On Tuesday, I was inseminated by a doctor in a purple suit coat. He walked into the room, with the nurse behind him, gleefully proclaiming, "Let's make a baby!" (a cheery sing-song voice, not a creepy rapist voice). Needless to say, the mood was all wrong.
It goes without saying that I'm a single mother by CHOICE because I have issues with men (that, I suppose, is another post entirely). My love life aside, I have studiously avoided male doctors. When I was looking for an RE back in 2002, I only considered female doctors; I tried very hard to ignore the fact that male interns did the ultrasounds at WFRE's practice. The ob/gyn who delivered LG was, of course, a woman. I chose her because she came on the recommendation of WFRE. When I moved to New Town, I chose an ob/gyn (female) because she had done her residency at one of the hospitals affiliated with the office of WFRE (how we both ended up in New Town is a marvelous coincidence). When new ob/gyn left (to go back to Former State) the same month I decided I wanted to try for Baby #2, she set up an appointment for me with my current RE, whom I have taken to calling Dr. Evil. And while Dr. Evil's evilness is not because of his gender, I suspect that my distrust of him stems in part from the fact that he's not a woman. He has never been pregnant. He has never had a pelvic exam performed on his body. He has never covered himself in a pink sheet and had someone root around in his body, feeling his uterus, his ovaries, his cervix. But Dr. Evil is not a practicing gynecologist, to the best of my knowledge. He does mostly research and administration, and sees fertility patients like me only a few hours a week. Other than our initial consult, his hands haven't gone anywhere near my body. That's one of his few redeeming qualities.
But IUIs are done here not by nurses (what I'm used to) but by doctors. At Dr. Evil's practice, there is one male ob/gyn, whom I will now refer to as Dr. Purple, and a female physician's assistant (whom I like very much). Dr. Purple was the only one available when I needed my IUI on Tues. Now, while Dr. Purple is very nice and has good "bedside manner"--I like him much better than Dr. Evil, all things considered--I was not prepared for Dr. Purple putting his hands on me, in me, around me, as one must do during an IUI. And I *really* wasn't prepared for how chipper he was, how verbally intimate. I wanted five more of those pink sheets. He did nothing wrong. In fact, it was the smoothest IUI I've ever had (no cramping, no spotting, nada). Still, I felt exposed. Violated.
What scares me more than anything is that I get pregnant and miscarry and need to consider the possibility of Dr. Evil or Dr. Purple performing a D&C. That was awful enough, even with WFRE--whom I trust more than any doctor I've ever seen--doing the procedure. It's good that I'm switching to a new doctor. Gender isn't the major factor going into my decision to leave--I couldn't work with Dr. Evil even if he was a woman--but once again I've only considered female REs as possible candidates for New RE.
I know I'm being sexist here. I teach gender studies! But I really can't get past the gender divide when it comes to my ovaries.
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