I have a doctor’s appointment scheduled this Friday, my first since last October. Not October as in three months ago, but the October before that, right after we got engaged. I knew that engaged women need to go to the doctor and figure out “family planning.” All the Christian relationship/engagement/sex books talk about that. So within three weeks of our engagement, Matt and I were sitting in the doctor’s office talking about contraception methods. I was nervous, as I always am when going to the doctor, but overall it wasn’t too awful. I didn’t feel like she gave us too many revelations, but she did support our decision to go with birth control pills as the cheapest, most foolproof method.

She scheduled me for a pap smear the next week and said she would write me a birth control prescription when I was ready to start taking it.

The next week I went back for the pap smear and promptly regretted our decision to get married. It was SO painful. I had heard that it would be uncomfortable, but that it shouldn’t be painful. So when it hurt, I told my doctor, and she tried a smaller instrument. It still hurt, just as badly, so she stopped and said that since it was hurting, I shouldn’t have a pap smear done until after I was sexually active.

Wait. So sex is going to hurt this badly??

I tried asking her some clarifying questions to see why it was better to have my husband hurt me this much rather than a doctor.

“It won’t hurt the same when you break your hymen having sex,” she said. “It will be quicker and you’ll want to do it. It’s better than having your hymen stretched during a pap smear.”

I walked out of the exam room with a newfound awe for every married woman I saw. I stared at the receptionist’s wedding ring as I turned in my paperwork after the appointment. How did she endure such pain? How is she so happy, calm, and normal?

I walked bowlegged for two days after that attempted pap smear, and it wasn’t even a FULL procedure! She never even got near the cervix!

So here we are, over a year later.

Our insurance has changed, so I’m going to a new doctor. Sex doesn’t hurt anymore (that is a story for another self-disclosing post), and I’m pretty sure my hymen is stretched enough to handle the pap smear this time.

But my general fear of doctors and my memory of the last pap smear are not making it easy to approach this next appointment with peace. What if she isn’t gentle enough? Honestly, the idea of anything touching my cervix still weirds the heck out of me, the same kind of feeling I get when someone tries to stick a finger in my belly button. It’s not painful, exactly, but it’s intolerable.

So that’s where I’m at this week…dreading Friday’s cold, sterile table, barely-there paper gown, and awkward stirrups. I guess it seems a little silly to pray about a pap smear in light of global tragedies like Haiti’s earthquake, but thankfully God is big enough to handle both. I will be praying during that appointment and asking for supernatural peace. I’ll let you know how it goes.  Fortunately, I have Avatar to look forward to on Saturday as a reward for my suffering on Friday.

P.S. Something funny: When I showed this post to Matt, he said, “Wow. That’s really self-disclosing. But I like it. It’s from the heart…or from the cervix.”