Day 57

A lot of marriage is tolerating and at times ignoring each other's foibles.  In the case of some of us, we pretend not to have any.  I don't stick my foot in my mouth on any sort of a regular basis, the natural result of saying nearly everything I think.  I'm certain my excessive swearing has never embarrassed anyone, especially not my husband who I cannot believe had the guts to introduce me to the elderly portion of his family.  I never henpeck.  I do not try to strategically choose the diaper changes I volunteer for to avoid poops.  I never shave just one leg.  And I certainly do not fart loudly in my sleep or snore.

I especially do not do those things when I'm pregnant as I find myself now.  Yup, that's right, pregnant again.  That's how it feels even though this is only my second child.  I feel like Carla from Cheers, as though everyone will just assume I'm always pregnant.  Oh, and irresponsible.  Because who thinks the timing is just perfect for another child when she's unemployed?  This girl, that's who.

While I can go on and on about my husband's bizarre list of annoying quirks, (using a screw driver to obsessively pick each and every dandelion out of the lawn or compulsively talking about where to put the potatoes in the garden when it is, in fact, December,) my current irritation is the OB and all things twat-related.

I'm speedy at almost everything I do (except brushing my teeth which my husband regularly sends himself into gales of laughter complete with toothpaste coming out of his nose while mimicking me,) but you just never know how much time a visit to the OB office will take.  I'm not naturally patient, so my composure during each privacy-invading trip is challenged. 

Most recently, I went to the OB's office for an ultrasound to check for a heartbeat.  My doctor has recently moved her offices from a regular ole' office, to a spa.  Ok, it's not really a spa, but it feels a bit like someone might put an avocado mask on your face and offer you a mimosa which I would have to spit daggers out in declining.  Seriously, I'm pregnant again?  Didn’t I just stop nursing, like, yesterday.

So my patience is less tried with the bubbling waterfall noises and the lightly scented aromatics and the fuzzy socks on the stirrups.  But oh yeah, I'm at the doctor for my girlparts and there are STIRRUPS.  Back to that. 

You go through the regular song and dance.  A twenty-year-old skinny bitch smiles politely and takes your blood pressure and then tells you to undress from the waist down.  She points at the lovely paper napkin you can use to cover a tenth of yourself and tells you the doctor will be right in.

Here's where the unpredictability of your errand comes in.  You have absolutely no idea how long it will be before the doctor actually comes in.  It could be moments after stripping or it could be quite a while.  In my experience, it's generally right when you get to a good part of whatever book you brought.  What's that?  You brought Anna Karenina?  You're screwed.  You will wait hours.

In all fairness, the wait time until any doctor comes into the exam room is unpredictable.  I once ran low on patience at the regular doctor’s office and painted iodine pictures all over the sink area with those footlong cotton swabs.  The doctor was less than amused.  The difference at the girl-doctor’s is that you’re sitting there half naked with a napkin drapped over your nanny.  Before the twatdoctor, I tend to do a little extra primping.  I shower and put makeup on and generally obsess back and forth about whether to shave or not, usually opting for a five-minute shave.  I can be a bit of a slob but don’t want my doctor to think she’s going to catch a case from being in a room with me, so I groom.  Which makes the half naked/half dressed combo even more awkward.  It’s like one of those children’s books of animals where the pages are split so that you can get an animal with ostrich legs and a giraffe body.  Oops, turn the page, and now it’s a professional on top, and an irresponsible knocked up half-shaved girl on bottom.

This trip in particular felt like an eternity waiting for the doctor and my patience was running thin.  I was just about to rant about the wait-time to my husband when the doctor came in and before I knew it my toes were making up with the fuzzy stocking-footed stirrups as the doctor said “A little pressure” (a ridiculous statement to someone who has given birth,) and the ultrasound games began! 

The doctor looked around and found the embryo easily.  She had no trouble locating the heartbeat and highlighted it with red and blue dots that blinked on the screen.  She synched those up and then pushed a few buttons and  the room filled with the reassuring sound of a heart beating inside me that was not my own.   I teared up.

Before any tears could escape though, the doctor moved on to look at my ovaries.  She found the one responsible for the new heartbeat and showed me how she knew.  I’m one of those people who always ask to see it if you have a new injury.  I like to see what’s under the microscope if the labs are done in-house.  And if you need your sunburn peeled or your stitches not-so-professionally removed, I’ll totally do it.  So when the doctor was digging around looking at all my internal bits and pieces, I showed interest. 

“Is that my ovary?”

“Actually, if you’re interested, that’s your small bowel.  You can tell because there’s this dark line of liquid surrounding solid material.” 

Which was nice to hear about and see identified on the 50 inch screen with my husband right there.  She might as well just have said “And here’s some poop!”

Thankfully when you’re in the twat-spa and hearing your baby’s heartbeat for the first time, you don’t care about anything else.