The thing about triggers is that you don’t know them. They are lying in wait until the trap is sprung and you are caught gasping for breath in a swirling, rising tide of emotion.
I did not know that the ultrasound would be more than I could handle. I went to the appointment alone, thinking it was routine.
I did not consider the mental challenges of all that is wrapped up in those parts of me: my womanhood, my motherhood, my sexuality, my identity, cradled low in my body, warm and undisturbed.
She says the wand will be ‘inserted like a tampon,’ but I wonder what kind of tampon she’s ever seen that is a foot long and requires lubricating jelly?
I watch the screen in the dark, my legs spread and eyes searching for any familiar shape in the static grey. I see the IUD, there in place, signaling the end of my journey and desire in motherhood.
I recognize the c-shape of the walls of my uterus, the nursery my body prepares month after month. Last time I saw a picture of it, there was a baby swimming there and despite the lack of wanting to ever see that again there is a specific, longing melancholy to knowing I don’t grow babies anymore.
She presses the wand around the curves and bends of my insides, my organs grudgingly make way for this intrusion as a sharp pang of pressure travels down my leg.
I am frozen in space as I try to remember to breathe.
I see the familiar darkness I’d become so well acquainted with in another life. I watch as the mouse moves, dotted lines measuring the empty space where eggs mature and release, top to bottom, side to side, empirically judging normalcy. I am time traveling; each blink brings flashes of multiple ripe follicles clustered like grapes, shots given to force the release of microscopic eggs, tiny syringes full of the best swimmers manually inserted through a minuscule tube. I hear whispers of prayer after prayer after prayer for that magical binding and division of cells that would make me a mother at last.
There was a time when this was routine. But that was a different time, and I have not considered that I am a different person now. I have not considered that in finding myself mentally and physically, in opening my heart and embracing my nature, there is a new discomfort with this invasion.
I have not considered that now I am dealing with new possibilities, demands and recommendations, unsure and sad and still figuring things out. That right now I don't trust my body, my hope wanes and my love for it has been hiding.
In the dark, I watch, unaware of the filling of my mind with the past; infertility, longing, marriage, a life that is dead and buried but somehow moving and writhing beneath my surface.
Nostalgia is not always sweet. Bitterness creeps and winds, choking out happiness and okay-ness, invasive vines on the life I’ve built.
Finally, she pulls the wand out. I wipe the foul smelling jelly from my pubic hair and put my pants back on. I wash my hands in hot water and soap, but hours later it will creep into my nose when I move them too close.
It takes a few minutes for me to realize I’ve been caught. I walk to my car and get inside, and as I begin the text I am fine, but by the time I’ve finished typing, the tears have come. The sky is grey and dripping and my eyes open, emotions pour from me like a flash flood.
My heart cries out in confusion, pain, and longing. The sobs are primal but familiar, and there is a voice inside me that wonders how I can ever possibly stop. I think maybe I will just cry forever.
The thing about triggers is that you don’t know them.
I would have gone with you, he says, and held your hand.
I didn’t know it was going to be upsetting, I reply.
