Of Uteri and Wasted Babies

My appointment with Dr. Cook went well.  He determined that I probably have only stage II or III endometriosis, but he's pretty sure not stage IV.  This is good.  It means the surgery should be shorter and less complicated.  We scheduled it for August 9th, which is rushing upon us relatively quickly.  I can't wait to be in recovery, I can't wait for this thing to be over.  One other really good thing I found out was that I can get disability during my recovery period.  I initially thought I'd only be missing 2 weeks of work post-surgery, but was informed that it's more like 4-6.  That's way too many weeks to do without an income, so receiving disability checks is fabulous.

*** Warning: This part of the post is graphic and weird and contains words like "ovaries" "vaginal" and "uterus". Read at your own risk. ***

The exam itself was quite traumatizing.  A pelvic ultrasound is an internal one.  They pull out this ultrasound wand that's quite a bit bigger than a tampon, and up it goes!  So you're lying there, naked but for a paper robe with your legs spread and a stick up your vagina, speaking calmly and professionally with the male doctor about what he sees on the ultrasound monitor.  Dr. Cook was so nice and apologetic the whole time - in no way creepy about it - but that doesn't do much to minimize the weird horror of the experience. 

In the middle of the procedure I had this strange "ah ha!" moment. See, I don't really think about having children.  The only time in my whole life I've actually visualized being pregnant is when I've woken up from one of those pregnancy nightmares (*shudder*). I hate those.  I know I'm a woman, I know I'm expected to have kids someday, but this isn't something I think about - ever.  Even at 30, my biological clock has not yet started ticking. So Dr. Cook moved the wand around to see different parts of my insides, and he explained what each thing was as he went.  First he showed me my uterus.  Then he showed me my ovaries, one at a time.  The second ovary had a strange dark spot on it, which concerned me, until he explained that it just meant I would be ovulating from that side this month and that, in fact, it was getting ready to drop an egg.

And I thought,
"WOW."
Beat.
"I really AM a woman."
Beat.
"I could make a baby RIGHT NOW!"

So.bi.zaare.  I could have made a baby this weekend.  My body can make babies.  I know women can make babies, but this is me.  I can make babies.  My body does all the normal things that every woman's has throughout human history.  Weird, weird, weird.  Even stranger is that one, solitary egg that positioned itself so perfectly to be inseminated will never become a person. 

Think of all the wasted babies.
Think of all the millions of eggs that never get made into people.
Think of the one-in-a-gazillion chance that an egg will be fertilized.
Think of yourself, and how that one-in-a-million egg met that one-in-a-trillion sperm and became YOU.

It seems so desperate, so lonely, that poor egg crying out "make me into something!" then just finding itself flushed out the birth canal and down the toilet.

God is so weird.  That is my only conclusion.