Different Circles

Dr. Gloria Niven was in her early forties, a reasonably attractive brunette with a Minnesota accent. She was a graduate of the UC Davis School of Medicine with a residency in Obstetrics. She had a whiteboard in the reception area of her office that listed the number of babies she had delivered in her career and it was updated with each new delivery. As of this afternoon’s visit, that number was 1478 delivered, which was further categorized into natural births and caesarean section births. Those numbers stood at 1253 and 225 respectively. Jake and Laura were comforted by these numbers, but they were more comforted by Dr. Niven’s calm, cool, confident demeanor. They had complete confidence in her competency to see them through this pregnancy and birth process.

Laura was in one of the exam rooms now, undressed below the waist except for her socks and wearing a hospital gown over her maternity shirt. Her legs were up in stirrups and spread widely. Dr. Niven was standing between those legs, her gloved right hand up inside Laura’s vagina as far as it could go, only the thumb sticking out. Laura was wincing at the pressure.

Jake sat in a chair next to her, holding her hand, pondering the fact that when Celia put her hand up inside Laura’s body it was erotic, but when Dr. Niven did it, it was disturbing and stressful.

“Everything feels perfectly normal up there,” the doc said once her hand was removed. “The mucous plug is firm and fully intact, the cervix is tightly closed with zero percent effacement.”

“Good to know,” Laura said sourly as she removed her legs from the stirrups and let them close up again.

“Sorry,” Niven said with an understanding smile. “The pelvic exam is necessary, but uncomfortable. I’ve had two children myself, so I can relate.”

Laura nodded. “You have to do what you have to do,” she said. “We’re still on track then?”

“Everything looks good,” she said. “The baby is head down, just like she should be. She’ll start to drop down into your pelvis in the next few weeks. There is no glucose or ketones in your urine, so it looks like you won’t have to worry about gestational diabetes. If you were going to get it, you would have had it by this point.”

“That’s also good to know,” Laura said.

“I’d say that you can expect delivery on or about your due date,” Niven said. “Your pelvis seems big enough to accommodate the baby and her head is down and extremely unlikely to change orientation this late in the game. That means a vaginal delivery is extremely likely. Her heart rate is solid and she seems to be at the appropriate size for her gestational date. You may get that Thanksgiving baby after all, but it’s possible she may come a day or two after. It is a first pregnancy and first delivery, after all.”

Laura nodded. Jake nodded as well.

“Any questions?” Dr. Niven asked.

“Well ... yeah, a few,” Laura said. “We were wondering ... uh ... you know ... how long we could keep ... you know... doing it.”

“You mean sexual intercourse?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “And ... you know ... other things along that line.”

“Like oral sex?” she asked.

“Yes,” Laura said, blushing furiously. “Oral sex. We ... uh ... we like doing that.”

She nodded matter-of-factly, as if Laura had told her that she liked having a piece of toast in the morning. “Understandable,” she said. “I’m assuming you’re referring to Jake performing the act on you?”

“Yeah,” Jake said slowly. “That’s right.” And someone else performing it on her as well, he did not add.

“Well, with vaginal intercourse,” Niven said, “you can keep that up all the way until pretty much the end. Once the mucous plug comes out a few days before delivery, however, you probably should not ejaculate inside of her any more. There is a risk of infection at that point.”

“Uh ... okay,” Jake said. “No more after the mucous plug comes out.”

“As for oral sex, you can do that right up to the end if you wish,” she added, “but sometimes it’s not exactly aesthetically pleasing for the giving partner. Once the mucous plug is discharged, there tends to be a fairly steady leakage of mucous and a little blood from the uterus.”

“I see,” Jake said.

“It’s harmless to the giver of oral sex,” she quickly put in, “but most people, as I said, find it aesthetically unpleasing.”

“Okay then,” Jake said. “So, we should plan to stop when the mucous plug comes out.”

“Most people stop long before that,” she said. “Usually, it’s because the mother is uncomfortable in the late stage of pregnancy, but the flow of secretions is also a factor as well. There is an interesting school of thought about the female orgasm and the onset of labor, however.”

“Oh yeah?” Laura asked.

“It is thought—though not actually clinically proven because it is hard to do a proper study on something like this—that the oxytocin release that occurs during orgasm may be a trigger to start the labor process in motion.”