while you're down there ...

For various reasons (which I may get into in a future post), I've changed obstetricians for this pregnancy. This time I'm seeing a male doctor. A young male doctor. The kind of guy 'I might meet socially' according to the friend who recommended him. Some recommendation for a gynecologist indeed ...

The first time I went to see him was when I was 12 weeks pregnant. Husband came along for that first glimpse at our new baby. But he was a little nervous about being in the room when a strange man examined his wife (not, please note, nervous of a strange man examining his wife, he just wasn't particularly keen to witness it all. Interesting ...).
I assured him that a) I wasn't too wildly enthusiastic about the prospect either but that b) at a 12 week exam there shouldn't be any reason to 'pop the hood' so to speak, or for anyone to make use of that delightful piece of equipment a friend of mine refers to as the 'vag wand'. A 12 week exam should be purely external, a trip to the dentist more invasive, all we could possibly find to be embarrassed about would be that he'll know that we've definitely had sex, at least once (ok, twice), and that there'll be large amounts of KY jelly in use.
Gnh gnh.

So we get there, we meet the guy, he seems personable enough. Professional but not clinical. He uses the word 'boobs' which kinda weirds me out and makes me more comfortable all at the same time.
We chat about Frieda and the last 12 weeks and our expectations of the birth etc. He asks me some basic health questions and then invites us next door for blood pressure test etc.
I sit on the unnaturally high examining table, Husband leans nonchalantly against a cabinet in the background.
I'm wearing a skirt. Husband is wearing pants. Just to be clear, so is the doctor.

Blood pressure - fine. Urine sample - fine. And just when I'm thinking we're done and will be moving on to the main attraction, the scan, the doctor does the most unnerving thing.

He drops to his knees in front of me.

Husband and my eyes fly to each other in silent screams of terror. Surely, surely, he's not just going to dive on in under there?
The doctor reaches out a hand, Husband is poised and ready to flee at the first glimpse of my undergarments, when quickly the doc squeezes one of my ankles and then the other. 'No sign of water retention there. Shall we move on to the scan?'

Which we did. And she was beautiful.

I know it's extremely unlikely that I'll get through this entire pregnancy and birth without Dr Not-Dreamy getting a eyeful of my lady parts, but I'd kinda like to be prepared when that happens. Or at least in the throes of labour and therefore, utterly uncaring.