Friday, September 10, 2010

Nurse Nosey

I promised a story a few blogs ago, so here it is!

When B and I were at Dr. F's office for her 6 month check-up, the nurse that gave B her shots was asking me tons of questions. I don't know if she was trying to relax me or what, but her questions made me pretty uptight. The conversation went something like this:

Nurse: So, now that she's 6 months old, when do you think you'll have another one?
Me: Ummm, we're not sure (my first instinct is always to avoid this conversation).
Nurse: Oh, you don't want anymore?
Me: No, we want more, we're just not sure when.
Nurse: Oh, so you haven't talked about it?
Me: No, we've talked about it, we just don't know.
Nurse: Well, I think you should have them close together. Close is nice.
Me (giving up on the 'avoid the conversation' thing): It took us a long time to have her, so we just don't know.
Nurse: Oh really? What was wrong?
Me: Oh, a lot of things (translation: I don't want to talk about it).
Nurse: Wow... how did you find out something was wrong with you?
Me: We saw a specialist.
Nurse: How old are you?
Me: 30
Nurse: Really, I'm 24 and engaged. We will probably wait to have kids, but not until we're 30.

YES... she really did say all those things!

I've actually had the "when are you having more?" question a lot since B was born. And you know what? It stinks. I kind of hate that question. I hate it because we want more children. We want more very badly, but we don't know what the future holds.

We are praying that God will bless us with more. Is that God's plan for us? We don't know.

I also hate it because people draw erroneous conclusions from answers like, "Oh, who knows" or "We'll see". People assume that means we don't want more. Or that pregnancy was so terrible that I'd never want to do it again. Which is completely not the case... I loved being pregnant! Or, they assume that we've hated the infant stage and can't imagine going through it again. Which is also completely untrue. Therefore, many times they will start giving a pep talk. "Oh, a few more years and you won't even remember the sleeplessness." "The pain of delivery will fade more with time." etc

I'm still learning how to deal with these types of conversations. Sometimes it's hard to be reminded that I am, in fact, infertile. At the same time, though, such conversations also remind me of how blessed we are to have Brianna.

1 comment:

Cayce, Sara, and Lily said...

Oh Chelley. I'm having one of those days today! Guess what we received in the mail today?! A card with an ultrasound picture from Cayce's step-sister. REALLY! Really. When we were home this summer Cayce's mom asked when we were having more. Sure lady. tomorrow that's when. Good grief, have you not paid attention to the past 6 years of our married life?? Okay done with my rant.