ET goes to bed

Thor is my current deity of choice.

Why so you ask? You pretty much know where you stand with him, and he woke us this morning at 3am with the loudest belt of thunder I've ever heard.

I'm saying it was a 'thumbs up' anyway.

At 6:10am we were sitting into the car and driving the 3 minutes to the hospital car park.

At 6:13am we were walking the 15 minutes from the hospital car park to the hospital.

By 6:30 we were ringing approximately 14 different buzzers in the hope of actually being let in to the gynecology department.
As my chubby finger hovered over buzzer number 15, the doors swung open and we were greeted by someone who was so bright, and chirpy, and shiny, and new, I nearly went blind from the glare off her piano teeth.

My corneas, however, melted and withered into raisins at the sight of her footwear. Neon orange crocs.

Having never had any type of surgery before, ET was by this point in time, a bit on the nervous side. By 'bit' I mean 'deathly' and by 'on the nervous side' I mean 'had to be held tight or she'd have legged it down the fire escape'.

The nurse ran us through the basics once more, and ET chose a stunning blue button-up-the-back arseless smock with which to wow the judges.

Incidentally, you can not get them in the hospital gift shop and nurses don't find it particularly funny when you ask.

So I sit with ET for the last few minutes before she gets taken away, and with every bad joke I make, with every silly reassurance I offer, and with every line of 'the first cut is the deepest' I hum, she gets more and more nervous.

The nurse instructs her to take her sedative, it's time to go.

Remember those scenes in hospital dramas where the loved one walks briskly alongside the bed being wheeled into the operating room? Fake I tell you, fake.

I rapped my knuckles trying to fit through the door frame at the same time as the bed, and spent the next few seconds chasing the bugger down the narrow corridors of the gynecology wards.

I caught up with ET and her runaway bed at the preparation room doors. I couldn't go any further. She took one look at me and the tears that had been threatening, finally came.

My wife was a scared little girl, and there was nothing I could do to help.

Useless.

In a feeble attempt at wiping a tear from her face, and squeezing her hand in reassurance, and kissing her forehead, I think I may have bitten her.

I try to tell her how proud I am of her, and that in just a few hours she'll be back home with me annoying her, I think what actually came out was something about the cost of parking.

Useless.

I tried to remind myself that everyone there would be gentle and kind to her and I wonder, yet again, why does it take moments like these to remember how much someone means to you?

** ** ** ** **

Flash forward almost 4 hours and I'm sitting in an embarrassingly squeaky chair squeezing that hand again.

Almost incredibly, she is fine, sore in the tummy of course, but no nausea, no cramps, no drowsiness, and no shoulder or arm pains, but very much relieved.

Fast forward another 5 hours which included too much tea to be healthy, a close encounter of flashing a porter, and muchos urine that seemed to be showing it's support for Gay Pride (or skittles, who knows), and we are chatting to the specialist, before coming home.

There will be no more tests.

I am quoting the doctor when I say that ET's uterus is 'beautiful', her fallopian tubes are 'lovely, clear and long', and there isn't even the slightest hint of endometriosis.

The diagnosis, is official and clear; Unexplained Infertility.

This is not the anti-climax we may have thought in the past, our new doctor is very personable and realistic. Pregnancy rates tend to increase after laparoscopies, so she is giving us three months to work our magic in ET's new freshly serviced tubes, after which she suggests we try an IUI.

To have a doctor say that to us after all these months, a real plan, is simply huge, and I am very, very pleased.

To have ET steal the limelight of this, my 200th real post, like she stole the limelight of my 100th, is something I'm less pleased with, but I'm willing to forgive because to have a wife as brave as that daft cow, I am very lucky, and very, very proud.