sueeeus

Sometimes, when you’re a woman of advanced maternal age, and you are overweight (obese, technically), and you have type II diabetes (but you really think that you are more borderline and not actually over the edge) which has escalated to insulin dependent gestational diabetes, and you are 36 weeks along, and when your fundal measurement is 43, and you’ve gained five pounds in one week, and when your regular doctor is on vacation, you might find yourself face to face with some stranger who knows nothing about you, and asks you why you didn’t bring your blood sugar log in to this appointment (when you brought it to the last appointment and that substitute doctor didn’t even ask to see it until you told her that your usual doctor had wanted you to show it to her, and then she didn’t show any real interest in it, anyway, so you figured you’d not bother this time, especially because there are about three or four really bad entries in it, and why subject oneself to the tsk tsk bad girl you shouldn’t have eaten that rice or that muffin reprimand, especially when you’re on the teetering edge of tears with the least infliction of guilt, judgment, or criticism) so you tell him that your morning sugars have been in the 90s and your post-prandials around 140 or so (which is more or less true, except for the few odd points)…

…that substitute doctor with the charming bedside manner might say, “Someone hasn’t been watching what she eats very well,” and then insist that an appointment be scheduled sooner than later to go over the numbers to determine whether any additional adjustments to the insulin should be made.

…and that same doctor with the charming bedside manner might wrinkle up his face and remeasure you two or three times and scratch his head and say something to the effect of “do you realize how big you are measuring, and we ought to get you in for another ultrasound,” after which you assure him that yes, you know you are measuring big, your last child measured big, and your normal doctor is well aware of it, and you are scheduled for a c-section anyway, because you already know you’ve got a giant baby growing in there.

…after which that same substitute doctor with the charming bedside manner might ask whether you’re getting your tubes tied during the c-section, and when you say no, you are not planning on it, and he looks at you with shock and horror and asks why not, and you answer that you don’t want to do that, and possibly your husband might get the snip instead, to which he asks why on earth you would subject your husband to an unnecessary procedure when you will be open already and the procedure will take less than a minute to put the little tiny clamps on the tubes and there will be no hormonal ramifications because the ovaries are not affected in the least, and in fact, your chance of various female cancer(s) is actually reduced…

…if you’re anything like me, you have a very difficult time maintaining your composure until you’re safely tucked away inside your car-pod at which time you sob your eyes out all the way home, at the same time wondering vaguely what all the passersby are thinking of the overweight forty-something pregnant woman bawling her eyes out…

…and you try to be objective about it and wonder why you are really so upset, but you just can’t seem to get past the part about NOT BEING READY TO MAKE A DECISION TO COMPLETELY SHUT THE DOOR ON ANY FUTURE CHILDREN, even though you know you probably shouldn’t even consider the possibility, given all the factors, and you may actually not even want to have more, and most likely you wouldn’t even be able to have any more, based simply on how hard it was to get to here, but you just don’t one hundred percent know what you want, and what you should do, and you’re just NOT READY TO MAKE THAT KIND OF A DECISION NOW, or in the next two weeks, for that matter, and even though he claims there are no hormonal ramifications, you are oh, so very leery, because you’ve lived a lifetime with tweaked-out hormones and the last thing you want to do is rock that boat any more than it’s already rocked.

…and then, when your husband calls, because he’s working late and he needs you to do the daycare pickup, and he can hear in your voice that you’ve been crying, and you say it’s because you didn’t much like the doctor you saw today, and he demands to know WHO it was, so he could call him and bawl him out for being such a jerk, you completely skip the whole part about the tubal ligation, which is really what you’re most upset about (because of course it’s as perplexing to your husband as it is to the charming doctor as to why one wouldn’t want to get a tubal when one is already laid out open on the operating table, and how selfish it is to even suggest something as vile and emasculating as a vasectomy to a perfectly healthy and whole male, God forbid.)

…So I guess that’s what it’s mostly all about. I don’t want to make a decision. I thought I’d already made the decision, which is, let Gadget get snipped, and if he’s not amicable to that (which he isn’t much), take our chances or just be abstinent (which is basically the same thing, when it comes down to it).