I just went to the dentist, after 2 and 1/2 years of not going. I refuse to go when I am pregnant and nursing, because I have to superdose with antibiotics an hour before because of my heart murmur. I don't like putting anything into my body like antibiotics unless it's absolutely necessary when there is a baby living off me. So, a lot of build up and things to be poked and prodded for an hour and a half--fun! I honestly stared at the ceiling, gripping my arms with my hands to avoid ripping her hands out of my mouth, and thought, which would I rather have at this moment? This dental cleaning or someone checking my cervix during labor? I thought long and hard about that. Dental work is a lot of scraping and swishing and feeling on edge because there are tiny metal tools ripping substances off your teeth. Getting an internal when you are pregnant, or a Pap no matter when, is uncomfortable as well. It was a huge shock to me when I learned without warning how they do an internal check of your cervix. I thought they just pulled the sheet up and looked and could see up there and tell how open it was. But that's only when the baby is crowning, and there was a huge dose of reality when I got checked when pregnant with Bubba. No baby crowning meant an internal, and I'll let those of you unfamiliar with it google it to see what I am alluding to here.

I think I decided that an internal was more preferable, because there usually weren't metal tools picking away during that. I would hate to have both at the same time for a complete comparison. "Miss, while we have you in the stirrups and you are having contractions, we are going to go ahead and do an internal exam, and the dental hygenist decided that since you are already in the prone position, she wants to look at how you clench your teeth and how that affects your gumline. Now, if you would just relax here and open there, nope, other way around now. Okay, good, just hold this tool in there by clenching....oops, wrong end, ha ha! That's right, excellent, no cavities and you are eight centimeters to a root canal, I mean, dialated."

Think of the time you'd save multi-tasking!