Recently I dealt with an extremely rude and thoughtless human
being. One of my regular
pharmacists is on vacation and thus I have had a week of unfamiliar faces
filling in. One of these fillers
isn't so unfamiliar. I have worked with her three or four times a year for the
past three years. Not to long ago
I ran into her outside of my store and brought her up to speed on operation
baby, so it wasn't surprising that her first question when I came in what about
how the IVF was going. What was surprising was her complete and utter lack of
good judgment in her next comment.
Picture this short, loud, and almost 30 year old woman
pretended to listen as I explained in a brief couple of sentences what our
timeline is. She nods impatiently
and then launched into a statement that can only be described as rude and
thoughtless. "Would it upset
you if I said I was pregnant!?" Insert big shit eating grin. What a bitch! I understand being excited about a little one, I don't
understand the apparent need to try and make me feel like shit. I wasn’t about to let her see how much
her statement hurt me, so I answered, “No, of course not,” with a sincerity I
didn’t feel.
Do I understand that my fertility challenges aren’t her
fault? Yes. Do I understand that people will not
stop getting pregnant just because I haven’t been able to? Yes. Do I feel the sting with others around me seemingly get
pregnant just by looking at a penis?
Yes. And do I resent it
when a woman presents her good news to me with the subtly of a shotgun? Why, yes I do. I have made it through several pregnancy
announcements without wanting to deck the woman, but this presentation, this
“in your face you infertile chick, I’m better than you” na-na-nah-bo-boo
approach left my palms itching with the urge to slap the bitch. But I resisted the urge and tried to
remind myself that this particular woman has no brain to mouth filter.
She then spent the next three hours telling me about all of
her pregnancy symptoms. From her
sudden fondness for bagels to her aversion to Alfredo, from her slightly crampy
tummy to her inability to touch her toes anymore, from her frequent cries to
her irrational anger, and from her tender breasts to her increased cup size.
Yup. I got all these details and more.
Then I asked a question, how far along she was. I had a hard time not laughing my ass
off when she said five weeks. Five
fucking weeks and she would have you believe that she has experienced every
symptom imaginable.
I asked if she had made the big announcement. She has not told anyone but her husband
and her sister. So why then am I
lucky enough to have her joyful news rubbed into my raw nerves? It turns out she’s having some problems
with her progesterone levels and she knows how much research I’ve done of
fertility challenges so she wanted to pick my brain. Unfortunately I don’t know that much about progesterone
levels, only that a level too low can cause a miscarriage and that it’s
normally treated with progesterone oil injections, progesterone suppositories,
or Prometrium taken orally or inserted vaginally. She is using the latter vaginally so I had no new
information for her.
I can’t imagine what she must feel like, to be so close to
one of her dreams but teetering on the verge of losing it. Terrifying. Rudeness aside, I’ll be praying for her and her precious
little one.
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