This Will Only Hurt For A Moment The clamp is cold and feels like two ice cream scoops that have just been removed from the freezer. I’m sitting on a paper-lined chair with my feet in stirrups, drowning in fear and anxiety. My body is cold beneath the pink paper gown, but my hands are clammy with sweat. I’m a living, breathing conundrum. Dr. Fields walks in resembling a coal miner with a clear, plastic shield over his eyes and a flashlight wrapped tightly around his forehead as he preps himself for battle with my cervix. If I wasn’t so scared I would tell him how ridiculous he looks. He turns on a buzzing machine (called a cryoprobe) that looks like a spinning toothbrush and inserts it between the pathway provided by the clamp. As the smell of sanitizer and burning tissue fill my nostrils, I hear him say, “Try and relax, Kristin. This will only hurt for a moment.” Easy for you to say, Doc. After what seemed like hours, Dr. Fields decided to give me what he called “a break.” Although his definition of what that means is questionable. For 5 minutes, I laid there with a cold, metal clamp holding open my empty body. For 5 minutes, I had to fight back my body’s natural reaction to push the clamp out. Those 5 minutes I spent fidgeting with my silver bracelet and digging my nails into the palms of my hands were no break at all. They were 5 long minutes of excruciatingly loud silence. Dr. Fields walked right back into the room and continued the battle. To think that things had come to this after a simple yearly exam just a few weeks ago is unfathomable. I’d gone a year without experiencing a period. I was excited at the thought of not having to endure the monthly inconvenience that comes along with being a woman. I mean, who actually wants the mood swings, the cramps, the emotional ridiculousness of crying at the silliest of commercials, or having to take stock of feminine products all the time? Not me! I enjoyed the lack of inconvenient womanhood until I had a routine check-up and was put on birth control pills to help regulate me. After a year of taking birth control and a year with a regulated cycle, I received a phone call from my doctor’s office and heard the dreaded words: “Hello, Ms. Trujillo. We’re calling from the office of Dr. Fields about your recent examination. It seems there were some . . . issues with the results that he’d like to discuss with you in person.” Dr. Fields was a gentle giant. He was African American and had the flawless combination of salt and pepper hair. He was about 6’4” with a pudgy belly and large hands that always seemed perfectly moisturized. He was always straight to the point, but had a softness to his voice that was never condescending or unfeeling. After receiving the phone call about there being issues with the results of my pap smear, I couldn’t help but picture him as a villain who has come to knock me down a few notches on the scale of positive outlook. I scheduled the appointment and shifted nervously in the examination room waiting to hear what “issues” were found in my results. According to Dr. Fields, they found precancerous cells on my cervix that needed to be removed via cervical cryosurgery. This meant that he would have to insert a cryoprobe into my vagina and freeze the cervical tissue using compressed nitrogen gas. As if that wasn’t scary enough to hear, I might also have trouble getting pregnant if I ever attempted it on my own—which meant I would need fertility drugs for assistance. I’d never experienced anything like this before so, at 20 years old, I had no idea what questions to ask. I watched Dr. Field’s lips move, and I’m sure he was saying something important, but I just couldn’t process any more of the information he was offering. I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry at the thought of having my right to carry a child erased from my list of options for the future. So here I sit, on the paper lined chair in Dr. Fields’ office as he attempts to rid me of these precancerous cells while I spin my bracelet around my wrist as a distraction. Why is this happening to me? Does this really mean I won’t be able to have my own children someday? Does it make me less of a woman because I’m not working properly? What did I do wrong to deserve this? These are the questions I’m trying to avoid concentrating on as the buzzing from the cryoprobe fills the silence. I felt defeated when I left the office. My body felt violated and my ego was bruised. But more importantly, one question remained in my mind . . . Do I even want my own children? That one question gave me the feeling of immense guilt that I couldn’t seem to shake. I think about all of the women in the world who desperately want to start a family, but lack the capability to do so. I think about the women who, like me, have to endure this uncomfortable procedure in order to prevent threats like cervical cancer. I think about the women who are told that they actually have cervical cancer. I think about what I might have done wrong in my life to make me feel like my body was broken. Like my body doesn’t work properly—the way a woman’s body should. When someone tells you that your right to bear a child might be compromised, it really sends you into a whirlwind of emotions. Here I was, only 20 years old, having to contemplate this existential crisis without even knowing what I want to eat for dinner that night. I was forced to put myself in this headspace where I knew for a fact that my reproduction system rejected me completely, and that I would never be able to get pregnant. So, when my brother told me his girlfriend was pregnant just two months later, I promised myself that I would experience all that I could experience with my future niece or nephew that I wouldn’t be able to experience with my own child. When my niece, Briana, was born I felt an instant motherly bond with her. I changed her diapers, gave her baths, fed her, turned down nights out with my friends so that I could stay home and marvel at this beautiful little creature. I remember looking at her rosy cheeks and thinking about how impossible it was to measure my love for her. It was something I always heard new parents say about their children when they were born, but always thought they were exaggerating. Here I was, this broken shell of a woman, (possibly) unable to carry a child of her own, but still carrying that motherly instinct. BIO: Kristin spends her time perfecting the art of sarcasm, binge-watching and concert-going. She is a published poet with a BA in English | Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida. Her passions include reading, writing, music and pop culture. When she’s not living in the pages of books or spending time with her niece, you can find her reviewing TV shows, music and movies on her blog, According to Kristin.
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