A Change

Does everyone have a day that changes their life? I suppose that most of us actually have several of those days. Sometimes the change is very small; so miniscule that it is not even recognized. Sometimes the change is monumental. Yesterday was such a day for me. I am not yet ready to rate it, but I can feel a difference.

I have always had an interest in the workings of the human body. We had some encyclopedia-type books about human growth and development and I devoured them. They covered everything from the reproductive cycle, conception, pregnancy, birth, and beyond. When I first began reading them I was probably about 12 or 13 and had not yet begun menstruating so that is what I was most interested in. I knew that girls and women bled every now and then and I wanted to know why. I think I learned more than I needed to know at the time but in the end that was okay. As I got a little older, and started really thinking about things, it occurred to me to wonder how it was that women had babies. If it took a woman and a man, and the woman had the baby inside her, how the heck did it get there? I do not recall that the books actually described the process but it didn't take much figuring to deduce that if a woman had a vagina and a man had a penis and the man had to deposit sperm in the vagina, the penis somehow must enter the vagina. That surely meant that the two involved in this process must need be naked. Hmmmm. When I confronted my parents about this, they confirmed that it was so. This is a concept I surely wasn't ready to wrap my mind around. What a disgusting thought! Who on earth would want to be seen by anyone without clothes on? Especially by someone of the opposite sex? It must have been around this time I decided that I wasn't going to have children or get married.

So, I knew what the parts were and I knew how the process worked. But somehow I got the idea that it wasn't cool to talk about those parts or the process. I am not sure how I developed this idea because the one time I asked my parents that one question, they were forthcoming with information and didn't seem to have a problem with talking about it although I don't remember them ever initiating any conversations. My grandparents certainly didn't have a problem about such things. I used to go to their house often and Grandma and I would "draw" on each other's backs and have good back scratching sessions. For these, Grandma would take off her bra and fling it across the living room to the couch. I remember once when I was somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 Papa mentioning that you had to "use it or loose it" when it came to sexual activity. He would have been about 66 or so. By then I had had three babies so I knew what caused them but I hadn't thought about intimate relationships in any context other than creating new life.

In spite of the odd ideas I somehow managed to get into my head, I had still convinced myself that when married, any topic of conversation would be okay. Including breasts, penises, vaginas, and various other body parts; even what they do and what might be fun to do with them. Well, I was wrong. I know that not all people feel this way, but some believe that to talk about such things is to invite bad or even evil in. Quite frankly, I think that if it were wrong to talk about and find enjoyment in our bodies, God would have stopped with Adam and found a way for reproduction to happen without Eve.

So how did I get to the point that I was so apprehensive about yesterday's class? All we were doing is learning how to do breast exams, pelvic exams and draw blood. Before class, I was somewhat uncertain. I mean, I've done breast self-exams. Not monthly like I've been told I should but often enough to know what is or isn't normal for me. All I can think of is that my background, my culture, if you will, had taught me that homosexuality is bad, that pornography is bad, that masturbation is bad and that anything that is or looks bad should be avoided. I am not going to argue for or against these things; I have my beliefs and they are what they are. Others have their beliefs and they are what they are. It isn't my job to change the views others have any more than it is their job to change mine.

Until yesterday, I was somehow more concerned that someone might think that I was doing or being something bad by wanting to be a midwife. I mean, how can you perform a pelvic exam without using a speculum to view the vagina and cervix? How can you perform a breast exam without looking at a woman's breasts? How can you perform a breast self-exam without touching your own breasts? It's okay to do these things.

Today was an incredible day. Learning how to do a pelvic exam was like the most logical continuation of learning the skeletal and muscular systems I can think of. How absolutely incredible to feel the sacrum and ischial spines. What an amazing thing to find out that a breast is a breast. How wonderful to hit a vein and draw blood the very first time I attempt to do it. What an empowering experience this was knowing more now than ever that the things I am learning I will be able to take and use to help other women and in so doing, be able to help their children and their families. This is my goal.