Stirrups and Paper Gowns

I feel a need to begin with a brief explanation of my Blog name. And even before that I am going to admit my guilt in the anticipation of actually wanting to blog for so long, and guilt that I may feel in the future for not keeping up with my blog.
Having said that:
I had a good friend in Virginia explain that she found offense in the term "anal". So she decided to create a "politically correct", less harsh, perhaps more constructive term to describer her...uh, personality. So instead of saying anal, she says that she is "concrete sequential". Since having children I have had a total loss of brain cells, millions, maybe trillions per day are steamed away in bowls of easy mac, and tossed aside in my daughter's wet, industrial strength training underwear. In short, I remember very little. I figure that since I actually remember a term like "concrete sequential" it must mean that I am so. I feel comfortable with this. Being anal, or concrete sequential allows me a little control (however manic or random) in a world of toddlers, high-pitched whining, and cute faces that can always get themselves out of time-out a minute or two early.
One of the reasons for such delay in begining a blog is because I am ten weeks pregnant. Sunday was the first day in more than three weeks that I have not thrown up at least once or more in a day. It was a monumental day. Needless to say, I have been lazy and sick and unmotivated. There was a day two weeks ago that I laid on the couch and watched, unmoved physically or emotionally, as my two daughters de-rolled an entire new roll of toilet paper in our family room. Thats about how the past few weeks have gone. But today I ventured out into the world and made my was to my first doctors appointment. My objectives were to hear a heart beat, complain a little, and obtain some sort of drug that would either put me into a nutritional coma for a month, or curb the nausea. Hence the title, Stirrups and Paper Gowns.
Is there anything in the entire world quite so humiliating as a paper gown? It is essentially a paper towel (with the strenght of a peice of notebook paper) with arm holes. When they tell you to keep the opening in the front, you know there will be invasive measures taken. I then sat on the examination table (thank goodness I had at least shaved to my knees) and waited for the doctor for nearly a half hour, trying not to let my armpit sweat weaken the integrity of my paper ensemble. I somehow made it through a very long discussion of medical history with a total stranger, who was a man, sitting in my gown, arms folded, and trying to look nonchalant about the fact that I was sitting in front of him buck naked. I made it, with dignity, to the actual pelvic exam. And there I laid, staring at the ceiling with the strange doctor, in a ghetto office, giving a play by play of procedure, to me or I suppose to the nurse, who I couldn't for the life of me understand one word she said. I even managed to make a really innappropriate comment to this effect: "Huh, pelvic exams just aren't the same since having kids". I'm not exactly sure what that means. But I said it, out loud, right in the middle of "the exam". This exam followed a very descriptive story about a woman who nearly lost her unterus in his "quick and capable hands". At different parts in his story he mentioned blood up to his neck, sweat down to his underpants and something about his sphincter that I didn't really catch. He was delicately trying to steer me away from a particular procedure. Done, for the time being. So despite the efforts of this very nice man, I have decided to seek medical OB/GYN attention elsewhere.
In closing I would also like to admit to some guilt about the fact that my dear husband is out at 11:30 at night at Walmart doing our grocery shopping and buying things like Chinese cellophane noodles and artichoke hearts for a reason I will have to explain at a later time. But it is Valentine's Day. I feel bad. I'll give him a big cheek to kiss when he gets home and promise a real one in a few weeks when the nausea subsides and I can smell everyone's breath again.
Happy Valentine's all!