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" Hi. My name is Noelle, I&amp;#039;m 24, and I\u00A0 just went to the gynecologist for the first time. I realize that you might be a little shocked it took me so long to go, but here&amp;#039;s the thing: I&amp;#039;ve never had any problems with my menstrual\u00A0cycle so I just never felt the urgent need to GO.\u00A0I saw the whole avoiding-a-stranger-poking-around-my-vagina thing as an upside.\u00A0 With that said, I realized that there are other important reasons to go to the gyno worth bearing the aforementioned awkwardness other than to figure out why you&amp;#039;re not getting your period regularly. It&amp;#039;s a preventative measure so that if you do have any issues with your vagina or reproductive system that wouldn&amp;#039;t present themselves immediately, like cervical or breast cancer or an STD, your doctor\u00A0can catch them early and treat them. So, realizing that I was pushing my luck with the whole &amp;quot;I can totally wait one more year,&amp;quot; thing, I decided to suck it up and find a gyno. And seeing as I work for Seventeen.com,\u00A0why not document my whole experience so you know exactly what&amp;#039;s going to go down when you, too, finally go to the gyno? Making THE Appointment For some reason, I thought finding a gynecologist was going to be a massive undertaking. I thought gynos only took on new patients every 103 years, and therefore, you have to fight tooth and nail to get on some waiting list.\u00A0I saw it as a\u00A0rigorous application process one might experience trying to get into an extremely prestigious and well-respected prep school. When I finally got down to it, the process was less like applying to a prep school and more like signing up for pal soccer in second grade (AKA, you get on the team no matter what). I\u00A0basically asked a friend where she goes. She gave me her gyno&amp;#039;s name\u00A0and told me\u00A0how much she loved the practice, so I went to their website and\u00A0signed up for an appointment online. It LIT-ER-AL-LY took 15 minutes. Not one phone call made. I made an\u00A0appointment for about a month later (gynos are pretty busy in NYC, apparently) and forgot about it until about a week before when Google (what would I do without you?) reminded me it was a week away. I immediately began freaking\u00A0out. For one, other than some\u00A0trimming and\u00A0shaving of my bikini line, I am au naturel \u00A0~down there~ (which only my closest friends know, so welcome to my inner circle). Should I\u00A0shave?\u00A0\u00A0Then there was the irrational fear that I had a mutant vagina and just didn&amp;#039;t know it. (I saw this trailer for a horror movie about a girl who had teeth in her vagina once and it messed me up, I guess.)  There was no turning back now. Everyone I&amp;#039;d asked about gynos said that they are totally non-judgmental about whether or not you\u00A0shave down there.\u00A0I&amp;#039;m not against going bare down there or anything and I could have shaved, but the regrowth process is painful and itchy and I didn&amp;#039;t feel like it was worth going through for a gynecologist who\u00A0sees all types of vages. It&amp;#039;s not like I&amp;#039;d be their first patients with hair down there. As for the mutant vagina\u00A0worries, well,\u00A0I just tried to put that stupid horror movie trailer out of my head.\u00A0 The Appointment (Pre-Awk) On the day of my appointment, I was as ready as I&amp;#039;d ever be (as in, not ready at all, but I didn&amp;#039;t exactly have a choice). I showed up on time, filled out a medical history, and the kind office staff showed me to my examination room. And there I waited. After what felt like forever (but was probably about 5 minutes), my doctor came in and introduced herself. She asked if I was okay with a well-trained nurse practitioner conducting my exam. It&amp;#039;s totally normal for nurse practitioners or physician\u00A0assistants to conduct routine exams like these. Not only do they have graduate-level education, but\u00A0medicine is\u00A0a team sport, and if anything\u00A0is unusual about your exam, they&amp;#039;ll consult with your\u00A0physician. With that said, you are free to say no if you don&amp;#039;t feel comfortable being seen by an NP or PA, but keep in mind, that means you might have to wait longer\u00A0to schedule an appointment with a doctor.\u00A0I was fine with being seen by a nurse practitioner, though, so I said yes. After that, the nurse practitioner, who I&amp;#039;ll call Jessie,\u00A0came in and started my exam. She was an altogether\u00A0pleasant person.\u00A0If I wasn&amp;#039;t so nervous, I probably would have remembered\u00A0everything she said to me, but I just recall that she was\u00A0kind and tried to be as comforting as possible as we went over my medical history. Did I have any history of cancer in my fam? No. Did I smoke? No.