aibu to be very nervous about a midwife seeing me naked after this comment last time

[imnevergettingnaked]

warning: contains descriptions of mid childbirth vagina - you have been warned.
Dh thinks I am makin a fuss over nothing and should just forget it. I think that if it were reversed he would be just as mortified as I was/am.

I have had 4 children in the last 8 years. I am not so niave as to think that I am still pristine in the nether regions BUT during the last childbirth the midwife turned to the doctor who happened to be in the room at the time doing my blood pressure and said the following.

" no wonder she has never had any tears look its just hanging open ready".

I was actually at the time pushing a baby out but I manaed an indignant stare even so.

I am now pregnant and actually really dreading any midwife seeing me naked either before after or during the birth because I think I must have some freakish hanging vagina that makes people actually gasp when they see it.

DH assures me this isnt the case and thinks I am being ridiculously unreasonable to actually allow this to make me nervous about the birth. I think that if the roll was reversed and a doctor had commented say on the tiny size of his penis he may also be nervous about whipping it out again?

aibu to be nervous after this ? I know it wont change anything (as dh keeps reminding me) but he could at least show a bit of sympathy couldnt he!

[TipOfTheSlung]

on't think the two are related

[MerryMagdalene]

What a horrible thing to say. I dont use this word often...but what a bitch.

Please try not to take this rude and, frankly, mad midwife's stupid comments to heart.

[diddl]

Have you er, looked at yourself to see if you do "hang open"?

I would have assumed that it was part of giving birth tbh.

[Diggs]

I think thats really unproffessional and i would have complained . If your feeling uncomfortable about it , could you mention it to your present midwife , she,ll probably reassure you .

[VivaLeBeaver]

Sounds like she should have thought before opening her mouth. She probably meant you have a stretchy perinieum, which is good. The state of someone's fanjo at 10cm dilated does not relate in any way to the state of their fanjo in normal daily life. Try and forget it.

[HarderToKidnap]

Midwives see vaginas in a particular way - a fleshy, well padded lovely stretchy VJ is a bloody joy to see in the delivery room. I must admit I have thought many many times something similar to what your midwife said "I can see why she hasn't had any tears, and I don't think she will this time either" and it is thought only in the spirit of admiration and celebration that here is a woman with a beautifully functioning piece of equipment and isn't that bloody fantastic.

However, of course women see vaginas ever so slightly differently, with a lot of self esteem bound up in the "tightness" and other such things. So my admiring thought, if you heard it, would no doubt be construed by you as me somehow sneering at your vagina for being not tight, or something. Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact, but the reason we don't generally verbalise these thoughts is because of how women may take them. Your midwife had a funny five minutes and said something that should have stayed in her head.

I can promise you, I would bet my house on it, that she meant it in a "isn't that bloody briliant!" way and not in any sneering derogatory "ooh, it's all hanging open" way. She just wouldn't see vaginas like that, wouldn't see any benefit whatsoever in a neat and tidy hole, tight with no give. Midwives work with vaginas all day long in a particular context, and if you ever did have notions that a woman's vagina should look like a teen pornstars', it will be knocked out of you on the second day of training and you would start to cross your fingers for the fleshy, stetchy, type when someone whips off their knickers (this type of vagina look so much healthier too, I always find).

She meant it as a compliment. I know, because of all the cultural stuff bound up with vaginas that it will be difficult to take it as one, but do try. And know with complete confidence that the next midwife who sees your vagina will be thinking (in a non weird way) "oh, how fantastic! What a lovely vagina, she won't tear, lucky girl".

[diddl]

What I also meant to post was that it seems as if the comment would have been better left unsaid.

But I wouldn´t assume it was meant negatively.

(And would probably have checked a few days later)

[BalloonSlayer]

What a lovely post HarderToKidnap

[PeachyWhoCannotType]

You know OP I think harderTo is eactly right

But even if not,a s other have said there are people who make quite odd comments everywhere, and some of thhem are HCPs. For example I apaprenlty ahve a very long vagina and the smear nurse wishes they made a size of speculum just for me

I ahd totally foprgotten that until I read this and it makes me smile now but things saif to people in chjildbirth are said to you at a velnerable time and take longer to cope with.

