First, as promised:

I think I am finally sufficiently over my horrendous jetlag (which, by the way, is significantly worse going backward in time than going forward) and have familiarized myself with the family members I was cut off from while in Ireland. I still don’t feel normal, but then again, I can’t remember the last time I did.

Since I’m now in the “sexually active” category, I knew I’d have to go to a gynecologist. Once I made the appointment, I suddenly realized that the real reason I’d put off having sex until the ripe old age of 20 was to avoid this necessary evil. And I promptly wished I could get my virginity back so I could wait at least another year until a doctor said, “It doesn’t matter if you’re cherry or not, you’re an old bitch and you need your cervix poked BEFORE you get cancer.”

I’ve read about good and bad experiences with OB-GYNs, but honestly had no idea what to expect. In the waiting room of the health center, I tried to focus on the screaming/laughing toddlers and the Doodlebops on TV rather than consider what may or may not be inserted into my body in a few moments. Fortunately, my mother was with me in case I needed someone to hold my hair back in an emergency.

I was quite fortunate to have a very good, gentle nurse practitioner give me my exam. It felt very weird to get totally naked (except for my pink Tinkerbell ankle socks) in a doctor’s office, because I’d never done it before. But that wasn’t half as weird as the nurse practitioner standing next to my face with a model plastic vagina in one hand and the speculum in the other, demonstrating what she’d be doing to my cooch.

But first, she had to play with my boobs. This was awkward mostly because the giant piece of plastic I had draped over me - that’s right, I didn’t even get an actual paper GOWN that covered my ass - was causing my underboob to sweat profusely. That, or the impending fear that she would take one look and go, “Oh, that looks different,” or, “Hey, your tits sag almost as much as my grandma’s!” But she pulled down the plastic, had me vogue in various Playboy poses, and squeezed away. Then I lied down and she rubbed on them some more. She never said a word about how they looked.

Then was the fun part. First, she said, “I’m going to insert a finger and feel your cervix, which is RIGHTHERE.” And with little warning my pinhole had been poked. Then she inserted the speculum - which was plastic, thank god, and not the cold metal I had been dreading. She said, “You’re going to feel a little pressure.”

Then when she put it in and opened it, I experienced something that I had not read or heard about ANYWHERE. I felt… like I had to poop. I swear, if I’d had a fart bubble on deck, I would’ve blown her hair back. But it wasn’t bad or painful at all. She swabbed, brushed my cervix (which later caused me to spot a bit), and scraped extremely gently. Then she took out the plastic tool and shoved two fingers WAY up in there, then pressed on my tummy, proceeding to play foosball with my uterus and ovaries.

Then it was done! I got dressed and felt very womanly. I had survived my first pap smear and pelvic exam without hearing a single word about my utter lack of bare cooch (sorry, guys, but I can’t deal with the itch of regrowth) and made an agreement to start the depo shot on my next period. Then I was given lots of condoms and a multivitamin and sent along my merry way.

Afterwards, all I could really think about was the fact that my mother felt the need to answer every pre-exam health question for me, complete with anecdotal evidence for anything answered with “yes.” This includes the sexual history questions - because she OBVIOUSLY knows it better than I do.

Too bad she doesn’t know about that eighteen-person orgy I had the week before I came home from Ireland.

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