Childbirth: Off the Record
On the record: Oh boy, I'm so excited to have this baby! Motherhood is delightful and the delivery will be worth it no matter what happens.
Off the record: Holy heffalumps, I'm about to deliver a stinkin' baby. This is going to hurt.
I wasn't scared the first time. I figured the thing would just come out. It had to, right?
Wrong. I spent four hours pushing trying to deliver Pixie. "Push," they told me. "You're almost there!" I just laughed derisively. Yeah, right. I thought. I'll "push" out a baby. Had these people ever taken an anatomy class? What total nonsense. Regardless, I pushed when they told me to and wasn't surprised when I'd made zero progress after more than two hours. I'm not sure how Pixie finally made it out, but it certainly wasn't any doing of mine. The kid probably just got sick of me and decided to blow the joint after seeing I wasn't going to be doing her any favors.
And now I have to go back and do it all again. This time I'm a bit wiser. I know when they say "push" what they really mean is, "make a silly face to take your mind off the excruciating pain that you're about to experience." When they say "you're almost there" what they really mean is, "my shift ends in five minutes, I'll tell you whatever you want to hear so you don't scream at me." When they offer me a cup of ice chips to ease my discomfort I can only think of Dumbo's Magic Feather. Childbirth is someone's sick inside joke - unfortunately, I'm on the outside.
The human body is a ridiculous thing. It has all kinds of extra accessories of no value at all. The pinky toe, the appendix, an entire extra kidney, but somehow we aren't equipped with a easy-seal Gladlock zipper across our fronts to take out our bowling ball headed babies. Our bodies couldn't be bothered with the trivial detail of propagation. Women are tough, we've made do with these shoddy accommodations, but at some point an official complaint needs to be lodged.
I keep giving people that stupid fake smile when they ask how I'm feeling. I cheerfully say, "I'm feeling great, can't wait to get the thing out." I'm pretty sure they aren't looking for my honest response of "Save me! Hide me! They're going to kill me!" Besides, you never know who's in on this childbirth conspiracy and I'd hate to make matters worse.
On the record: Childbirth is a magical blessing that women are privileged to endure. Men are really missing out on this amazing experience.
Off the record: Anyone know of a good sex-change doctor?
Off the record: Holy heffalumps, I'm about to deliver a stinkin' baby. This is going to hurt.
I wasn't scared the first time. I figured the thing would just come out. It had to, right?
Wrong. I spent four hours pushing trying to deliver Pixie. "Push," they told me. "You're almost there!" I just laughed derisively. Yeah, right. I thought. I'll "push" out a baby. Had these people ever taken an anatomy class? What total nonsense. Regardless, I pushed when they told me to and wasn't surprised when I'd made zero progress after more than two hours. I'm not sure how Pixie finally made it out, but it certainly wasn't any doing of mine. The kid probably just got sick of me and decided to blow the joint after seeing I wasn't going to be doing her any favors.
And now I have to go back and do it all again. This time I'm a bit wiser. I know when they say "push" what they really mean is, "make a silly face to take your mind off the excruciating pain that you're about to experience." When they say "you're almost there" what they really mean is, "my shift ends in five minutes, I'll tell you whatever you want to hear so you don't scream at me." When they offer me a cup of ice chips to ease my discomfort I can only think of Dumbo's Magic Feather. Childbirth is someone's sick inside joke - unfortunately, I'm on the outside.
The human body is a ridiculous thing. It has all kinds of extra accessories of no value at all. The pinky toe, the appendix, an entire extra kidney, but somehow we aren't equipped with a easy-seal Gladlock zipper across our fronts to take out our bowling ball headed babies. Our bodies couldn't be bothered with the trivial detail of propagation. Women are tough, we've made do with these shoddy accommodations, but at some point an official complaint needs to be lodged.
I keep giving people that stupid fake smile when they ask how I'm feeling. I cheerfully say, "I'm feeling great, can't wait to get the thing out." I'm pretty sure they aren't looking for my honest response of "Save me! Hide me! They're going to kill me!" Besides, you never know who's in on this childbirth conspiracy and I'd hate to make matters worse.
On the record: Childbirth is a magical blessing that women are privileged to endure. Men are really missing out on this amazing experience.
Off the record: Anyone know of a good sex-change doctor?
Comments
EPIDURAL!!!!!!!!
My wife still has some issues resulting from the birth of our first son. Both boys are doing well now and are our pride and joy. BTW, we don't have a girl yet so if you have another girl and you want to make a trade my youngest is only a year and a clean one-owner. No bad habits yet except he eats us out of house and home. At one year he is 32 inches long and 26 1/2 lbs.
Anywho, GOOD LUCK!! I truly hope all goes well.
Oh, this is my first comment but I often visit your hilarious blog.
Lug
Cruncha, 10 pounds is ridiculously big. My 7 pounder took 4 hours, I can't imagine what would happen if I had a 10er. Those are the kind of babies who give birth to YOU.
Thanks for coming out of the closet lug! Nothing like having a totally wretched birth story to get the people talking. I love the David Copperfield analogy - so sad, so true.
It makes me laugh when people "accidentally" get pregnant.
"So were you trying?"
"No."
"So were you taking birth control?"
"No."
I thought health class was mandatory these days...
In Summary:
Sorry to drop a depressing birthing post on everyone, but I'm sick, sick, sick of the happy face that childbirth gets when there are so many things that can go wrong. It's good to be optimistic, but let's be realistic here and be prepared for the crumminess of it all as well.
I guess starting the convo with "What have you been up to lately?" leaves it up to the pregnant responder.
I just want this kid out because I'm SICK of having to go to work everyday.
I like Carol Burnett's childbirth image: "take your bottom lip, and pull it over your head."
So looking forward to that. Good luck.
As you know: kids 2,3 and 4 were natural and awesome. I think perhaps you need a different midwife who doesn't tell you to push 3.5 hours too early. They didn't tell me to push until I could already see the little warm animals myself. Midwife just stood ready to splash us with olive oil so that my newbies smelled like a fresh little salad.
You'll do fine. No way will be hard as last time.
On the record: all 5 of my children were delivered *naturally*.
Off the record: Where birth is concerned, there is no such thing as natural. There is nothing natural about it. : O
Best of luck to you.