A new year

Well, I did it.

I made the call.

I did it today.

And I am not sure if I should be blogging about it either.

Not sure if I should try to be more private, more gun shy, about it all this time around.

Should I take my very public blog and kick it old school by transforming it instead into an old-fashioned journal, like some of us had in primary school?

You know the ones, they came in hardback floral covers with a dinky little brass lock and tiny key.

You would scrawl ‘PRIVATE’ in angry red ballpoint, indelibly imprinting the hardback for all eternity, with intent as hard a tattooist’s scrunching your face into a petulant, adolescent frown.

I feel weird. Firstly it’s been more than a month since I wrote an entry on this blog (hi, atus, how are you? Been a while)...and secondly, am I mad to think I can take the same steps and expect a different result?

I blogged about getting pregnant last time. And then we lost the baby.

Should I, then, not blog about it this time? And therefore guarantee us a joyfully different result next time?

Not sure it works that way, but I think you can forgive a little fear and superstition.

Honestly, I don’t think not writing is possible. For, despite my shameful use of a double negative in the previous sentence (it was for emphasis, alright?) I do love to write. I have to write.

In fact, I think blogging is probably more important this time, as I suspect my need for some form of catharsis, venting and support may be greater than before.

Anyway, now that I’ve come to that decision after three minutes of typing, I will continue with my story.

I rang the fertility clinic today to see what our first next steps should be.

Turns out those steps will take us on a decidedly different path – and one that is unexpected.

Our doctor has upped and retired.

Thanks a lot.

I thought something was up when I rang his number – the one that persists in sitting alongside his photo on the clinic website – and the receptionist said “Dr Smith’s rooms?”

I don’t know what was more insulting: that our much-loved doc had gone, or that he had been replaced with someone with such a nondescript name. He may as well have been John Citizen. Although someone with that many credit cards would surely have no time for obstetrics.

So I have been referred to another doc in the same clinic, thankfully – they have about a gazillion there. There was some toing and froing from the receptionist while she decided who would be best.

First there was the lady doc in Toowong, but that wouldn’t work as we were not in Brisbane, and then another guy with an Aussie comedian’s surname was mentioned.

I casually asked if he was ok with helping same sex couples and was greeted with a second’s silence, a “hmmm” and then a “Actually, yes, it might be better if we sent you to John Hynes”.

“Heinz as in baked beans,” I asked.

“No, H. Y. N. E. S. Here is his number.”

And with that, an extremely emotional connection and four-year bond with a doctor who was so important in our lives came to an abrupt end.

I worried for a moment that a new specialist was being chosen for me, all within a matter of seconds, and that it all seemed so last minute.

It seemed our doc had done a very swift retirement runner, without establishing much of a handover for his existing patients.

These might be clinical, administrative and very business-y type decisions for people in that building to make, but I felt I needed a bit more...care.

Anyway, I rang Dr not-baked-beans and we have made an appointment. I won’t say when just yet.

I asked his receptionist if they were ok seeing same sex couples. “Oh yes, we have a practice full of them.”

Huh, what are we? Termites?

Haha.

Watch this space.