Loathe of the Ring

I went in for my annual exam yesterday. (Let that sentence be a warning unto you, fellas.) An unexpected benefit to delivering a baby is that these annual visits are much less dreadful.

First of all, there’s only one person in the room who is expecting to look at your vagina. Though, I will tell you, a pelvic exam is much less festive without bright lights, beeping machines, a mirror, 15 nurses and your spouse in tow.

Also, the infamous “you may feel a little pressure” is a laughable warning to give a woman who, the last time she heard that, proceeded to push a nine-pound replica of her husband out of her lady parts. I’ve got your pressure right here.

Anywho, I love going to doctors offices because of how they decorate their exam rooms with 1984-looking, plastic replicas of human organs. For example:

IMG_8126

The NuvaRing on display in the middle there gave me pause. For those of you not familiar with it, The Ring is a form of birth control that resembles and feels like those glitter/water bracelets you wore 20 at-a-time in the 80’s.

ja771

Except, you don’t put this bracelet on your arm. The Ring accessorizes you from the inside.

The-Ring

I gave it a go once. For about two hours in the summer of 2007.

I was little confused at how it should work, so I read the manual. Those are always so helpful. I did as instructed, but something didn’t feel right. I took it out and called my doctor’s after hours line.

Me: Hey, I don’t think I did this right.

Doc: I don’t make house calls for vaginal birth control. If you like, you can come back to the office tomorrow and I can put it in for you.

Me: Would you make fun of me if I did that?

Doc: Yes.

Me: (sigh) Nevermind.

Doc: Why don’t you get your partner to help you?

Me: {crickets}

For the next hour, I tried to make it work sitting, standing, crouching. I considered taking a running jump and landing on it. I even Googled potential solutions. Don’t do that, by the way.

Then, out of desperation I called out to Dave:

Me: Baby! I need your help!

Dave: No.

Me: Yes! The doctor said so.

Dave: There’s no way I’m doing that.

Maybe it was frustration, or how hard I was laughing by this point, but suddenly, it worked!

Continue reading