Last year, I had my first ever gyn exam and the doctor was not able to do an exam because I have a microimperforate hymen, so my vaginal opening is completely covered except for a tiny hole that can accommodate only a q tip.
This year, I started seeing a primary care doctor. He decided to schedule me for a pap smear since I had never had one before, and my husband who was in the room at the time said "I don't think you'll be able to do that." We decided to schedule one with the female nurse practitioner anyway, and they said they'd be able to see what was going on.
A week later my husband went with me to the appointment. The nurse called me back and led me into an exam room. She asked me a few questions, took my blood pressure, and told me to undress and put on a gown open to the front and a sheet to cover my legs. Both were cloth. My husband stood in front of the door while I changed, and we could see the speculum and the other pap smear supplies laying on the counter to the side of the room.
The NP came in with the nurse, shook my hand, put on her gloves, and almost feel over as she sat on the rolling stool. She started by listening to my heart and lungs, and I explained to her that I couldn't use tampons, couldn't have intercourse, and that she probably wouldn't be able to complete the pap smear. She pulled the stirrups out and used her hands to guide my heels into them one at a time. She told me to scoot down until I felt like I was going to fall off and to lay back. My husband moved from the chair right at the foot of the bed and came to stand by my side and to rub my shoulder. The NP said "spread your legs" and started examining me externally. She said, "looks good sis! you are completely normal" and my husband said "are you sure?"
The NP grabbed the speculum and started to insert it, and my husband said "make sure you go slow" knowing how sensitive I was. It was a plastic speculum with a light inserted at the bottom. When the speculum hit my hymen, I spoke up that it hurt, so the NP said "okay, let's see what's going on here." She removed the speculum and handed it to the nurse, and started to spread apart my labia with her hands to get a better look. She asked the nurse to remove the light from the speculum and to shine the light on me so she could see better.
The NP got up for a second and said that she was going to grab a cotton swab. She sat back down on the stool, touched the swab to my thigh, and said "I'm just going to use a swab to check it, okay sis?" She spread my labia with her hands again and used the swab to poke around at my hymen. She declared, "Wow! It seems like you don't have a vaginal opening" and then asked if it would be okay if she had another male doctor take a look. I said "that's fine" and she left the room to go get the male doctor while I remained laying there in the stirrups.
She shortly came back with the male doctor. Now it was me in the stirrups, my husband by my side, the nurse, the NP, and the male doctor. I sat up on my elbows to shake his hand, still in the stirrups, and he explained that my hymen probably hadn't fully developed. The NP, nurse, and male doctor all gathered at the end of the bed. The nurse held the speculum light on me, the NP sat down and told me to spread my legs again and used her hands to part my labia. The male doctor stood behind her and stared intently at what she was showing him.
She used the cotton swab and her fingers to poke around a bit more, and they told me they would refer me to a specialist to look at it and to schedule a surgery to have it fixed if I wanted. I decided to go ahead with seeing the specialist and schedule the surgery, and I will update how the appointment with the specialist went in another post.