Things I Never Expected To Learn At The Gynecologist

Gah, this was so awkward that it deserved it's own dedicated "Conversations That I Did Not Think I Would Be Having This Week" post.

This was so incredibly awkward.

So....I went to the gynecologist (is anyone else feeling awkward yet?). Nothing special, just couldn't convince the doctor to keep refilling my birth control prescription unless I actually came in for an exam.

The nurse weighed me, took my height (dudes, according to her I grew half an inch. I don't care if the scale is most likely wrong, I'm claiming it!!), took my blood pressure (83/60, they asked me if I needed to lie down. I did not.) Then the nurse told me to strip down to my socks, wrap myself in the twin bed sized paper towel they provided me with, and to chill out on the exam table while I waited for the doctor.

It was freezing in there.

I waited for what seemed like a ridiculous amount of time to leave someone waiting inside of a giant paper towel and silently thanked whoever decorates the office for removing the eyeball wallpaper. Nope, that wasn't a typo. The designer they hired was going for an edgy-contemporary, yet slightly shabby chic look, and failed miserably when it came to the wallpaper.

It had eyes.

Not eyes on faces, oh no, just eyes. 

The entire wall was plastered with Victorian style eyeballs. Do you know how strange it is to have hundreds of eyeballs looking at your cervix?

I do.

My friend actually did an obstetrics rotation in their office and she used to tell me how horrified all the women were with the wallpaper.

Either way, thankfully this time it was gone.

So after waiting a ridiculously long amount of time shivering inside of a twin bed sized paper towel, the doctor came in.

"Eden! I haven't seen you since I delivered your son! How are you!?!? Are you ready to have another one?"

"I guess I haven't seen you in a while" I replied. "Well, uh, no, definitely not here for another baby, seeing as how I'm not married anymore."

Her chair, which was previously facing the desk in the corner, swiveled around fast enough to nearly give the poor woman whiplash.

"What!? Oh no, what happened!?" she exclaimed

"Um...he left. I've been here a couple times since then, but I saw Dr. xxx because of your schedule" I told her.

As she was flipping through my chart she said "Oh, yes, I see it here now. You came in Feb of 2012 for a full STD panel."

"Yea, that was when he disappeared." I said flatly.

"Aw, I'm so sorry to hear that Eden. At least your test results were clean. Here, lay back and let your knees fall open" she instructed me.

I lay back and braced myself for impact. I gotta tell you, two kids later, I am still fairly convinced that there is no way that the speculum and terrifyingly long q-tip are fitting in there.

I warned her that I can be a bit spastic during these exams but that I would try my best not to squish her head with my knees.

She replied with "You will be fine. I watched you shoot your son out at me like a cannon ball."

Um.....thanks?

I took a deep breath, tried to relax, and focused on the ceiling while maintaining a death grip on both sides of the exam table. While this was all occurring I was listening to her talk:

"Your husband was a handsome man, I remember that from your delivery" she said.

I interrupted her with "no way. That was three years ago and you have delivered hundreds of babies since then. He never even came to my prenatal appointments, there is no way you remember him."

"Oh no," she said, "I definitely remember him. I remember him for a few reasons. First off I was terrified of your delivery. Because of your disorder I was afraid it was going to be some catastrophic event where you were going to bleed out on the delivery table. There isn't a lot of medical info for what you have so I didn't know...."

Let me take a minute to interject with WHAT THE HELL?

".....but thankfully that didn't happen. I also remember the delivery because I was looking at your husband and thinking 'that is a good looking guy, I think he is Native American, but he is definitely high'."

"You knew he was high?" I asked her.

"Was he Native American?" she asked me.

"Yes," I tell her, "but how did you know he was high?"

"Because his eyes looked like glassed over marbles and he was acting erratically."

This lady is all up in my lady bits and this is the conversation we are having.

"Uh, yea. I knew he was high too" I finally said. "So wait, you really thought I was going to bleed out on the table?"

"Well," she said slowly...."yes. Yes I kind of did. There isn't a whole lot of research for what you have so I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Thankfully you have had two kids now and nothing happened either time so you should be ok in the future if you choose to have more."

"I will say though" she says while working away down there, "you don't even feel like you have had two kids! You have the vagina of a teenager."

What on earth do I do with that information? Is that something that I should include in an online dating profile?

"Single mother of two but still has the fun place of an 18 year old."

Seriously.... that was.... really weird. No. Just no.

So basically what happened was that I needed a refill on my birth control, I found out that I grew a half an inch, the doctor told me that my ex husband was attractive but high as a kite, I learned that I could have died during child birth but didn't and probably won't in the future, and that I have the vagina of a teenager.

That was definitely not a conversation I expected to be having this week.

I'm still processing all of this.

It might take some time.