Some idiocy has shown up on my dash
Apparently people don’t know what a transvaginal ultrasound is. And instead of Googling it to educate themselves, they have chosen to bray their ignorance all over. Here! Let me educate you!
What is a transvaginal ultrasound?
A transvaginal ultrasound is an ultrasound performed with a transducer inserted into the vagina. It is commonly done in the first trimester, as the fetus is still too small to be seen by the more familiar standard ultrasound.
Here is a helpful image!
When I had cancer, it was a cancer that attacked my uterus. So I had to have a lot of these. Let me tell you about them.
- I’ve had well-endowed partners. The transducer is bigger
- It’s also harder, so it feels bigger than it is
- They also wiggle them around in there, to get a clearer picture of what they’re looking at
- By “wiggle” I mean they jam them in at angles not meant to occur in nature while telling you the familiar lie “this may be a bit uncomfortable/pinch a little”
- They FUCKING HURT
- They’re also fucking expensive
- There is no medical-based reason to require one of these before an abortion
- If you’re lucky, the ultrasound tech warms the lube first
So yeah. That’s what they’re talking about requiring women to get if they seek a perfectly legal and safe medical procedure.
THANK YOU!
Let me not tell you how many of these I’ve had. You don’t care about that.
I’ve argued with even pro-choice feminists about how painful this procedure is, and have been told I was stupid and spreading false stories. I am not, and I am glad to see someone else speaking up about this. “FUCKING HURT” is an understatement. I always have to have catheters when I get one of these, because they need to inflate and move my bladder out of the way to see my uterus clearly.
They whip a condom-looking thing onto the probe, then really root them around in there. Of all the many, many, invasive medical procedures I’ve had done while unsedated and awake, this was one of the more brutal to endure. I can not even imagine being a rape survivor and having to deal with this.
I had a chemically induced abortion a few years ago (it includes a round of drugs found in chemotherapy essentially injected into your ass). They did a standard blood test to count my hormone levels to judge gestation, then used a standard ultrasound during the procedure to make sure that everything was all right while it was going on. There really is no medical reason for the transvaginal to be part of this procedure.
Requiring this is another form of medical rape where medical professionals hold care hostage in order to exert power and control over the women who need a safe and legal procedure.
I echo FUCKING HURT. It’s one thing if it’s necessary, but that’s between the WOMAN and her DOCTOR. Government needs to butt out.
And the argument, “Well abortion is invasive so whatever” is essentially saying “Welp, agreement to one invasive procedure is blanket approval to all.”
And that is WRONG.I don’t even understand that argument. I am sure that some abortions are invasive, but I wonder if women consider it more so than being a forced incubator (or in my case, dying from the pregnancy). Mine, which is a fairly common way of performing them, was not at all invasive. I had to drop my pants about three inches so they could get to my rump for the injections. Thirty minutes later, they did a standard ultrasound, and sent me home with a phone number in case I had any problems. I followed up in ten days to get my birth control situated again, and that was that.
Just wanted to add, I’ve also had a transvaginal ultra-sound when getting tested for PCOS. I will second the whole “this was awful and unpleasant even when I was okay with getting it done”.
:/
I too have had them - for both my pregnancies and for a bout of severe ovarian cysts when I was younger. I had the procedure explained and was told it wasn’t strictly necessary, but in the case of my first child I had what the tech thought was placenta pravia - she still asked me if I wanted it!
They are not pleasant. I personally find pap smears LESS pleasant, but I’ve only ever had these for medically necessary reasons, and I have no traumas or triggers associated with the procedure.
To ask a woman to have one as a matter of course when it’s not necessary? Is absolutely uncalled for and disgusting.
(via bex0rz)
