Terrified to get my vag out

[sbananas]

Hey! So I'm booked for my first s+s with a midwife next week. And honestly I am SO scared about getting my vag out and having her touch it lmao. I know it's kinda what I signed up for getting pregnant and it's all part of it, but it's making me so nervous! Any tips to give me less stage fright will help. Thank you!

I hate being seen naked and repusle myself despite being fairly small and hate smears etc but once I had been awake 48 hours in labour I had zero idea and zero fucks what they saw, the pain is so hideous you will not care.

Unless it turns out you have 2 cervix like my friend did - discovered as she was giving birth (one uterus) - the midwife won't bat an eyelid.

Your midwife will literally not give a shit. Once you're in labour, you won't care if the entire workforce of the hospital line up to have a look!

you honestly won't care who sees your vag when your in actual labour I didn't. And I'm the same (when not in labour!) i get incredibly embarrassed and hate smear tests or examinations, I worry so much about how I look down there I don't consider myself to have the prettiest vag lol. mind you not that I've seen anyone else's, suppose they're all unpretty though!

I had a v new junior doctor do mine. Her abject terror (and inability to actually locate my cervix) took the edge off my embarrassment.

Her supervisor was extremely scathing and I felt quite sorry for her.

The registrar did it in the end but it made bugger all difference.

Induction process was fine - all went smoothly and quite quickly so if you don't want the sweep there's no need to have it.

You completely forget your embarrassment when you're in actual labour.

Your vagina is like an ear to these people. It's just a body part, nothing more. My daughter is a nurse, soon to be a doctor, and nothing even makes her bat an eye.

I remember thinking if I acted confident, I’d feel confident and it worked. They’ve seen it all before.

What I was horrified by was a male doing my first smear test a few years ago!!

the midwife is a professional whose seen it all before, she will not give a crap. make a playlist to listen to if it helps and leave your dignity at the door.

Many people still care even when in labor I have always cared and no amount of labor pain has stopped me from caring who saw what or how I was presenting myself, what I was doing or saying.

You can give birth with great dignity and it has nothing at all to do with how many clothes you may or might not have on. You always have the right to privacy and bodily autonomy, Always

Telling people nervous about this stuff that they won’t care because they will be in awful pain and to leave their dignity at the door is NOT helpful or respectful it is dismissive, patronising and not a small amount misogynistic

@PiesNotGuys

Many people still care even when in labor I have always cared and no amount of labor pain has stopped me from caring who saw what or how I was presenting myself, what I was doing or saying.

You can give birth with great dignity and it has nothing at all to do with how many clothes you may or might not have on. You always have the right to privacy and bodily autonomy, Always

Telling people nervous about this stuff that they won’t care because they will be in awful pain and to leave their dignity at the door is NOT helpful or respectful it is dismissive, patronising and not a small amount misogynistic

This. A million times over

I'm a nurse and when I write up my notes it takes me a good minute to remember which bottom belongs to which patient. We see so many there is never anything particularly remarkable unless you have a massive pressure sore I'm not all that interested in what your downstairs looks like.

I had a tear with my first that required theatre and they put lovely warming blankets on me and gave me a spinal block. My parts were exposed for a solid hour to about 6 folk in the room and I was so comfy and tired I fell asleep.

I was chatting to a friend, who is a midwife, today and she said that she delivers so many babies that she doesn't remember the baby, the mother or the vagina unless something dramatic happens.

Also, when I had sweeps done I was well covered up. The consultant barely glanced at me - it was done mainly by feel not sight. Good luck OP!

Your vag takes on a totally different persona when you give birth. It’s not your vag in a sexual or private way, it transforms to become a boring old doorway that your baby is going to come out of and you won’t care who sees it or talks about it.

OP, lots of good advice upthread already.

So I'm coming at this from left-field but this link:
dodsonandross.com/blogs/carlin/2010/05/bettys-vulva-illustrations
has a fantastic set of pencil sketches from the 1970s by a rocking lesbian sexpert called Betty Dodson whose theory was that there are 6 "styles" of vulva and every woman's fits into one of these styles...

She passed away due to Covid last year (RIP Betty!) but was on Gwyneth Paltrow's Netflix show a few months before, talking about women's right to orgasm freely and love their bodies :)

I know I'm off-piste here but when I first saw these drawings I really enjoyed checking out which style I had and it felt great to see the old lady-garden given some love as a thing of beauty... So maybe you'll enjoy it too?

Best of luck with it all and congrats!

I'm a midwife and in all honesty I don't even really look at the anatomy of your vulva, with S&S or examinations in labour I briefly glance to make sure my finger is going in the right place to make it as comfortable as possible, but that's less than 2 seconds, after that I am usually looking at the ceiling and talking to you about my findings. We really honestly don't clock anything else. Like others have said it's like a mechanic looking under a bonnet for us, and hand on heart I have never ever heard any midwifery or obstetric colleagues pass comment about the variations of vulvas. The only time I ever find myself looking closely is if someone needs stitches after birth and at that point I'm concentrating really hard on doing a good repair. Honestly nobody cares what your fanny looks like.

Many people still care even when in labor I have always cared and no amount of labor pain has stopped me from caring who saw what or how I was presenting myself, what I was doing or saying.

This isn’t true for everyone though, many people genuinely couldn’t care less. That’s why people are sharing their experiences in this way. Not to be dismissive, but to share the reality that many people’s embarrassment or shame simply disappears during labour.

misogynistic? not rising to that but 🙄.

I obviously didn't mean midwives don't give a crap about their patients, just they've seen it all before.

How HCPs feel doing the job is derailing, its not what the OP is talking about. How she feels about being on view to strangers & them mucking about inside her matters, it can be very intimidating but you DO have to swallow your pride and let the professionals get on with it. That baby is coming out one way or another. Bodily autonomy, privacy and dignity are not words I'd use to describe my experience once the (arrogant, rude, male) doctors became involved, I clung to that amazing female anaesthetist for support so hard I feared I'd broken her hand and many of my friends said the same although the individual midwives I spent the most time with were absolutely wonderful. But I had my DC before 2010 so hopefully the bad experience stuff has changed with the times.

Good luck with your S&S and congratulations for your baby OP.

What PiesNotGuys said.