Falling faces

I had a doctor’s appointment today.  It was my orthopedics PA who was seeing me.  The last time I saw her I was VERY pregnant.  She walked in…

“Sooo, what did you have?”  Soft excitement and genuine interest.  I didn’t prepare myself.  Stupid me. 

“A girl but she was stillborn.”  Get it right out in the open.  All my not-so-secret skeletons on the table.  Yep, and there it is… the face contortion, all her thoughts in quick succession.  Nothing hidden there.  It’s like a bubble appeared above her head and I could read her very thoughts.

“Oh my.  I’m sorry.  I didn’t know.” 

“It’s okay.  It was unexpected.” No tears yet. 

“I’m really sorry.  It’s okay. You can cry if you want to.”  Damn it… now there’s tears.

 “I’m sorry. (I apologize). I don’t mean to cry.  I try to prepare myself for when people ask.  I just didn’t do so well this time.  I didn’t mean to put this on you.” 

“Oh no.  I’m sorry.  It’s just… I knew you were pregnant.  I didn’t even think…”

“It’s okay.  Out of 150 women who come in here, you’d be right to ask 149 times.  They would be almost waiting for you to ask. How would you know not to?” 

“What a terrible thing.  I don’t know how you would ever be prepared to answer that question.  Well, I don’t know if you’re religious or not, but I have to believe then that it was in the plans.  There must be something bigger for you.”  Silence.  Oh please can we change the subject… I want to scoff at her idea of ‘bigger plans!’  Bigger plans!?  What’s bigger than having a baby and then having it taken?  Bigger plans!  It’s BS… but if it’s what she needs to believe to feel better, to think she’s making up for asking well, then… do what you gotta do but… really?  BIGGER PLANS?!  Poor lady.  There are no plans.  Everyone is just flying by the seat of their pants, there are no plans.

The subject was changed.  Yep.  The subject was changed to decide that I’ll be having wrist surgery as long as comp decides to verify it.  Awesome. I get to be in a cast for four more weeks.  I guess if it needs to be fixed then so be it.  Let’s get it over with.

Later I got a phone call from my Human Resources department:

“Hello?”

“Hi, is Crystal there?”

“This is.”

“Hi this is …. (Blah blah blah) I’m just calling to see if you will be returning to work or if you plan on continuing your leave of absence.”

“I’ll be returning to work.”

“I see here you were expecting a baby due at the end of April.  What did you have?”  UGH>>> AGAIN?!!!

“A girl.  But she was stillborn.”  Silence. You can almost HEAR her face fall and her chin hit her desk through the phone line.  More silence.

“Um, I’m very sorry.” More silence.  I think I can hear the phone crackle if phones actually still crackled.

“It’s okay. “ More silence.
If all else fails, change the subject and babble.

“Um, so you’ll be returning to work? Very good.  Okay. You’ll need to have a doctor send permission to return since it was a medical leave.”  No one wants to talk about dead babies. 

Blah blah blah.  … “Okay thank you.  Enjoy the rest of your summer.” 

Poor people.  It doesn’t get any easier does it?