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Many years ago, in the spring when the grape hyacinths were pushing up through the crunchy dead vines and debris not yet swept up from winter, I lay in a hospital bed, my mother standing by my side as a surgeon held my hand and told me I had endometriosis. I knew this meant I might not be able to get pregnant—ever.
Even flat on my back with staples across my belly, I believed information to be power. Information was control. Information, depending on how I could corral and interpret it, was hope. What were the actual numbers? How hard was the data? What, really, was I looking at in terms of eventual pregnancy? I rat-a-tatted the doctor with questions about statistics and medical literature. I said I wanted to read about it, then faded back into my pillow, woozy, until the panic roused me again. And again.
So, here’s the first thing I want to thank him for. This sweet man, Dr. Jeffrey, understood my need to use my brain to calm my heart. He brought me the journal articles. Yes, he went back to his office, Xeroxed the articles, and brought them to me—his high-need drug-dizzy post-surgical patient who then tried to read as the words went swishy and loose on the paper.
Of course, the reading didn’t help. My work was going to be harder than that. What knocked me flat, and needed to be absorbed, was the sheer obliteration of my own assumptions. I’d assumed my body would always work the way it should. I’d assumed pregnancy would indeed be a choice and a decision under my control.
During those long first days, I flashed back to a conversation I’d had with a young married woman when I was 15. She’d undergone an emergency hysterectomy years earlier, yet still insisted she was going to give birth; she told me her faith ensured her prayers would be answered. I mentioned adoption, thinking that was what she meant. But, she insisted that she was going to give physical birth to a child. She believed in this sort of miracle.
I didn’t. Even though my body was intact—hysterectomy had not happened—the memory of this woman haunted me. And so began a wobbly-hard journey across a tightrope. I had cold rationality, medical science, and intelligent acceptance on one side. And, hope and prayer and my own kind of wild faith on the other. I tilted and veered back and forth between the two—always threatening to fall too hard to one side. I was a mess.
I had to find a way to stand without the mad veering.
Dr. Jeffrey helped me. To this day, I thank him for not assuming the authority I surely would have given over to him. Instead, he didn’t pretend to know how it would play out—even though his training had taught him that my situation didn’t look good. He never said, “You won’t have children,” and he never said, “You will.” He helped me through two more surgeries and he helped me get to the belief that I would be OK either way.
More than 10 years later, in the weeks after Lucas was born, I showed up without an appointment at Dr. Jeffrey’s office and plopped my new baby in his arms. In the picture, he holds tiny Lucas hiked up high near his smiling face. And, though he modestly denied it when I insisted his skill as a surgeon was the reason I had that boy he held, for me it’s true.
I miss this man. He has moved on to other adventures—a well-earned active retirement of sorts. He’s out and much about, with his wife, his friends, his grown sons. His time is his own.
All of his patients will remember the drawl of his voice through the walls as we waited our turn; we knew how he liked to visit and listen, and we expected him to run late. He piled our files up high on his desk, his chair, his shelves. Then, he turned to look at us, see us, hear us, and help each one of us through.
Even flat on my back with staples across my belly, I believed information to be power. Information was control. Information, depending on how I could corral and interpret it, was hope. What were the actual numbers? How hard was the data? What, really, was I looking at in terms of eventual pregnancy? I rat-a-tatted the doctor with questions about statistics and medical literature. I said I wanted to read about it, then faded back into my pillow, woozy, until the panic roused me again. And again.
So, here’s the first thing I want to thank him for. This sweet man, Dr. Jeffrey, understood my need to use my brain to calm my heart. He brought me the journal articles. Yes, he went back to his office, Xeroxed the articles, and brought them to me—his high-need drug-dizzy post-surgical patient who then tried to read as the words went swishy and loose on the paper.
Of course, the reading didn’t help. My work was going to be harder than that. What knocked me flat, and needed to be absorbed, was the sheer obliteration of my own assumptions. I’d assumed my body would always work the way it should. I’d assumed pregnancy would indeed be a choice and a decision under my control.
During those long first days, I flashed back to a conversation I’d had with a young married woman when I was 15. She’d undergone an emergency hysterectomy years earlier, yet still insisted she was going to give birth; she told me her faith ensured her prayers would be answered. I mentioned adoption, thinking that was what she meant. But, she insisted that she was going to give physical birth to a child. She believed in this sort of miracle.
I didn’t. Even though my body was intact—hysterectomy had not happened—the memory of this woman haunted me. And so began a wobbly-hard journey across a tightrope. I had cold rationality, medical science, and intelligent acceptance on one side. And, hope and prayer and my own kind of wild faith on the other. I tilted and veered back and forth between the two—always threatening to fall too hard to one side. I was a mess.
I had to find a way to stand without the mad veering.
Dr. Jeffrey helped me. To this day, I thank him for not assuming the authority I surely would have given over to him. Instead, he didn’t pretend to know how it would play out—even though his training had taught him that my situation didn’t look good. He never said, “You won’t have children,” and he never said, “You will.” He helped me through two more surgeries and he helped me get to the belief that I would be OK either way.
More than 10 years later, in the weeks after Lucas was born, I showed up without an appointment at Dr. Jeffrey’s office and plopped my new baby in his arms. In the picture, he holds tiny Lucas hiked up high near his smiling face. And, though he modestly denied it when I insisted his skill as a surgeon was the reason I had that boy he held, for me it’s true.
I miss this man. He has moved on to other adventures—a well-earned active retirement of sorts. He’s out and much about, with his wife, his friends, his grown sons. His time is his own.
All of his patients will remember the drawl of his voice through the walls as we waited our turn; we knew how he liked to visit and listen, and we expected him to run late. He piled our files up high on his desk, his chair, his shelves. Then, he turned to look at us, see us, hear us, and help each one of us through.
About the author
Natalie Costanza-Chavez can be reached at grace-notes@comcast.net. Read past columns at www.gracenotescolumn.org.
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