Boobage

I went for my very first mammogram the other week. You know, now that I have hit the big four-oh and my boobs are starting their journey south towards my knees, it was time. And it really wasn't that bad. I mean, sure it was a bit uncomfortable in parts, but compared to an HSG? Nothing beats being spread-eagled under an X-ray contraption with a doctor between your legs clinging on for grim death to a tenaculum that is clamped around your cervix while he shoots a radio-opaque dye up your innards and then asks you to roll to your side to try to force the dye past the polyp that is partially blocking your tube. Umm. Yeah. Since then, I would rate a mammogram as cake, piece of. Any day.

So, the lady was very nice and no-nonsense. Grabbing the boobs to position them, pushing the fat gut out of the way and telling me to hold my breath while the squeezer did its thing. No, none of that was a problem at all. But then she would bring the image up on a screen to check it was OK before moving on to the next one. And most of them looked like the regular mammogram images that I've seen before. One of them, though, made me catch my breath. Oh, not because there was a big nasty in the middle of the screen making me think "uh-oh, cancer" but instead because it was a side view and just caught all the milk ducts right so it looked like one of those images that show where your milk will flow when you are breastfeeding. It was like a textbook drawing. Except of course it reminded me that there has been no breastfeeding. And that there probably never will be.

And all over again, it reminds me that I am barren. Broken. Defunct. Decrepit. No use. Not fertile. It's funny how one simple little thing brings it back. Again and again. And it just makes me feel so...inadequate. So stupid for wasting my life. WHY wasn't I having babies in my 20's or early 30's. Why? So stupid. I let the time slip away from me.

You don't have to answer. There's no need to tell me that I don't know if it was a time issue or if I would always have been barren. It doesn't reassure me. It doesn't make me feel any better for letting opportunities slip through my fingers. But, this too will pass. I'll mull for a little while, then I'll be so damn busy that I'll get on with thinking about other things. I suppose that's the way it'll be from now on. Something will bring the thoughts bubbling up to the surface, and something else will take their place eventually.

But the good news? I've already got the results back, and my boobs are A-OK.