Late in October 1992 I visited my family doctor, The Doctor, telling him excitedly that, after having conducted a urine pregnancy test, I believed I was pregnant. I remember smiling so much my facial muscles were twitching. The Doctor looked at me quizzically and asked me how old I was; I told him (I was a month younger than 22, bless me!). He then stroked his chin, nodded his head and said that he would like to do blood tests as he did not have much confidence in urine tests. Now, even though the main hormone of pregnancy, BHCG is the only hormone that urine pregnancy tests look for, he still doubted the result. So, I obliged him and had a blood test. Afterwards I went home, feeling completely deflated and convinced that I would NEVER fall pregnant. At the time I still had another six months of university. However, darling Hubby and I had planned this pregnancy down to the last month, where, I would finish my final exams in June that year and have the baby by the end of July. Things are supposed to work out the way you plan them aren't they?...
A few days later I received a phone call from The Doctor's secretary asking me to go in as The Doctor was very concerned about my blood test results. Hubby and I left our apartment so quickly we forgot to lock the front door.
Sitting in the waiting room, our legs kept bumping into each other we shook so much. I felt so sick. What if I am not pregnant? What if I can never fall pregnant (for some reason I always thought I would be sterile)...'see, we should have started trying for a baby a year ago, as soon as we were married', I kept repeating to myself 'I am barren!'. As these thoughts became deeper my resentment towards poor hubby escalated and I can only imagine the distraught look on my face decline further with each worsening thought...
'Mervat'...The Doctor called as I was stunned back to reality.
Seating himself behind a big mahogany desk he looked at me over his octagonally-shaped glasses.
'Mervat, we received your blood test results and not only is there (the pregnancy hormone) BHCG...'
'Whooohooooo' I screamed in my mind, 'I'm pregnant!'. My body language though was at a complete contrast, as I sat hands in my lap, my feet flat on the floor, my shoulders slumped forward...I could sense a big BUT coming up...
'...BUT, there is too much BHCG' said The Doctor...'There is so much in fact I think you have a tumour, and...' remember dear reader, that this was one single blood test, no physical examination, no history, no biopsy of said tumour... 'I believe it is malignant'. The only thing to do from here' he continued telling a desperate-to-fall-pregnant 22 year-old 'would be a hysterectomy'.
This was when his royal highness, The Doctor, sat back in his high-backed leather chair, interlaced his fingers over that big scratched ugly table and breathed down through his nostrils.
Darling hubby grabbed my hand, we stood up and we left the building! Stat!
Even a third year medical student, as my dear hubby was at the time, worked out that this idiot Had No Idea!
We went and found the nearest medical centre, saw someone who was on duty who repeated the urine BHCG test and were promptly told our baby's due date (31st July 1993). We were booked in to our local hospital for regular check-ups immediately. And no talk of any type of tumour.
After an ice-cream, we made our way back home and walked in through the unlocked front door without batting an eyelid.
****18 years and nine and a half months later*****
I still walk past The Doctor's surgery regularly. In fact, one day, I would like to introduce him to my 18 year old provisional driver tumour...and what a handsome tumour he is!
So, this was going to be a gratuitous post all about my Mr 17-recently-turned-18 year old. Yes, we are now parents to an 18 year old. He is 18..and I can't get my mind around that. Of course we are proud of him and the young man he has become etc, etc...but I can't grasp the fact that he is that age. So much has happened in the last 18 years that if I stop to rewind my mind becomes a blur. And yet, it seems like only months ago I found out I was pregnant...and you now know how that went!
