Once a Prude, Always A Prude

Given that I’ve spent more time this past year laying on a table with an ultrasound wand up my vagina than I’ve spent doing my weekly grocery shopping, you’d think I’d have long since gotten over my prudishness.

Not so.

I’ve never been one to dance on the tabletops, and a beach vacation doesn’t inspire me to dash for the nearest bikini sale. I’ve always been a bit of a prude, and two years of infertility doesn’t seem to have changed that much, although I can now use the words “sperm” and “uterus” and “vagina” in a conversation without batting an eyelash.

So, what does this have to do with adoption, you ask? Well, I’ve decided to try to focus on the positives of where I am now, rather than on the negatives that led to me arriving here in the first place. And I’ve decided one of the silver linings that comes with moving on to adoption is that I’ll never have to deal with an attorney asking me intimate questions about my sex life.

Sex was never something that was spoken about in my family as I was growing up. In college, the university I attended offered a class on human sexuality. Most students raced to sign up for this class. I, on the other hand, would have chosen a full schedule of physics, calculus, organic chemistry and macroeconomics in a heartbeat rather than setting foot in that classroom.

So when, during our first appointment with the urologist, he shook our hands, sat down, and said to R, “So, do you feel horny?” I knew this was not going to be a pleasant journey. R, whose shy, conservative nature makes me seem about as prudish as Madonna, stammered out an answer – his first and last. From then on, it was up to me to talk with Dr. Crass.

Fortunately, Dr. Mellow, our RE, tends to stick with more clinical, professional terms, and I can usually pretend we’re discussing something like a broken arm. Except the time I was sitting in his office a couple weeks after the miscarriage, discussing where to go from there.

He asks if we’ve done the deed since the miscarriage. I sit there for a full minute, staring at him, feeling the blush make its ascent and once again wondering, “How the hell did I wind up here?”

I nod, almost unnoticeably.

“You young kids,” he mutters, bringing his hand up in front of his mouth in a fake attempt to muffle the words and hide the smile on his face.

I’m mortified. I know it’s silly. After all, this is a man who takes an intimate tour of my reproductive organs during monthly, and sometimes weekly, appointments. But still, I want to slide under the table and die.

So, I’m thanking God that the days of those kinds of questions are over.

And if an adoption attorney ever uses the words “horny” or “sex life” during a conversation, I’m outta there.