I love my vagina doctor. She made it possible for me to make a baby, but she never remembers my face. My vagina, on the other hand? She could talk to it all day.
And she could talk to everyone else’s vagina all day, for that matter. Take today. I’ve been waiting for forty-five minutes listening to my vagina doctor laugh her ass off in the examination room next door.
Talk about FOMO. What the hell is so funny in the adjoining room? What kind of vagina comedy is happening in there? I hope she puts that kind of effort into my exam.
I almost stand up, position my paper robe for minimal exposure and knock on the examination room door. The nurse comes into my room twice and apologizes.
The second time the nurse explains, “So sorry for the wait. They’re having trouble getting a baby to respond on the ultrasound.” That doesn’t explain the laughter. Are they tickling it? What’s happening in that room?
The hilarious vagina doctor in the next room delivered my baby. But, we could be in a book club together, and she couldn’t pick me out in a line-up. She never has any idea who I am until I’m in stirrups.
Not those stirrups.
Not those either, but similar. Same designer.
These are the stirrups I speak of. Until I’m jacked up in one of those contraptions and my vagina doctor inspects my lady parts, she can’t recollect who I am. But as soon as she’s face to vag, she remembers me.
“Oh, right!” she exclaims. “You’re the one who had to be held down by three grown men during your endometriosis surgery.”
“That’s me,” I say, trying to make my vagina wink.
The next part of this story is private. I’ll share it with you anyway because I’ve already stirrupped up the story. Might as well finish up.
The vagina doctor had to pinch off part of my lady parts for a biopsy. I’m not trying to be crass by calling her my vagina doctor, by the way. I call her that because the rest of me is invisible to her.
My vagina is the only part that she takes a genuine interest in. I watch her hyper-focus as she dives into my hoo-ha with her petite spiky salad tongs. As soon as I feel the stabbing, slicing assault, I start laughing. It’s excruciating.
“That’s a first,” my vagina doctor says. “People don’t usually laugh.”
I get that a lot.
“What do people usually do?” I ask. She pauses and contemplates my vagina. My face is about as compelling to her as my paper robe.
“Hmm,” she says, holding her metal torture devise like a Gauloises cigarette. “Some women cringe. Some cry out. One broke into song. That was weird. Some women whistle. A lot of women whistle.” I can tell she disapproves of whistling—poor undervalued whistlers.
When she’s finished with my exam, she tells me to wipe it off. She turns around coyly like we’re bashful now. Like she wasn’t poking around and snipping a minute ago.
She finally looks at my face, all doctorly. She’s terrible at it. I’m like, stop already. Look at my vagina again if it makes you more at ease.
I can tell she doesn’t enjoy looking at my face. I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone when the doctors remove the surgical tape, and the woman is gorgeous, and they all scream.
The pigman doctor is typical, but the beautiful woman is the freak of nature. But in my case, my vagina is normal, but my face is brutal to look at.
That’s exactly how I feel when the vagina doctor looks at my face. She wants to get it over with. In vagina doctor school, her teachers probably told her, “Doctor. You’re going to have to look at their faces for at least five seconds, or they’ll give you a shitty bedside manner rating.” She probably practiced in the mirror every night of med school.
“If it’s anything serious,” the vagina doctor finally says to me, holding up her Gauloises clippers again. “I’ll call you.” I can tell she’s looking at my vagina again because she’s more relaxed.
“And if you don’t call me?” I ask.
“Then you’re fine.”
I love my vagina doctor, and I accept my humanity is secondary to my vagina. It’s okay. My dermatologist doesn’t give a shit about my mental health either.