It’s a strange thing to wake in the morning, drive silently across the city in heavy traffic, then find yourself at an appointment where one of the first things that happens to you for the day is a woman inserting her finger up your vag and instructing you to contract your muscles around it like you are “sucking a tampon up inside you”.
Not the usual way to start the day.
And despite the obvious links, the whole thing had nothing to do with sexual adventures with random strangers, and everything to do with what is apparently one of the best kept secrets of ‘women’s business’; that of women pissing themselves after birth.
The physiotherapist assured me it is a common problem, one in three women experience it in fact, but if other women are as loud and shameless about it as I am, then I cant see it being a well kept secret for long – I announced my problem at the pub the other day to a table full of people I had largely met for the first time that day, who mostly responded by saying “Oh. Is that right?” before casting their eyes downward and drinking their beers in a way as to suggest they didn’t really want to know if it was right or not.
“Pelvic floor dysfunction” is what it is called when its not called pissing your pants. But to clarify, this doesn’t mean I walk around pissing myself willy nilly. I just tend to run into, problems, when doing certain types of exercise (I say, as if that’s not embarrassing enough. But really, imagine sharing a raucous joke with the girls down at the pub only to find yourself getting a little, well, carried away… Some girls don’t have to imagine…)
How on earth did this happen, I hear all you non-mothers and males ask?
Well, it’s rather simple really. The Boy, upon making his grand entrance into the world, was a little bit, impolite, a little bit, impatient, on his arrival, and just went ahead and kind of tore himself an exit point the shape and size he saw fit (the God given hole wasn’t big enough, and its got me fucked why evolution hasn’t fixed that yet… Maybe its got something to do with me putting God and evolution on the same team?!!)
Anyway, apparently doing things like stopping my piss mid stream and doing hundreds of kegals a day (like sit ups, but for your vag) I might have stopped this problem from happening in the first place. But being the neglectful vag athlete I am, my muscles down there weren’t really prepared and they went ahead and got a great big tear through them and had to get all stitched back together again.
Come to think of it, having fingers stuck up the nether regions by strangers that have not been solicited for seedy sexual favours, can be traced back to this day too – because as I lay back on the bed post birth, my legs hitched high and with the midwife down there sewing me up, I heard her cheerfully announce; “Now I’m just going to stick my finger up your bum to check I haven’t sewn the wrong bits together”.
The look on The Yang’s face as he sat across the room nursing the new born Boy summed it up – she’s just been through all that, and now she has to lay there while someone sticks their finger up her ass?! – Like me, he couldn’t seem to work out if he was horrified, or if the whole thing was kind of hilarious.
And so now, here I am. Going to weekly appointments where some woman sticks her finger in my vag (reoccurring theme here?!) and spending the days in between drinking gallons of water and doing vag sit ups with the kind of dogged determination of an Olympian triathlete in training.
At least I might come out of all this with a kind of super vag that has the strength to snap a man’s penis right off – which is just the kind of skill that could come in real handy, how exactly…?!
I’m glad no one stuck their finger up my bum when I was being stitched up!! Far from being horrified by that part of the story, reading it now i find it hilarious and could have pissed my pants if I was one in three, lucky I’m two in three. Although, bouncing on the tramp does test me. Thanks for the reminder to do some exercises.
Thanks for reading Alana dear. I’m glad I inspired you to do some exercises, because to be honest, I’m not really like an Olympian in training, I avoid those exercises like the plague! No wonder I’m pissing myself. And yes, the trampoline is the ultimate test. I failed.
I’m one of those people who find pissing really fascinating. The “transformation of waste” as Patti Smith put it. (though i think she was talking about shitting. Oh well, whatever…) But i’d never really considered your problem before – i imagine it could be quite embarrassing when it occurs… Some colleagues and i were discussing how much harder it must be to be a woman than a man yesterday (you know, Menstruation vs. Shaving etc.) and this blog reminds me of that conversation. War Is Menstrual Envy? I could see you writing a bonza blog on that topic…
I wish I found pissing fascinating, like, oh wow, pissing my pants is like, the 8th wonder of the world. That sure would put a pleasant slant of my problem!
Hilarious. I sympathize but having has two ceseareans I was spared that particular problem. Keep doing those Kegels!
I’m glad you said ‘hilarious’ and not ‘frank and forward’ as my friend did!
Well, the little fella has ambition! I’m always pissing myself, metaphorically of course and have been know to say, “Now, I am just going to stick my willy in your bum…”