Joanie Loves Coochie

‘Hi, I’m Joanie!’, said the ultrasound tech in a chipper and suspiciously reassuring voice. It was 10:30 am and I thought I was going to die I had to pee so bad. I have been on road trips with my father where he wouldn’t stop that weren’t as excruciating as this. One of the pre-requisite cruelties of an ultrasound is to drink 40 oz of water, in 15 minutes, 1 hour prior to the exam. I think a man designed this test. I sat in the waiting room for 15 minutes, chanting silently to myself with my legs jiggling, ‘I will not wet the couch, I will not wet the couch’.

So by the time Joanie introduced herself in a falsely friendly tone my eyeballs were floating. I hopped up on the table, she goo’d me up, and I excitedly focused on the monitor. That’s when things started to go bad. First, it’s hard to describe a level of discomfort so acute and embarrassing that you get tears in your eyes. Joni ruthlessly pressed the ultrasound device over and over on my filled-to-bursting abdomen, heedless of my straining and squeezing. I tried to distract myself with the blurry black and white images, but all of a sudden an unbidden thought popped into my head – ‘Wow, if I was here with a healthy pregnancy, this is when I would see my baby for the first time!’ Needless to say, it wasn’t a happy thought, and that’s when I really did start to cry.

Joanie finally finished her grueling abuse with another traitorous smile and allowed me to race to the bathroom. I almost skipped back to the exam table I was so lightened and relieved. I figured that it was over and she was ready to send me on my way. Not so. Joanie next pulled out a monstrous device that I can only assume had been previously stored under the table due to its size. ‘I’m just going to insert this!’ she cooed, brandishing the immense phallic object that in my head suddenly sprouted spikes and gears and other hurty things. I don’t think anything should be put into your body that takes two hands to lift. As someone who hasn’t had sex in almost exactly 4 years, my brain screamed, ‘Close the legs! Intruder!’, but there wasn’t much I could do. I know that dear Joanie was only doing her job, but feeling that thing slamming repeatedly against my cervix was startling and, well, owie. Give me a pap smear any day.

And what comes next? You guessed it – more waiting! The results will be sent to my doctor’s office, who will lose them and have to have them resent, but they will be sent to the wrong office, and then when they finally get them they will mark in my chart that they have called me even though they haven’t and I’ll have to call them (that’s how most of my test results get relayed, at least). So I’m excited to play What’s the Worst Thing It Could Be for the next few days or however long that process takes this time. Right now, the winner is ‘dead baby still inside me somewhere’, followed closely by ‘live baby with horrible chromosomal abnormalities’, and in 3rd place, ‘cysts or tumors or something that means I will never be able to get pregnant ever again’. Yes, I am a professional worrier.

**Post Script**
As I was finishing writing, my doctor’s office called. Not surprisingly, the ultrasound did not show anything. So the good news is, my body took care of everything very tidily and I don’t have to freak out about a D&C or any weird suspect foreign items floating around in there. The bad news is, I am obviously still ravaged by hormones so won’t be able to do another attempt until everything settles the hell down. Myself included. You hear that, self?!