[PeachyWhoCannotType]

Besides you ae expecting dc5, your dh clearly is happy with your body

So you ahve a sex life, a body that delivers babies fabulously (I ahve ahd 4 also with no tearas, yay for us lucky sods that we are) and a new baby on the way

Fab!

[JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar]

Some more to HarderToKidnap

Can you predict, by looking at a non-labouring woman's vagina, how easy a birth she'll have?

[HarderToKidnap]

Not on the whole, but there are some that have a particular look to them - sort of fleshy, with a little natural lube, healthy looking - that I celebrate to see, and some where the flesh looks thin and dry (usually, objectively speaking, neater vulvas) that I worry for the women. Most fall somewhere in between though.

Thanks for flowers!

[becstarsky]

More for HardertoKidnap, what a lovely celebratory way to look at it.

imnevergettingnaked, I remember my MW looking at my vagina just after DS born, grabbing my hand and saying 'Don't worry, it's going to be okay, it's all going to be okay, I'm just running to get the consultant'. It took hours to be stitched and months to even start to heal. Nowadays when a HCP sees my vagina - for smear test or whatever - I warn them beforehand so that I don't see the shock register on their face. It's like my fanjo got shipped back from the 'Nam in bits...

[AKMD]

Sorry, I laughed I don't think she meant it in a bitchy way, she just didn't think about how you would take that as it meant something good to her.

FWIW though I was unexpectedly induced when I had DS and do hadn't had time to 'tidy up'. There were 8 people in the room when DS was finally pushed/pulled out and even though I had never been in so much pain in my life I was still squirming with embarrassment at my untidy nethers. You'd think I would have been more worried about other things

[fit2drop]

HardertoKidnap A lovely reassuring , thoughtful and positive post at 10:47 .

[WhoseGotMyEyebrows]

HarderToKidnap You put it so nicely!

becstarsky That's sounds rough!

[becstarsky]

Twas a bit - I'd be glad of a wizard's sleeve, one of these healthy fleshy types that HarderToKidnap describes. Instead I seem to have had a vagina made of spun sugar...

[WorkingItOutAsIGo]

Another for HardertoKidnap. I still have a sore episiotomy scar 16 years on so wish I had one like yours OP!

[Primafacie]

I can beat that! My very good mate, upon learning I had not torn during D's birth, said 'wow, finally all your years of fist fucking have paid off!'

Seriously though, YANBU. It was thoughtless of her to say the least.

Disclaimer: I never actually attempted insertion of large objects down there. I am just naturally elastic like that. :)

[WhoseGotMyEyebrows]

Primafacie Yeah we believe you!

[KatyN]

Not the same story but last time I had a smear the nurse said 'oh I recognise you' but nit whe. She had been looking at my face... When she was mid procedure.
I had to rush home and check with my husband that I'm normal!!

I'm sure you are beautiful down there and the midwife was being a bit dizzy, maybe she sees it as a compliment to be hanging lose!!

[BimboNo5]

I didn't even feel DS's head emerge, but I do have a fanny like a hippos yawn at the moment.

[fit2drop]

BimboNo5 pmsl @ hippos yawn , never heard of that one ,

and I love that we can smile at our own descriptions of the varying looks and shapes and changes of our lovely vaginas'.

Someone once told me they had pissflaps like a beagles ears

but the funniest was my friend who went to a nudist beach in France or somewhere and there was a row of ladies all laid out on the beach, all with knees bent and legs akimbo (picture the scene) she said it was like looking at a row of wet chamois leathers :)

I spent years in my younger days thinking I was deformed in some way. The best thing I ever did was take the advice of my dp at the time, to look at pics of porn....I did and it made me realise just how different and individual we all are.

Honour thy vagina, tis a wondrous thing :)

[WhoseGotMyEyebrows]

but the funniest was my friend who went to a nudist beach in France or somewhere and there was a row of ladies all laid out on the beach, all with knees bent and legs akimbo (picture the scene) she said it was like looking at a row of wet chamois leathers

not sure whether I am or or at the thought of it.

[ILoatheMickeyMouseClubhouse]

Without being too graphic on here(!), DH said that when I was giving birth to DC3 everything just sort of "opened" up down there before I was about to start pushing, maybe that's just what she meant?