The surgery. The whole thing.

FINALLY. Able to write. I've been trying to write for ages, but this isn't the type of t hing that you can write in spurts.

Plus I had much much Chandler drama. Much.

I digress.

Thursday night I showered because I was already exhausted and I didn't want to have to deal with it Friday morning. I hindsight I wish i had done it Friday morning, because Friday night I really could have used a shower but I was so tired and just icky feeling that the thought of peeling clothes off and seeing myself naked wasn't in the cards.

I get up, drive over to Chandler's. We head over, anxiety-filled conversation. We pull up and I realize another friend of mine that had an abortion had hers here, and i only know this because she pointed it out when we had met for lunch at a restaurant next door. Little did I know years ago that i would be parking there for a different reason. He offered to go in with me, but I was like "oh HELL no", he dropped me off, I went in. I didn't even want to have him see me go in, I just texted Rachel while he drove off.

I get inside, and it's like any other medical office with faux plants and what not. A tv is on in the background airing PBS, the entire time I was there I was stuck listening to a looooong documentary on the cultural influences of Cuban Afro music. No, not Afro Cuban music.

I stand in line, notice that there's very few non-Mexican people here. Not to be racist or anything, I'm just sayin', it was interesting if you figure the stereotypes you'd think that's the LAST ethnicity that would be getting them.

There's two couples ahead of me in line. One is this asian couple, this girl is super thin. She's not getting an abortion...I made the guess of every person who was there who was and wasn't getting an abortion, i was only wrong once. The couple in the front of the line, latino guido boyfriend was so disgusting I was glad they weren't procreating (she was gorgeous though, what she was doing with him was beyond me). He had hair just like the boys from that Victoria Gotti show.

Finally after a ton of time I get to my part in the line, and i'm annoyed at the big bitchy-looking blond receptionist with her horrible acrylic nails. I hate acrylic nails as it is, I think they're tacky, but to have the huge ones that fan out...sorry women, that's a sign of a cheap nail job. Anyway, I finally get there and all I did was put my name down. That's it. She crosses off my name, tells me to take a seat.

I should have scammed a spot on the couch, since I ended up waiting for around an hour and a half. Instead I picked a spot on the far wall, back to the window, so I could see everyone coming in.

Then I waited. And waited. Eventually my name was called, onto to have to pay. Goodbye $395, it was nice not putting you towards:

• shoes
• my one cute shoe repair
• car repairs
• housecleaning
• new furniture
• groceries
• airfare to go back home
• vet bills
• a hair trim
• a series of massages that i would have loved to have gotten

I then get a clipboard with a ton of paperwork to fill out. At this point the place gets packed, and I'm noticing everyone wearing track pants or jogging pants must = abortion. For the most part, everyone's boyfriends looked skeezy. One guy had some 80's heavy metal band hightops and a camouflage baseball cap with the bill perfectly flat not curved.

There was a girl who was there with her 2 girlfriends. The two friends looked like typical suburbia rich girls but the girl getting the surgery looked like a fish out of water next to them. I found myself getting annoyed at being in the same category is her. I do not have a huge ugly lip piercing (I like lip piercings when they're teeny, this chick's looked like some bad fish hook, but she wasn't even a funky goth kid...it was like she thought it was sexy), ugly behind-the-ear tattoo that had the initials MGD, and i think she had a tongue piercing. One of her friends had a laptop and they were surfing Facebook.

It made me wish I had a friend with me. If you're in this boat you want a girlfriend to distract you, someone who isn't also directly impacted by it. Every guy there just looked awkward.

I was intrigued by another couple that came in. Gorgeous blond, and the guy looked like Brian Austin Green. She looked miserable, but not in a "oh i'm so sad i'm losing my baby" kind of way. I later discovered that she was having a miscarriage but the pain was so horrible, she just wanted to get it over with because she already had 2 kids, one who was autistic, and being in pain bleeding nonstop was hindering her ability to take care of them.

Oh side note: as it turns out, I really should have lied about my social. I also should have seen if I could have qualified for something by lying and saying I didn't have insurance. apparently medical or whatever pays for that crap. I was the only one there it seems that paid full price. I suppose my insurance would have paid for it (but i have HMO, who knows), I just didn't want a paper trail of having done it. Which is why I could have lied about my social and no one would have known. Grr!

The only person who was getting it done who also didn't have anyone with them was this older asian chick. I was playing the "who here is having an abortion" guessing game for the time i was there, she was a tough guess but her demeanor was the same as mine, as well as her clothes.

I highly recommend having someone be in the room with you, just not a guy. The guys all just seem to have this embarrassed awkward "i don't want to be here but i dont' want to be the asshole who doesn't support her" look.

I had brought a fuzzy jacket and a cross-shoulder bag because I brought a magazine with me. Definitely bring entertainment there with you. And there's only so many people you can text, I realized I couldn't text my friends because they were all at work and would wonder why I wasn't just emailing them from my desk.

The paperwork:
A big stack of crap. The first chunk was all the "all the risks i'm aware of" which just freaked me out, so i glossed over it. Some medical history stuff. A section on how much i ahd to drink in 24 hours. AKA The Section I Lied and Said I Had Just One Drink When Really I Had Four.

