Julep: Well, that was awkward.

And painful, and humiliating, and unnecessary. In order, let me offer the following commentary to the doctor who performed the HSG:

Sir, I appreciate that you were trying to be cheery and jovial, but after finishing a procedure through which the young woman on the table has sobbed aloud in pain, perhaps it's not really appropriate to announce, "There, that wasn't so bad, now was it?" when snapping off your gloves. Actually, sir, it WAS so bad. It was pretty frickin' painful. You, sir, have neither uterus nor fallopian tubes. So I am pretty doggone sure that you have no idea what it felt like.

And did I mention humiliating? Sir, do you have any female colleagues? If so, please think hard about letting her do these procedures in the future. If not, please think hard about recruiting one. It's bad enough to be lying on one's back on a hospital table with one's feet in stirrups as someone threads a catheter up one's lady parts without some guy one's dad's age doing the threading.

And thanks for announcing breezily on your way out the door, "Your tubes are fully open, no blockages." Here's a little secret, sir: even before you did the test I was pretty sure that was the case. At least the nurse took a moment or two to tell me that sometimes the test has been known to clear obstructions that aren't visible to the X-ray, giving me some small bit of encouragement that this might have been something more than an exercise in wasted time and dignity for me and revenue generation for you.

I appreciate your attention.
Julep