\u00A0Had I been vaccinated for HPV? Yes. Had I ever gotten a pap smear? No. She asked about my sexual history. It went on and on like that for a while with me awkwardly answering each question, until finally, she asked me if I wore a seat belt in cars (not sure why that&amp;#039;s relevant, but, yes), and then it was time for the exam. She told me\u00A0to get undressed and put on the long blue robe that was placed on a chair for me. Word to the wise: put the robe on with the open part in front. You know, like a normal robe. That might seem obvious to you but, for some reason, I thought I was supposed to wear it like a hospital gown. You know, the ones that patients\u00A0in hospital comedies wear so that when they shuffle slowly past the protagonist in their plush slippers, there&amp;#039;s that dark comedic moment you realize you can see the\u00A0patient&amp;#039;s butt? Yeah, you&amp;#039;re not supposed to wear it like that.  I put it on that way and got all comfy on the exam table, only to have Jessie come back in and ask\u00A0me to turn it around (because how was she going to examine my breasts and vagina if I&amp;#039;m laying on the opening of the robe?). She ended up\u00A0standing in the corner facing the wall as I flipped it around. SMH. I&amp;#039;m so awkward. Once I got my robe on right, it was  time.\u00A0Jessie started the exam, which began with harmless tests I was used to from my regular physicals, like a thyroid examination and pressing on my stomach.\u00A0 Then came the breast exam, where the doctor or nurse\u00A0looks at and feels your breasts and under your\u00A0arms for lumps or anything\u00A0unusual. This part was\u00A0was a little more embarrassing, but I&amp;#039;d gotten breast exams\u00A0before so I was used to it. The only difference that surprised me was she actually, like,\u00A0 squeezed my nipple. I can&amp;#039;t remember a doctor ever doing that before, but there was a good reason for it. She was checking\u00A0for discharge and lumps in the nipple. The Exam Exam, AKA The\u00A0Awkward Part After that, it was time to start the part of the exam I was dreading most. Before starting the vaginal exam, Jessie asked if I wanted to get a Pap smear, which is\u00A0a screening meant to test\u00A0for the presence of precancerous or cancerous cells on the cervix. It&amp;#039;s a test you should get done whether you&amp;#039;re sexually active or not and you should get tested every 3 years.\u00A0Since I&amp;#039;d never been to the gyno before, I thought it best to get one, so I said yes.\u00A0 She also asked at this point if I wanted to get tested for STDs. Even if you&amp;#039;re not sexually active and are pretty positive you&amp;#039;re STD free, you should think about saying yes to the STD screening just in case. STDs, like herpes, can be passed from person-to-person through skin-to-skin contact as simple as kissing. Then\u00A0it was time to start the exam. Jessie pulled these footrests out from the front of the examination table and asked me to place my feet\u00A0in them and scoot my body forward until my butt was at the edge of the table and my legs were wide open. It&amp;#039;s really hard to scoot anywhere in one of those\u00A0loose paper gowns,\u00A0so I ended up having to\u00A0kind of bounce like five times until my legs were spread wide open in front of Jessie. It was, perhaps, the most ungraceful thing I&amp;#039;ve ever done. But Jessie didn&amp;#039;t seem to feel awkward and she didn&amp;#039;t run away when I opened my legs, so I guess I don&amp;#039;t have a mutant vagina. #Win First\u00A0she used\u00A0what&amp;#039;s called a speculum to open up my vagina and look inside and get easy access to the cervix. It looks like this:  I&amp;#039;d spoken to my roommate about this part beforehand and she said that when her doctor did it, it didn&amp;#039;t hurt at all. Plus, Jessie assured me that she was using a ton of lubrication so all I would feel is a little bit of pressure.\u00A0She walked me through the entire process, telling me exactly what she was doing as she did it and\u00A0noting that if I  did feel any\u00A0pain, I should let her know. &amp;quot;Okay, I&amp;#039;m putting it in now,&amp;quot; she said, and I felt a light pressure as she\u00A0slipped the speculum inside of me. &amp;quot;Okay, relax now. I&amp;#039;m going to start opening it.