About As Much Fun As A Trip to the OB-GYN
Originally published September 2021
Since my pregnancy is technically considered “high-risk,” I agreed to my OB-GYN’s suggestion to receive weekly ultrasounds to monitor my little one’s progress. Over the past few weeks, it’s become a bit of a routine: I drop the kids off at school, scarf some food down, and waddle into the doctor’s office to await my appointment. It’s not terribly convenient, but it’s actually become sort of fun, and I relish the opportunity to get a sneak peak at my little munchkin’s fat cheeks or tiny toes.
Today was no different except for that, for whatever reason, it was hot as Hades in the office. Between my unborn child’s position directly atop my diaphragm and the obnoxious mask covering my breathing passages, I felt a bit like an overweight pug struggling for air. I waved a makeshift paper fan furiously in front of my face as I waited, listening to the other women checking in for their own appointments.
I wondered about their stories and why they were here. One was a hot mess of anxiety and relentless apologies for living. I said a prayer under my breath for her peace and her safety. Another had to have been pushing 70 years old. She may have weighed 90 pounds soaking wet. The lines on her face told me she probably had a ton of fascinating stories to tell, but I resisted the urge to ask. Trips to the OB-GYN are already invasive enough.
So there I sat in my chair, psychoanalyzing people and waiting for April, the ultrasonographer, to come call my name and take my weight, and lead me back into the magical room where they slather your stomach with jelly and take pictures of your baby.
But there was no April today. Nope. Today, I was startled out of my daydreaming by an unexpected baritone. “Hi, I’m Adam. I usually work over at the hospital,” he said through his mask, “but they sent me over here to get some practice today.”
My mind immediately raced. “But I don’t WANT Adam,” came the unbidden thoughts.
As a sexual trauma survivor, it’s not that I have anything personally against male doctors, but I’ve earned the right to be pretty particular about my boundaries, specifically as they involve my body, and I had intentionally done the research and leg work to seek out female practitioners for this pregnancy, and this was not what I was expecting. It wasn’t what I had signed up for.
I took a deep breath, put my big girl pants on, and stepped on the scale, choosing not to allow myself to imagine his judgments about the number scrawled across the display. “You don’t have the luxury of being embarrassed at the doctor, Kaeley,” I coached myself. “It’s not his fault you’re traumatized. He’s just trying to do his job.”
I followed Adam silently, awkwardly, to the scanning room. He hardly said a word. I kicked off my sandals and awaited further instruction. I didn’t receive much. “Please pull up your shirt and tuck the top of your pants down into your underwear and lie down,” he said. I did what I was told but not without thoroughly analyzing the power dynamics actively in play.
I tried to hide my stretch marks as I tucked my shirt into my bra and my pants into my underwear. I lay sunny side up on the exam table, like a Thanksgiving turkey about to be carved. Seriously. That’s how I felt- completely and utterly vulnerable behind a closed door-both me and my unborn child at this strange man’s mercy. The whole affair took about 25 minutes. Adam maybe spoke a grand total of 10 words throughout. When April administers the ultrasound, she tells me what we’re looking at, explains what needs to happen to get the right measurements, and even takes the time to zero in on my little guy’s smushy face so I can bond with him a bit in the process.
Adam did none of this. At one point, he shoved the ultrasound wand hard into my pubic bone, apparently trying to make my little guy move. It kind of hurt. “Is he not cooperating?” I asked.
“I’m almost done,” came the curt response. No pictures or oohing and aahhing over the heartbeat. Just cold, clinical process, and an impersonal, “Okay, you’re done. You can pull your pants up now” at the end.
A ”Wham. Bam. Thank you, ma’am” of a legal, consensual nature.
When it comes to advocating for others, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone more bold or more fierce than I am. I say this honestly and without ego. It’s just true. But when it comes to self-advocacy, I have a really long way to go and, I suspect, a lot more therapy in my future before I arrive at that destination. It didn’t occur to me that I could request a witness or express my discomfort. I just talked myself into sucking it up and dealing with it.
I spend copious amounts of emotional energy wrestling down one foundational question that affects almost every human interaction in my life: Am I being reasonable? And its cousin: Am I being fair?
But reason and fairness are hard to untangle when anxiety enters the mix. And the additional question that often goes unasked in the context of abuse survivors is this: “Fair to whom?”
Adam did nothing wrong. He wasn’t rude. He maintained professionality. He got the job done, which is the bottom line. And I’m sure there are probably a lot of ways he would rather spend his time than moving an ultrasound wand over almost 40-year-old women’s distended bellies.
I don’t write this to condemn Adam. I write it to draw awareness to the myriad unbidden ways the material reality of biological sex comes into play in peoples’ lives on a daily basis. I think that ignoring this reality can be detrimental to way we care for one another, especially as it relates to medical treatment and trauma experiences.
In my opinion, doctors who administer gynecological care in any capacity have got to contend with the reality that three of every four women they serve is going to have some sort of back story rooted in sexual trauma at the hands of a man who had more physical power than she did.
A consent based approach to care would have made all the difference in my experience today. “Hi Kaeley. My name is Adam. Would it be okay with you if I (fill in the blank)” is a lot more reassuring than “Pull down your pants and lie down.”
“I need to get a clearer image of the baby’s brain hemispheres. Is it okay with you if I move the wand here for a minute? You might feel a little pressure” would have been infinitely more welcome than a silent command to hold still and take it.
When you’re dealing with a population of people whose bodies have been repeatedly violated, I think communication of this understanding via permission-based questions can make a world of difference. To quote possibly the biggest cliche in the world, “With great power, comes great responsibility.”
If I see Adam again, I think I’m going to respectfully communicate my observations.