June 23rd, 2023
It's a Friday at about 11am and I'm stiting the waiting room at my OB/GYN's office. There's a woman at the check-in desk being told her doctor -my doctor- is overbooked today and she may not be seen since she was more than fifteen minutes late. I feel bad for her, but I'm also thankful it wasn't me getting that speech. She rebooks her appointment for a couple of weeks from now and as she steps out from behind the counter I see her vouminous belly peeking over her jogging pants. She goes straight for the bathroom as I try to look anywhere else, feeling a twinge of guilt as I think to myself that she probably needed this appointment more than I did. I'm not here because I'm pregnant, I'm here to get my birth control renewed. Last night we had the talk again. The talk that we've had hundreds of times before. The one where we sketch out a rough draft of a little minature version of ourselves and then we crumple it up and toss it in the waste basket....