I almost lost it when I was filling out the "previous pregnancies" section. You had to enter the number of pregnancies, abortions, miscarriages, stillbirths, livebirths. I had put zero in all the boxes and then realized I had to go back and change the number of pregnancies to "1".

I also then realized the number of pregnancies I have vs. the number of children I have will never match up. By my own choice. This is one of hundreds of issues I now am facing that I never, ever would have guessed.

Oh let me say, Rachel texting me every few minutes was a Godsend.

Finally I get called in. There's a reason the clinic I went to is called the assembly-line of abortions. I felt like i was just going from one section to the next to the next. I must say though, everyone for the most part were super super nice. Minus the bitchy receptionist and the main doctor who did it. But i'll get to that in a minute.

First section: administrative. It's right behind the first door, over where the front desk lady is. I'm gently told by the 22 year old chick to stop texting. She asks me who my driver is. I tell her Chandler. I ask her a few questions I had on my list, not fully grasping things. She takes out this big plastic bag with their logo on it, writes my name on it, and tells me this is teh bag that all my crap is going to be in and I have to carry it aorund with me. So much for the lockers I was told I'd get.

Next stop: Pee time. Go pee in cup. Put cup in a little hidden door. Go to another room.

I go to the next room. This is where I suit up. It looks like a bad girl's locker room. I'm given a lunchlady cap, booties to wear over my socks, and a smock. This smock thing is massive, and the problem is that I can't fully wrap the things around so that it covers me up properly becuase there's too much fabric. But i make it work.

I sit down with the girl in there, and start telling her about the lawsuit and the doctor who's performing it. This girl was a mohh-ronnn. Sweet, but dumb as a box of rocks. She kept asking how I found all of this out. I'm like "uh, i looked up Dr. X and the word 'abortion' and that's what came up". She was like "but how did you look it up?" . I was all "Uh, on google?" and she made me feel like i was a rocket scientist for knowing how to google.

Next room: the ultrasound. I'm carrying my stupid big plastic bag around with me, with my blue cap on, and booties over my socks. Starting to feel really embarrassed. Like I've been contaminated. Or i'm in a concentration camp ready for the shower.

The lady who did the ultrasound was fantastic. I wished she could have done the procedure. Very cool, we chatted a bit, she let me see the screen. She was all "yup, you're definitely pregnant". She kept alternating terms for the embryo/yolk sak/pregnancy sak/etc, I was like "is that what all the cool kids are calling it these days". She showed it to me, you couldn't see a baby or the black dot like you see in movies. Instead there was a very very faint white circle (drawn as if by a blind person, it wasn't symmetrical), probably the size of a grain of rice. She measured it and it kept saying I was under 5weeks even though at first glance that was her estimate, so she kept moving the camera device until it calculated me at 5 weeks. I guess they won't do it if it's less than that. i freaked out, but she said that if for a second it would risk my health, ther'es no way she would have done it. Oh she also couldn't see it through the stomach so I had to get it done by being raped with a camera probe. Thank you modern science.

After that she lets me wipe myself off (she left so she wouldn't see me do this, ultrasound liquid is nasty) and guides me to the room to get my bloodwork done. I chat with a girl in there who was being misguided by the older asian woman that all you have to do is avoid having sex 10 days before and after your period. Um yeah well if it were that easy, why are you here lady.

Get my blood drawn, then hang out. This is the last step before the major step in the assembly line. Sort of get to know the other girls at this point becuase you recognize where you are in the queue.

Then i get called in. And this pleasant experience (as pleasant as it could be) changes. Up to this point I was almost treating it like I was an undercover reporter. Just making mental notes for the blog, trying to text when I could to rachel and chandler.

But then I get put into the room, and I'm still dealing with the emotional consequences of it.

It's a pretty big room, very white and cold. Very horror movie-ish, or 1950s. I walk in, put my stuff on this big bed thing to the left. Right in front of me is the operating table. I was instructed to open up the back of the gown and hop on it. Then told to scoot way down. This was a bizarre type of table. NOT like your usual gyno one. Plus the act of scooting down, my thighs were all sweaty at this point and still had jelly so it make a squeaking noise so I freaked out thinking they thought I had ummm passed bodily noises but I guess thats the last they care about anyway.

Right in front of me is a HUGe spotlight. It's unnerving.

(yes i realize i'm alternating between past and present tense, sometimes when i think aobut it it's like i'm reliving it)

This spotlight isn't like a small one in a doctor's office, ti's more like when you see a medical ER type show where you're from the patient's perspective and a massive light is behind the doctor.

The nurse is a nice lady, dont' remember her, I remember saying something like "uh wow this room is a little creepier than i thought" and she said "well, they're making it for the doctor not for you" (not in a mean way). She makes me lie back and put my feet through the stirrups.

The stirrups are NOT like the ones in the gyno office. The best I can describe it is like two metal poles kind of like what you'd hook an IV bag to, and then black rubber stirrups. Like my feet were hanging off of two nooses. It was awful. She puts one of those paper "blanket" things between my legs, but i don't even think to adjust it, i'm pretty sure i was flashing everyone who walked in.

Of which, the next person to walk in is the anesthesiologist. A nice black guy (older) who was humming.

Sigh Joey wants to go to sleep, it's only 9:30pm. I'll have to finish later. Of course...he comes in at the part that I need to write and vent about.