September 28, 2010

Still life with unicorns and rainbows

A few weeks back, my BF and I were waiting in line to purchase movie tickets. Just ahead of us were two friends--one a youngish 20-something, the other a more motherly type, perhaps in her 50s--friends, not related, it was somewhat easy to surmise.

During a break in my conversation with my BF, I overheard the youngish woman ahead of us tell the other woman that she had something she wanted to tell her (mind you, she was speaking softly but they were literally about a foot from us) and she mentioned she was pregnant. That it was very early, but that she wanted to share the news. The older woman said she was so excited for her. Then she asked her if she was going to find out the baby's gender--immediately following that up with, "They can do that at the 20 week ultrasound, right?" To which the newly pregnant woman replied, "No, they can do it earlier than that, like 5 or 6 weeks."

My head quietly exploded behind her. 

It was then that I realized how nice it must be to get pregnant and experience pregnancy with absolutely no clue. No clue of what goes on on "the other side" known as infertility or sub-fertility. Imagine--not knowing your CD, your most recent FSH level, your E2 and other levels, not knowing when you can find out a baby's gender on u/s, not knowing exactly almost to the minute when you conceived, (and not having conceived in a doctor's office during IVF, IUI, or with Clomid or on a timed cycled with a CBEM). No clue about the realities of what can go wrong.

What a lovely place it must be to experience pregnancy with no preconceptions, no notion of what the good and bad possibilities are. With unicorns and rainbows and healthy full-term babies at the end. If only we were all so lucky.