Part I: Feeling the Wait

I have attempted to write this blog for weeks...two weeks to be exact since our 3 hour drive to find a new urologist. It's been hard to put the appointment into words...i am also struggling with how I want to remember the day. I know that may sound silly but I have fluctuated between wanting to record every feeling to sticking simply to the facts. Not sure why the blog-o-sphere has suddenly become the place where I think I am storing my memories of infertility but it feels permanent when I post here. Like someday when I do have a baby this will be my only reference point for how terrible things were because all that pain will fade away when I no longer define myself by infertility. I know that is a stretch but I like to imagine that it will be that easy. Hell, something should be that easy right?

So, Friday the 29th we packed up the car with the dog and cooler to head for a great weekend at my family's lake house on Norris. No work, just a weekend in the sun, on a boat, with a beer...well, right after we stop in Knoxville for that pesky appointment.

The drive was uneventful and I must say that having the dog always keeps the mood feeling lighter. So, we get to Knoxville, drive straight to my aunts house, drop the dog, and leave for UT Medical Center. At this point, we are arriving an hour early (really 1.5 hours early because the MD said to come 30 minutes early anyway). So we sit in the parking garage and start to panic for a little bit. We offer vague reassurances back and forth and then decide to talk it over one more time. I am a big advocate of talking about anything. So, Kev practiced his monologue-synopsis of our timeline and how we got here while I interjected the facts we just couldn't leave out. Then we reviewed the question list and I asked for the fiftieth time if there wasn't something we should add.  Finally, we decided to abandon the parking garage and wait in the office, just for a change in scenery.

Before leaving the car, we held hands and prayed. We prayed that the doctor would provide us with answers that we had been seeking and that God would provide us with peace - no matter what those answers were. Honestly, I had been praying this for weeks. Just prayers for answers and prayers for peace. I know selfishly I wanted to stipulate that God provide easy answers but I all I could muster the courage to ask for were some kind of answers and peace.

After pacing the hallway and returning a few phone calls we entered the waiting room. Kevan filled out a few papers and we sat. I then suggested we play scrabble on our phones since Dr. Phil and old issues of crappy magazines were the only other options. Scrabble was the best distraction I could have imagined. No time for anxiety, no time to fret...instead just refocusing energy of beating each other in calming game.

They finally called Kevan's name and led us down a narrow hallway to a big conference room. There was a large wooden table surrounded with leather chairs on casters. The walls were lined with bookshelves which housed Glenn's guide to Urologic Surgery, pamphlets galore for cialis, vesicare, detrol, and viagra, and last but not least several plastic models of the male urinary/reproductive tract. Our favorite replica was demonstrating how a penis pump implant could work for you!

Our new waiting room felt full of opportunities and I immediately felt comforted that we were going to have a place to sit and talk. I already felt like this time they were going to listen and I was prepared to voice my concerns. I opened my binder in front of me and re-read my question list. Then I re-read the lab work we were providing and tried to control my mind as we waited...

jenn