie of the Week. It is high time you hear part of the story that makes NATUI tick. Here is the beginning:

Hubbie and I were married in the late autumn. We'd been together for ages, and now that we were married we thought we'd better get cracking on that baby thing. The Pill? Out the window. There was no specific time table in mind. Just lots of newlywed sex and things would go about their natural course. Right?

I had my yearly girlie exam that February. Not a care in the world except let's get the damn thing over with because I had to go to work.

My OB was nice enough. Even speaking English to me because she knew it made me more comfortable. I asked her a few questions about ovulation. I still wasn't thinking anything hard core, I just wanted to be sure I had my facts straight.

She told me that ultrasound technology had gotten so advanced that one could look at a patient's ovaries on the screen and tell them that they would ovulate in two days, or that they had already ovulated and had missed their chance for the month.

My exact quote? No shit!

I thought that was the coolest thing I'd ever heard.

I had my PAP. I was literally getting up off of the table when I said to her I couldn't wait to tell my friends about the whole ultrasound thing. It was just too groovy.

I almost kept my mouth shut.

But I didn't.

Her response? Go ahead and get back up on the table. I'll show you.

She was serious.

I hopped back up, and had my first introduction to the vaginal ultrasound wand.

See this? she asked. This is your right ovary.

NATUI squinted at the squiggly screen.

Then, it was my OB's turn to squint.

What's this? She peered closer.

You have a mass on your ovary.

Oh.

She then looked at my left ovary. And proclaimed that I had a mass on my left ovary as well.

I don't recall much more after that point in the exam. I know that she scheduled me for an appointment with a special ultrasound lab in the city that used color to diagnose these types of things.

I still don't know if I had ovulated or not. I don't think she ever told me.

I walked out of her office and crossed the giant bridge to catch my train. The sky was a bright, shining blue. People walked past me and laughed and joked and went about their business.

I was twenty seven. And I wondered if I was going to be here a year from that day.