&amp;quot; She started to crank the speculum open, and the pressure began to increase. It felt a little uncomfortable. &amp;quot;Just a little more,&amp;quot; she said, as it actually started to get a little painful. And right when I thought I was going to have to tell her it was too much, she stopped opening it. I&amp;#039;m not going to lie:\u00A0it was kind of\u00A0painful. Not unbearable, but I did feel a kind of throbbing pressure that was not pleasant. I&amp;#039;m guessing it&amp;#039;s because I was nervous and didn&amp;#039;t relax my muscles enough. But\u00A0I didn&amp;#039;t find the pain extreme or unbearable, so I didn&amp;#039;t say anything . Once she had the speculum in place,\u00A0\u00A0she took a long little brush and swiped the inside of my vagina with it. It just felt like a little\u00A0poke, poke, but wasn&amp;#039;t painful (not any more than the throbbing feeling of the speculum, at least). She\u00A0removed the speculum then, letting me know that if I had some spotting after, it was completely normal.\u00A0 The last part of the exam was the most excruciatingly awkward part. Jessie\u00A0manually examined my reproductive organs, which required her to insert two fingers into my vagina while pressing down on my abdomen. It didn&amp;#039;t hurt whatsoever, but it was a little odd to have a stranger putting their actual fingers inside of me. She felt around in there for\u00A0about 5 seconds and then it was over. Like really over. She told me I could sit up and close my legs and cover up (thank God). Once I was modest again, Jessie took my blood pressure, just like any other physical. Finally,\u00A0Jessie asked me if I had any questions about anything. I asked her what age you&amp;#039;re\u00A0 supposed to start going to the gyno, and she told me that you should start going as soon as you become sexually active or if you&amp;#039;re 21 or older (clearly, I was a little late). I didn&amp;#039;t have any more questions, other than how I would know if my pap smear results were normal (&amp;quot;No news is good news,&amp;quot; she said). Usually, it takes one to three weeks to get Pap test results, so if your doctor doesn&amp;#039;t call within that timeframe\u00A0to make you aware of abnormal results, it typically\u00A0means your test came back normal. If the test does show that something could be wrong, though, your doctor will contact you to schedule more tests to figure out what&amp;#039;s going on (abnormal results don&amp;#039;t automatically mean cancer or anything&amp;#039;s wrong). With that said, if you&amp;#039;re nervous and haven&amp;#039;t heard from your doctor, you should always feel free to call to follow up.\u00A0 Then I was free to go. And that was IT! So, In Conclusion... As much as I hyped it up and avoided going to the gynecologist because of how horrible and awkward I imagined it would be, the appointment really wasn&amp;#039;t bad at all. It was weird to bare my private parts in front of a stranger and get examined down there, but Jessie was super nice, and although there was no way she could make me feel totally comfortable, she tried her best. She never judged me, so if I do have a mutant vagina, she has\u00A0the best poker face in the world. While the speculum was a little painful, it wasn&amp;#039;t unbearably so, and it\u00A0was over in the blink of an eye. Even though the idea of having someone stick their fingers in me was mortifying, Jessie\u00A0made it as not\u00A0awkward as possible\u00A0with her positive, unaffected attitude. Bottom\u00A0line:\u00A0the idea of it was way worse than the actual experience. What&amp;#039;s crazy is\u00A0the part I\u00A0dreaded the most\u00A0(the part where they&amp;#039;re poking around down there), was the shortest part. My legs were probably only open on that table for five to eight minutes in the end. The rest of the time was spent talking and doing all the types of exams\u00A0you&amp;#039;re already used to from regular\u00A0physicals (and that didn&amp;#039;t take long either).\u00A0 Bottom line: the appointment I had so dreaded for so long\u00A0was altogether a non-event.  Even if things like cervical cancer and breast cancer are\u00A0rare in teens and young women,\u00A0regular\u00A0visits to the gyno are an important preventative measure that helps make sure you don&amp;#039;t develop these issues.\u00A0And if you do develop\u00A0them, the regular exams will help to detect them early enough so you can get the most effective treatment.\u00A0 Even though I was\u00A0okay (as I expected), considering how important reproductive health is, it was worth the minimal awkwardness I experienced to make sure everything\u00A0was\u00A0actually\u00A0alright down there. Then again, it&amp;#039;s only been a week since my exam... if I get any word to the contrary from my doctor, I&amp;#039;ll let you know. The moral of the story:\u00A0 yes, going to the gyno is going to be really awkward, but it&amp;#039;s like 30 minutes of awkwardness that you&amp;#039;ll most likely (hopefully) be able to forget as soon as you walk out the door. And if they detect something is wrong, it means that going was really worth it.\u00A0 "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/health/sex-health/a40032/what-happens-at-first-gynecologist-appointment/>