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Floridakelly

Baker/Freelance Writer

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The gyno ain't a secret

“Hi Mom, what’s up?”
“Are you at work?”
“Yeah, but I can talk. What’s going on?”
“Well... maybe you should call me back after work.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“It’s just... I need to talk to you... about something private.”

At this point in the conversation, I thought either someone in my family had died or my mom had discovered something really troubling about me that we needed to discuss. I took a break, excused myself to someplace private, and then managed to talk her into telling me what was on her mind.

“Well,” she said, “I mean, I don’t want to be intrusive, but I know you need to go to... thegynecologist... you know... for birth control...”

“Yep, I sure do.”

I was SO relieved to know she had only called about the gyno. I moved from central Florida to Jacksonville this year, so I needed to find a new gynecologist here. Much better news than I was expecting! The conversation continued:

“I thought you might want to go see... my gynecologist... I really like him and I could make you an appointment if you want.”

 When I was a kid, my mom was pretty open with me about explaining things like periods, mammograms, and visits to the gynecologist. Unfortunately, she always described going to the gyno as a pretty awful experience--something she dreaded. So I put off going for a few years, worrying that it would be a totally humiliating and painful experience. Luckily, my first appointment was anticlimactic and only as humiliating and uncomfortable as a normal doctor’s visit.

The strange thing is, although my mom was open about it when I was a kid, now that I actually go, she’s gotten weird about talking about it.

I try to be very open with her about things, although it wasn’t always that way. When I was a teenager, you’d have to have me at gunpoint to get me to talk to my mom about sex or birth control. But when I moved in with my current boyfriend, things quickly got a whole lot more open. I realized that talking to her about things like doctor appointments and birth control may be uncomfortable for both of us at first, but that it made her feel a lot better deep down that I was making the right decisions for my life.

 Anyway, we’re so close and so open about most things that I was surprised that discussing a routine trip to the gyno needed to be such a guarded conversation--something that my mom even thought would potentially offend me! If I worked in an office setting it might make more sense because I wouldn’t want to really talk about ANY doctor visits around a large, mixed group of professionals.

But I work in a bakery run entirely by women. It’s no secret that I do, in fact, have a vagina.

In all honesty, I was really glad she suggested her own doc and thankful that she took the time to make an appointment for me. It’s a lot easier than the trial-and-error version of events that I was going to go through to find a new gyno here.

Although, ok, not gonna lie: seeing a speculum out of context DOES sort of give me the willies. Just sayin