You just can't plan for pads and purses

Note: I found this in a diary I kept while I was pregnant. This happened three days before Amelia was born.

I have to tell it’s so weird to have the doctor check your cervix for dilation. I had talked to myself for a week to prepare myself for the internal exam I was about to experience. I had imagined it step by step and had worked out my breathing pattern for each step. Deep cleansing breath as I lay down. Releasing breath as I did the heels together and open sesame thing. A few quick shallow breaths to clear out the lungs. Then out comes the nasty speculum and I would concentrate on the holes in the ceiling so I wouldn’t pay attention to the sound of the freezing cold jelly being squirted on the offending apparatus. I swear, they have warmers for diapers wipes and for ultrasound jelly; is there some reason the doctor can’t have a warm place to store his giant industrial size tube of no name lubricant? Then a slow deep breath as he came at me with that horrible thing and you can imagine the rest.

I had a plan, I was confident and I knew I could survive this horrible indignity. I hate internal exams; I always tense up and it becomes way more painful than necessary. So I get in there and he says well, let’s get you undressed and check out your cervix. Ok, I have to stop here. Let’s get you undressed? He’s going to help? Thankfully, he leaves the room and I take off my pants and fold them neatly and take my underwear down and hit the first hitch in my perfect plan.

I am wearing a pad because I have this horrible leaking of pee for the last two weeks. Every time I go to the bathroom and I sit there for five minutes to make sure that this bladder is empty. Yup it’s empty, I wipe and stand up and a drop falls to the seat. So now in order to preserve my panties (and my dignity) from some foul odour, I am wearing pads so thick that they could be diapers. Panty liners just didn’t work. Not absorbent enough. Anyway, now I am faced with trying to fold my panties in a neat little pile to tuck inside my pants. But the pad is a little wet from trying to aim my pee stream into that little specimen jar. It’s bad enough when you are not pregnant but my bulge is so big I can barely reach around to wipe myself, much less practice aim. I didn’t sit long enough and I am sure more came out than usual. Well that’s just gross. I can’t fold my panties because the pad is so thick it just doesn’t bend that way. Plus if there is any wetness it will just touch the back of my panties and then why I am wearing these horrible things anyway? Well I could throw it in that garbage can in the corner. But then that is way to close to his desk and what if he sees it or worse, SMELLS it? No, no good. Well I have to hurry now because he’ll be knocking on that door any second and I am standing in the middle of the room in my pink sweater and black socks and no tiny white sheet to cover up. I could put in my purse and throw it out later. Yes, that’s good. Except that I can’t find any tissue in my purse to wrap this thing in. I scan his office and not a tissue box to be found!!!! How can that be? Now I can hear footsteps outside and he is talking to the nurse. So I stash the horrible thing in my purse and almost slip in my leap to the exam table and barely get that square of fabric over myself before he knocks and enters.

Already my breathing pattern is off as this is the most exercise I have had in months. So as he measures the baby and listens for the heartbeat, I try to get my breathing back on track. Baby measures like he has dropped and heart rate is good. Yay! Now, releasing breath to put heels together and open sesame. I am back on track. I can do this. I hear the snap of the gloves and the squirt of the jelly. One, two, three, four holes in that square. Oh gross, a water stain. Now a slow deep breath and, woah!!!!!!!!!! No speculum! Just his fingers inside me. Oh God I am so not prepared for this. He pushes a little harder and then tells me to make two fists and put them under my butt to tilt my cervix up a bit. Ok, I am not prepared for this change in my plans. I am also not prepared to have him right next to me and looking at me while he’s got his fingers in there!!! I am very comfortable with the sheet over my knees and not seeing him at all.

Finally, after what must be an eternity, he looks at me with this pathetic look and says “No dilation at all. Closed tight as a drum and cervix is still thick.” Ok so now not only am I horrified with this sudden change in plans but now I feel like I failed my final exam to graduate from pregnancy into motherhood. Fingers still you know where, he informs me he is going to try stretching me a bit. Yuccckkkk. Finally he gets his fingers out of me and I look down at this sheet and it’s got jelly stains on it!!! Must my body leak everything? He babbles for a few minutes about induction as I stare at this jelly covered sheet in my lap and then tells me that he is surprised at how small my pelvis is for someone my height and stature. But the only way I will know if I can push this baby out is to try. Is it considered good manners to tell your female patient that she is small in there just 2 minutes after you have had your fingers in there? He leaves and I quickly get dressed (but not before I try to fold up this jellied sheet because I don't the nurse to think I am a pig) and march right into the bathroom and empty my purse of everything but that horrible pad and toss the purse into the garbage. Damn, I liked that purse too; it had a lot of hidden compartments.