The Lady Doctor

Today I had to go for my annual checkup at the gynaecologist. I thought about trying to rephrase that to make it sound less like someone was going to look up my patootie but there’s no sugar coating a trip to the gyno really, is there?

Anyway while I was in the waiting room there was this pregnant woman in there who looked about sixty weeks pregnant. She could hardly sit down and was breathing heavily and just looked horribly uncomfortable. I remember that feeling oh so well and was so glad it was her not me.

I’m a little ashamed to admit that after I’d been sitting there a few minutes she dropped a pamplet on the floor and I leapt out of my chair to pick it up just to show off how lithe and agile I was because I AM NOT PREGNANT. So childish but when you’ve been pregnant as long as I have it’s totally okay to show off when you’re not.

Anyway my gynaecologist is also my obstetrician, so I knew how notoriously late she always is, hence my late arrival for my appointment. The pregnant lady obviously was still turning up for her appointments on time because the look on her face told me she’d been there for ages.

After a while I asked her how many weeks she had to go (eight … even I was shocked, she looked like she was about to explode) and then I made the mistake of asking how she was feeling. “I hate it, I feel so sick all the time and I can’t stop crying and eating. I’ve put on forty pounds and I have chronic indigestion and I feel like I’ve been pregnant for a year. My boots won’t do up over my calves and my skin is awful”. Blah blah blah.

So I nodded sympathetically and thought to myself again thank God it’s her not me. It’s funny isn’t it, when you’ve been down the pregnancy road before we pretend we have sympathy for other pregnant Mums, but really we don’t.

Then she asked me if I had any kids and I told her yes I had four.

She paused, digesting what I’d said, then looked dead into my eyes and said “I don’t know you but you are insane. Anyone who voluntarily does this to themselves four times is definitely insane”.

So I told her “I was only actually supposed to have three but my husbands vasectomy didn’t work properly”. And honest to God I thought she was going to start hyperventilating.

And maybe she did, because due to my late arrival time knowing my Dr would be running late I was called in before her. She might even still be there.