my love/hate relationship with my vagina.

so i started writing this a few weeks ago, but got sick in the middle and just didn't have the heart to finish. i can't really remember where i was going with all of this, but it has to do with why i was so scared to have a pap smear at my 14 week dr app. 

i have a love/hate relationship with my vagina.
maybe it's more, "i fear my vagina."

either way, my vagina is not my friend.

as a kid, i didn't know i had a vagina. i can remember sitting in front of a mirror in my bedroom and examining "down there" and wondering what all that equipment was for. i knew boys had a 'penis', and suspected what i had was called a "china" but i didn't know for sure. i didn't worry about it too much.

then in 4th grade my mom sat me down with a book and showed me pictures of all my sex organs, (although i'm sure the clitoris wasn't present) explaining that i would bleed every month when i started my period. this concerned me, but i hadn't started my period yet, so i put it out of my mind. and of course 5th and 6th grade introduces the maturation program, the most embarrassing hour of the school year, if not your entire life. it wasn't until 7th grade sex ed that i knew that sex was how babies were made and that the vagina was quite important with that whole process.

i was raised in a very conservative religious culture that teaches sex outside of marriage is a sin. and let me get this straight, i'm not angry at my religion. i'm not blaming anyone for my vaginaphobia. i think it's great to teach kids to wait until marriage. (and here i'm opening a huge can of worms- teaching abstinence is all well and good, but kids are going to do what they're going to do so i also think we should be teaching kids how to protect themselves, blah blah, also we should teach kids how much of a drain on our economy teenage pregnancy is etc etc etc whole other topic here and it you are/had sex outside of marriage i am not judging or condemning you in any way etc etc bases being covered.) 

we should teach kids about how emotions are involved in sex too, and how important it is to feel ready and what true consent is, etc. but in a religious context, i really wish they would teach in a different way than i was taught, that my body was somehow a sexy temptress, that boys wouldn't be able to help themselves and it was up to me to help them be "gentlemen," and that i had to somehow evade all sexual anythings until i was safely married.

i can remember sitting in a church meeting listening to a man, who was someone i considered to hold authority, speaking about a rattlesnake. how if you got too close, the rattlesnake would bite you. how you had to avoid the rattlesnake at all costs. how it was almost impossible to come back from a snake bite.

i was in 5th grade. he never said "sex" but i knew as well as anyone else in that audience, that the rattlesnake was sex. and to my 5th grade understanding, sex meant anything having to do with sex, including those strange body parts i was always cautioned not to share with anyone. i felt that even just asking about sex, would mean i was interested and therefore, getting too close to that rattlesnake. i can remember sitting in that audience vowing to never get bit by the snake. i had no idea that sex was anything besides dirty and wrong.

meanwhile, i was starting to notice more and more that boys were interested in sex. a boy i sat next to in class always looked up the definition of sex in our webster dictionary, which only defined sex as being a male or a female. it seemed there were no clear answers to be found. and i felt dirty when he showed me the word on the page, like my curiosity was a sin. i remember listening to britney spears and seeing how she dressed and how all the boys in my class liked her. it seemed so opposite of what i had been taught. and i didn't know exactly how my vagina fit in with all of this, but i knew that it was a part i was supposed to protect and control.

i can also remember watching videos in school about protecting yourself, not ever letting anyone ever touch you "down there" or anywhere else you weren't comfortable. i even remember the name of the man who tried to touch the boy in the video, "uncle rico" and that at recess everyone made jokes about it. again, the message was that i had body parts that gross people might want to see or touch, and that i was to guard them.

all of this discouraged any self examination as well. if gross people were out to touch me, why would i want to touch myself? i didn't learn what masturbation was until 9th grade, and even then the boy who explained it to me was very vague. how awful and gross, that someone would touch themselves! i thought. i had no idea that someone might want to touch themselves for pleasure.

fast forward to the end of 9th grade, when i was sexually assaulted. by 9th grade i understood that boys only liked you if you were attractive and that a big part of being attractive is being sexy, and being sexy had something to do with having sex, except that i wasn't allowed to have sex, nor did i have any interest whatsoever in doing that dirty thing i wasn't supposed to do until marriage. something i was keenly interested in, was kissing. the movies made it seem so romantic, and i had this grand idea of being kissed in the rain. trumpets would sound, there would be a camera panning around us from all angles, and i would be a great kisser, even on my first try. i hadn't connected sex with kissing in any way.

(i should also mention that

yeah i have no idea what i was going to mention, because that was as far as i got. 

the first time i went to a gynecologist, i was almost 18 and just out of high school. i went alone, because i didn't think it would be a big deal. when the doctor began the exam, i couldn't believe how painful it was. he couldn't finish the exam before i had passed out, fallen off the table, and banged my head. when i came to, he told me to stay there while he got the nurse. instead, i put my pants back on, grabbed my keys, and got out of there.

because i hadn't had enough scary things happen to my body.

at the 18 week dr appointment, dr barton came in to do the pap smear and i started crying when i had to put my feet in the stirrups. he asked me what was going on and i told him i was afraid of the pap smear and that i hated having things done to my vagina. he said we didn't have to do it, but that because i had never actually had a pap smear, (as the only one i'd started had ended in fainting.) it would be smart just to make sure everything was healthy. he was gentle and used lubricant and i survived, but it was awful. it's not even that it hurts that much, it just brings up a lot of old wounds and terrifies me. oh PTSD, what would i be like without you?

anyway, dr. barton told me he suspects i have a condition, and i can't remember the name, where my vaginal area tissue is extra sensitive, making it difficult to have exams and in many cases, sexual activity.

okay, i don't share that many personal details about my own sex life, but i will tell you, i have an amazing sex life, or i used to before getting pregnant and sick and becoming a born again virgin. (celibacy, how i have not missed you.) but it took a long time before i could trust travis and before i felt pleasure instead of sharp pain down there. it wouldn't have ever happened if travis wasn't so patient, sweet, and giving.

so i think where i was going with this had to do with giving birth and how terrified i am of anything having to do with my vagina. i've been considering a C section just to avoid having to deal with vagina stitches, tearing, etc. i'm more afraid of having my legs up and people poking and prodding down there than i am of the actual pain of child birth. i don't know what to do. i've always felt that i should go natural, and forgo the epidural, but maybe that would help? would a C section be so bad? i have a small pelvis, so if remy is over 7 pounds i would probably need one anyway. if you have any thoughts on this, please share them.

also, we need to change the way we teach our children about sex and their bodies.

i don't know how it can be that i am so fearless when it comes to discussing a clitoris and how education about our bodies needs to change, but when it comes to my own body, i am a crying mess. well, yeah i do.

let me know if you have any advice.

:) xo