"I Can't Believe You're a Doctor."

I just watched the episode of "Louie" where Louis C.K. gets an annual checkup from his old high school friend (played by Ricky Gervais), who's now a doctor. Gervais jokingly insults his physique, tells him he has the worst penis he’s ever seen, says "you don't need a doctor, you need a time machine," and jiggles his man-breasts: "Did no one tell you that tits are meant to be on women, not men?” Louis mutters under his breath: "I can't believe you're a doctor."

That’s pretty much how I felt when I went to see the genetic counselor that my OBGYN sent me to, after confirming that I was in fact pregnant with my second baby. The cheerful genetic counselor who'd been there for my first baby had since left and been replaced by another seemingly perky young hipster (let's call her Gen), who turned out to be anything but perky.

Gen looked at my file and gave me the pinched look of a bratty sitcom teen: “So, you know about the risks at your age, right?” I blanched and sputtered something like: “Um, yes, uh....” Sure, I'd done my homework. But I wanted to punch her.

Instead I sat there, patiently listening to what she had to say, some of it useful (information on which prenatal tests I could or should take), but all of it delivered in a voice that might as well have been saying, “My boyfriend dumped me last night and my hair sucks today and I just found out I didn’t get the job that would've saved me from this place."

So I left the office feeling horrible, anxious, old. At my next OBGYN appointment, I told my doctor that the counselor had scared the hell out of me. She laughed it off and said, “Well, that’s the counselor's job, to make sure patients are informed.”

I thought I was informed by now, at least somewhat, having already had a kid at "advanced maternal age." I'd obsessively read up on the risks involved, and already treated myself to a daily slew of paranoid scenarios. But I hadn’t been feeling totally miserable and pathetic quite yet. Gen may have been incompetent as a "counselor," but she was definitely armed with the I-can-make-you-feel-like-garbage skill set. 

My OBGYN, on the other hand, is an incredibly supportive doctor, and she'd even told me that she doesn't consider "advanced maternal age" pregnancies high-risk necessarily, even for the 40-plus set. I wish the hospital she works for had a better genetic counselor on staff. 

For some reason, I didn't have the heart to rat out Gen at the time. But I do think it's worth calling out the health professionals out there who spread negativity and condescension, especially to anyone who dares attempt childbirth after 35. Information and advice are one thing; shame is another. Pregnancy is hard enough without having to wage battles, internal or external, against health workers who have a shitty, outdated attitude.

Besides keeping people like Gen at bay, and doing my best to have a smooth pregnancy, all I could do was hope: Hope the baby would be healthy like our first one, and hope all would go well with the delivery. You never know, about anything in life, and I certainly didn’t know—but I tried to sit quietly for a few minutes daily and envision a happy future, in whatever form that might take. At the same time I tried to prepare myself for various scenarios. I used to be afraid of having kids for all kinds of reasons: among them giving up my freedom, and not knowing if I could love someone or something that much, and not knowing if everything would turn out perfectly, whatever that even means.

Now I know that having kids is the most extraordinary experience that's ever happened to me. Ordinary in the most basic sense, but extraordinary in its mystery and life-changing magic (if I may borrow that phrase), and its daily reminders to look for peace and joy everywhere we can, and spread it as widely as we can. 

I know another thing too: I’m never making an appointment with Dr. Gervais, er "Counselor Gen" ever again. Meanwhile, here's hoping she lands a job she doesn’t hate as much, in a state far, far away.