What is it about a particular place that can make your senses rush with memories and feelings like you are right back on that day?

We have been waiting for our littlest boy to come into the world & I am now past due enough that I have to go in for testing to make sure he is doing well & things remain healthy.   what this means is that I have to head to hospital for these battery of tests & try as I might that is and always will be an emotionally loaded experience.  Yesterday was no exception. 

My fears were that I would have to go the clinic, pass by "the" room but I hoped that wouldn't be necessary.  At first it seemed I might be able to avoid that hallway, the one with "the" room and familiar faces, but in the end I found myself walking that dreaded hallway, seeing a custodian coming out of "the" room emptying the garbage, understanding someone else had started this terrible journey.  I took a breath & tried to compose myself & focus as I made my way toward the clinic office.  As I stood there trying to sort through a blunder with appointments, I was fighting to keep composure, with emotions running high, senses rushing with flashbacks, especially as I saw that one particular nurse, so kind, so gentle with her back towards me.

They eventually sorted things out and as part of their routine questions getting ready to move me to start the procedure asked if I'd been in the clinic before.  I answered yes in a fog but on the loss side, the woman without skipping a beat asked me the year, I however, was so overwhelmed that I stuttered trying to find the answer.  Needless to say, when we began the procedure my blood pressure was high as it seemed reminders were everywhere.  The nurse assumed that it was from being bumped around trying to figure out where to go for the appointment - I corrected her explaining how emotional being there was for me, how directly behind me is "the" room.  She glossed over it and told me to watch TV and relax, we'd take my blood pressure again. 

In the end, our baby passed the test & things appear to be healthy.  My blood pressure remained high & I got out of there as fast as I could knowing I'll be back on Friday if our little boy isn't born before then.  I left the hospital feeling like I was back in the those early dark days, head pounding, in a fog, unable to process basic things, disinterest in everything, just wanting to crawl into bed & disappear beneath the covers.  What a powerful thing, a place, a person, a room can be.

Today, I need to refocus - relax, return to hope for a healthy birth & hope this doesn't act as a set back, locking down my body preventing this baby from coming in his own time.