Answers and Elephants

Yesterday, my afternoon ended with a phone call to my best friend. At some point during the call, I busted this gem out:

"I have this fear that the doctor is going to tell me my uterus is eating itself from the inside."

After appropriate laughter and snorting from best friend, I felt better. See, yesterday was D-Day. Doctor Day. It was also job interview day. Which was probably a bad scheduling move on my part. I am pretty sure that when I told the interviewers that the one piece of information I wanted them to know about me, and I said "I'm a really awesome teacher. I am excellent at my job, and I need to be teaching again. I need to be in your classrooms, and I want to spend my time and talents here" I had tears in my eyes and was .5 seconds away from hyperventilating. They scribbled on their interview sheets and for the love of all that is good and holy, I pray that they didn't write down that I was a basket case. The thing is, I totally was. Sigh.

Yesterday was my first appointment with my new OBGYN. I hate the gynecologist. I mean, going to get a pelvic is outranked on my list only by getting a root canal without anesthesia. Or having bamboo shoved under my fingernails. After 18 months of trying to have a baby with no success, my rational brain kicked in and I made the appointment and canceled my hotel room at the Hanoi Hilton.

I actually really liked the Avenues Women's Center. The people were very helpful and kind. The office setup was sort of strange, but the overall experience was really positive. I especially liked the Nurse Practitioner, Hillary, that I saw for my first appointment to get me established as a patient. She was an older woman with a really gentle tone and approach, and talked to me with a lot of compassion and empathy. As a mom of adopted children, I think she has been in my shoes before.

We talked for a long time about everything I filled out on my patient history. Hillary had read all of it before the appointment, which really put me at ease. We discussed all of the trials of the past year and a half, the necessary tests needed for my husband, and the possibility of PCOS being a factor. She wrote a referral, and ordered a round of blood-work and tests to check for some signs and markers. We discussed prenatal vitamins, genetic testing, two months of temperature charting, and all sorts of things that I can't remember anymore. After the inevitable awkwardness and discomfort of the usual happenings of an exam, we hit the big, rotund elephant in the room. Weight.

I have struggled with my weight since puberty. It went something like this. Hormones flooded my petite body, and all of a sudden, I wasn't a flat-as-a-board girl anymore. Between 5th and 6th grade, things developed and I shot up in sizes, reasonably at first, and then at a rate that I am sure raised parental and doctoral eyebrows. And it stayed that way through high school. Never on the really bad side of things, but enough to be a concern. Then, I went to college, lost a bunch of weight because of lifestyle changes, and I worked really hard to keep it off. Too hard. To the point of not eating nearly enough and killing myself in the gym to satisfy the image my then-boyfriend desired. Since then, I have fluctuated up and down. A few years ago, I lost a lot of weight again, to once again satisfy the image of a guy I was seriously dating. When that relationship blew up in my face, I realized how fabulous and healthy I felt, because for once I had lost weight the right way-an awesome, balance diet and consistent, healthy exercise.

And then, I got married. And everything in my life changed. I left a job I loved. I moved. I remained unemployed. I had very few friends or social supports. I became pretty discouraged and depressed. My husband worked his tail off and was so stressed trying to support us on one income that I think his stress entered my body as weight and kept packing on. For a variety of reasons, I haven't made the healthiest choices over the past year or so, and now, I am confronted with their consequence: They may be impacting my fertility.

So in the kindest, gentlest way possible (and only after she told me I had to take off the awful open in the back robe and put my regular clothes back on because being almost naked while discussing weight was a bad idea), Hillary told me that to maximize my chances of getting pregnant, losing weight is important and is a factor. That really, really sucked. And it's not like I didn't know already. And I am grateful that she was so gentle and honest in her communication. And she is right. But that doesn't make it hurt any less. As hard as I have tried to move past this connection, weight and worth have always been tied together for me.

Last night I just cried myself to sleep. I am going to make the changes I need to, because not only is a baby worth it, my health and quality of life is worth it. But that doesn't mean that this experience didn't rip every bandage, split every stitch and burst open every scar connected to how I feel about myself and my weight.

So while we remain in a holding pattern for two months, wait for test results, make more appointments and I take my temperature each morning to chart my cycles, I am holding onto this self-talk I had in the car yesterday as I drove to my interview: You do not need to be ashamed of yourself. You are not bad. You have made choices that have not been the best. All you can do now is make better choices. If you do your part, the doctors will do their part, and Heavenly Father will do His.

I feel all twisty and jumbled inside right now, but I feel pretty good about that self-talk. If my appointment gave me anything, beyond the answers I will get from my tests and the help from medical professionals, it was the gift of honesty and reality. I can deal with that versus the unknown, especially with the help of my Heavenly Father and my Savior.

So here's to early morning gym workouts, green smoothies, mindful eating, and living a truly healthy life. Here's to prenatal vitamins. Here's to temperature-taking. And being teary and overly honest in job interviews. And being able to call your best friend to tell her you are pretty sure the doctor is going to tell you  that your uterus is going to try eating itself from the inside.