I walked through the lonely, blue halls of the Women's Clinic portion of the Kaiser. It was later in the afternoon, and I would luckily not have to go back to school. As I approached the pink waiting room, I took in a deep breath. I felt good about my appointment, I felt like it would be quick. I quickly checked in, and within five minutes, I was ready to be taken back to the room.
The nurse had me do the usual routine.
Weigh myself on the scale that was almost as tall as I was.
Go to the room with the millions of diagrams of vaginas.
Put my bags down on the sink, seeing as there would be nowhere else once I would sit on the table.
Go to the awkwardly small bathroom.
Pee in the cup that was always way too small.
Go back to the room and wait.
It all felt so quick, so simple. The routine calmed me, reassuring me that this was all normal. That I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary. I was caring for my body. I was normal.
I was left alone in the room, and of course I had to take off all of my clothes from the waist down. It almost felt normal at this point, like it wasn't a big deal. I played a game on my phone, and in doing so I dropped in on my face multiple times before my doctor showed up. After about ten minutes, I heard a knock on the door, and prepared myself to not be as awkward as possible. I slicked my hair back and sat in a proper position, being sure to not expose my vagina right away.
She walked in and of course did the awkward stuff. Small talk was always my weakest area when it came to talking, and I was an amazing people person. I knew how to work people.
My doctor was a beautiful blonde. Ethnically, she was obviously white, but her olive skin was anything but pale. She had a beautiful tan, beautiful and bright blue eyes. I didn't understand why someone so beautiful would want such a job.
She threw on her gloves, and instructed me to open my legs- the part that was always uncomfortable at first. But she did what she had to do as quickly as possible. She basically stuck her entire fist inside of me in order to feel around for my IUD strings. Pressure was all I could feel. She gave me some tips about occasionally feeling around for the strings myself, about what to say to a partner if s/he could feel them during sex, and a couple of other things I didn't ever think about.
Then she had to do an ultrasound to truly confirm that my IUD was in the correct place. I thought it was going to be like the movies, where the pregnant woman got the jelly crap on her stomach and the doctor showed her as they went.
It was nothing like that.
She stuck the ultrasound device in. my. VAGINA. NO ONE EVER TELLS YOU THAT IN THE MOVIES. Pregnant women in their first couple of ultrasounds get something stuck inside of them, rather than the cute movie thing. I stayed somewhat quiet, seeing as I couldn't even see what my doctor was seeing. She didn't feel the need to show me, I guess.
"Would you like to see your ovaries? We still have some extra time, and your uterus is looking fantastic!" She beamed. Doctor Ooglebee. That was her name. Of course, I nodded. What else was I supposed to say?
Very quickly, my doctor's face lost some of its color. Her smiled dropped. "Are you in any pain?"
I furrowed my eyebrows together. "Why would I be in any pain?" I dragged my question out. The words felt heavy coming out of my mouth.
She took in a deep breath, and genuine concern started to fly through my body. She turned the ultrasound monitor towards me, so that I could get a better look. She pointed to circles, my ovaries. "Do you see this?" I squinted. I couldn't tell what she was looking at. How was I supposed to know exactly what my ovary looked like? She waited for a response from me, but didn't get one. She continued, "You have ovarian cysts on both of your ovaries."
"What does that mean?" My throat instantaneously went dry. My breath hurt as it entered my body.
"Well, usually it doesn't mean anything. But-" She took in another breath. "Your left ovary is almost entirely destroyed, and your right ovary is about a third of the way ruined."
I opened my mouth to say something, but I didn't know what to say.
"That means that if they don't heal naturally, you probably won't be able to have children past the age of twenty-five."
We sat in silence as I stared at the screen.
"Can't I, like, freeze my eggs, or something? Isn't there surgery for cysts? My aunt had a surgery for cysts that were in her stom-" Words ran out of my mouth at what felt like a million miles per hour.
"Well, if you specifically were to have your eggs removed, it would probably ruin your ovaries more before they could extract any good eggs. As for surgery, there would be no way to save your ovaries via surgery. It's the same problem."
Once again there was silence. It was so quiet, that I could hear the doctor from the other room tell their patients that they were having a little boy. My body felt heavy as I realized I would probably never have that moment.
"All we can do is hope that it gets better on its own. We can only wait. Come back in three or four months, and we'll look at it again."
My doctor said her goodbye, and left me in the room. I was alone, and I felt smaller than I ever had. I forced my body to get up and redress myself. As I left the doctor's, I saw pregnant women, or women who had newly become mothers, and all I could do was smile and force back tears.
Getting back home was a blur. I knew I took a train and a bus home, but otherwise, my mind was gone.
I truly felt empty.
The hope I'd had whenever I was stressed, or anxious, or depressed, or scared, it was gone.
The hope of a better future was gone.
