Yeah so, the pill and I do not get along. I've a terrible memory and I'm not dedicated enough to even care most of the time. Which is not exactly beneficial when you aren't in a position to have any children at the moment. Not to mention it turned my dear Aunt Flo's visit into a dried up reunion of dead roadkill. Or so it felt. And thusly, my poor husband found himself accompanying me to the ob-gyn's office yesterday afternoon for a check up and attempt at finding another route for birth control.
What was not so great about this visit was the nurse I went to last time, Bonnie, was no longer working at this particular office and the lady who replaced her was...less than pleasant. I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt and assuming her entire day consisted of swarms of gnats occupying her head space, lemon juice in her coffee as well as a severe lack of kindness to account for her behavior and awful bedside manner.
My first ever trip to the ob-gyn, back at the beginning of the year before I got married, went a little like this;
"Hey. I'm getting married and don't wanna have babies for awhile."
"Oh, ok! Have you had sex before?"
"Uh, no. I'm a virgin."
"Ok, well we'll just start you on the pill and then after your body's used to all of that we'll have you come back in and try something else, alright?"
"Ok. Sounds splendid."
This visit was more of;
"I see on your charts you didn't have any procedures last time you came in. Why is that?"
"Uhh, she told me it wasn't necessary and I could come in later...."
"Would you like to schedule that for another day?"
Let me just interject and say, what would be the point of me coming in that day if I wasn't to progress anywhere and get anything done??
"I, uh, um...if it could be done today..."
"Yeah today's fine. She probably just didn't know to do it then."
I think Bonnie knows what she's doing, no need to go blaming anybody...
So she pulls out these weird pieces of loud, folded paper and quickly rattles off,
"Put-this-on-like-a-shirt-and-leave-the-front-open-then-cover-up-with-this..."
Goes to leave...
"Wait! Uh, say that again? Sorry...[nervous giggle]."
"[sigh] Put-this-on-like-a-shirt-and-leave-the-front-open-then-cover-up-with-this...and take everything off..."
Leaves for good this time.
So I'm left with this awkward puzzle piece shape of pink crepe paper and a rectangle of white paper and the expectation to just drop trow (and everything else) and figure out what goes where. I do believe Mark was muchly amused by my consternation and confusion. It took me a solid 2 minutes to unfold the pink vest thing, I was so afraid of ripping the thin paper and ruining my only form of covering up. I didn't think I would be allowed to go fishing (naked) through the drawers and find myself a new one.
But I finally figured it out and sat myself back up on the table-gurney thing.
(You can kind of barely see my festive, Memorial Day toesies)
And sat. And sat. And sat some more. My bum got cold from the drafty air but the rest of me was burning with unwelcome embarrassment and anxiety. When she finally came back she was abrupt in her instructions and impatient with my faulty obedience. She asked me to scoot up maybe 3 times and it's not like I could see or really understand how far was good or when I was going to drop bare-bum to the cold tile off the chair. She grabbed my feet and planted them firmly in the stirrup thingies and I about farted in her face from terror.
This was the first time I'd ever been naked, as an adult, in front of anybody other than my husband. And that's only been a couple months in the making. No doctor has ever gone poking around in there. And this lady had a beeping flashlight for heaven's sake! I was freaking out a bit. Almost wanted to ask Mark to come hold my hand. But I feared the lady would snort derisively and laugh at me. But thankfully her rudeness didn't extend to leaving out verbal communication in what she was about to do and where she was gonna touch. So I had a bit of warning.
And then there was the boob squishing. I thought going to the optometrist and having the huge black mega-goggle eye magnifier things over your face while the doctor is uncomfortably close asking you impossible questions like, "Is #1 or #3 better? #3 or #4? What about #purple?" was awkward. Laying there, with arms behind your head, like your all chill while some stranger prods and pushes and squeezes at your already-objects-of-severe-insecurity with a frowny grump face on the entire time is much worse. I tell you what.
"Do you regularly check yourself for lumps?" She demands.
"Well, um no."
"You should. About every month or so."
"Well I just, I mainly don't because I don't know what I'm looking for...er, feeling for, I guess..."
And she just grunts.
She basically refused to even let me consider using the IUD/IUC's and seemed to be really pushing other pills despite my protests. But I ended up getting the Depo shot and it seems the perfect option for us. I don't have to remember to take a pill every day. My periods will very likely disappear altogether, we'll only really have need to use 6 or so of the shots and it would save us about $60 versus staying on the pill, let alone what it would cost for me to get a surgery, small as it is, without insurance. So I'm very happy with the choice. Even though it is a needle to the bum every 3 months.
All in all, turns out the tv show "Private Practice" has greatly romanticized ob-gyn behavior and I would very much like for Addison Forbes Montgomery to be my doctor. She would be much nicer about it and wouldn't treat me like a burden-to-be-dealt-with.
Then again, I would hate to inspect people's vaginas and order people to get naked all day every day. So.
Also! Whilst we're still on the subject, a word from good ole Walt Disney on womanly-matters....
Cheers to womanhood!
So random how I came to read this post...i was on my husband's Facebook with nothing to do....tmi? Sounds intriguing...tmi for you, I'm writing this while nursing...anywho... Those appointments don't get much easier until you have a head come out your butt because by then it feels like the whole world has seen you nude. (at least that's how it was for me) and to give her one more benefit of the doubt, most doctors will not let you get an IUD until you've had a baby. It's easier to insert...blah blah blah. And I think they get paid extra to ask if you check for lumps, because what 20 year old gets breast cancer, seriously? I get it each time along with the dirty look when I say no....next time I'm thinking of asking them to teach my husband how to check. It sounds more enjoyable... ;)
ReplyDelete