Photo courtesy of http://www.mommyish.com
Move over Miley Cyrus, your twerking and enthusiastic support of camel toe evening wear doesn’t quite cut it in the world of weird.
You might think you’ve cornered the bizarro market by donning nipple pasties and allowing a cowboy-monkey to ride you… but, ok, well, maybe I can’t top that.
I do have this thing though. It’s sort-of embarrassing (and yet I’m divulging it here, in the spirit of my IDGAF New Year’s resolution).
I’m a rampant consumer of birth stories. I am to birth stories what Joey “Jaws” Chestnut is to hotdogs. I can’t get enough.
While some people colour coordinate their pegs with their washing, iron their tea towels, stalk Lena Dunham on social media or watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with religious fervour – I listen to birth stories with unparalleled fascination.
Yep, somewhere in between the appearance of those two blue lines and my most recent midwife’s declaration that I had a “rich…errrm… well, generous, errrm…whopper” of a placenta, I realised I can’t get enough.
(I mean, who knew you could be introduced to your chubby little life-changer and simultaneously commended on your hefty placenta?)
Chances are if you’ve had kids, I’ve been considering your bits and wondering just exactly how it all went down.
Vag or caesarean? Was it a long birth? When did your waters break (if at all)? Did you have drugs? How were your contractions? Did your partner survive it without any broken limbs? Did your calm-birthing course work (or did you catch a bad case of filthy pirate mouth)? Are your lady parts intact?
So. Many. Questions.
If I’m being brutally honest friends, when I visited you and your gorgeous little bundle in hospital part of me just wanted to skip the newbie cuddles and vault into the nearest armchair for the complete birth run-down.
And the crazy thing is (assuming I haven’t quite hit my quota for crazy just yet) I don’t even care how it happened!
I’m not going to tsk tsk you if you opted to deliver via the sun roof or you ingested enough drugs to put Keith Richards to shame. It doesn’t matter to me whether you played Enya and chanted positive affirmations. Or if you told your partner EXACTLY where they could put that “calming” massage oil if they even so much as DARE lay a finger on your back again.
And so what if your vag is grazed? I’m feelin that wee-sting sister!
Maybe we had similar birthing adventures (in which case I’m likely to momentarily mummyjack the conversation to reminisce) or maybe your experience will teach me something new.
I’m almost certain there will be something hilarious to share (perhaps in hindsight) – like when my friend Googled “mucus plug” to be sure that’s what she lost, or when a wave of amniotic fluid soaked my husband in bed because he was too slow to heed my warnings.
Maybe you discovered after your drug-free birth that your husband popped half a Valium to take the edge off watching you in pain. Or maybe you were something of a novelty with the midwives after you gave birth on all fours. Whatever!
There’s no doubt giving birth is tiring, stressful, painful and sometimes shitty but it’s very rarely boring. And the best bit?
It’s the story of how you met someone who will change your life forever. That’s something that matters to me.
C’mon mummies and daddies, indulge my perverse obsession and share your birth stories here! Or the funny bits at the very least…
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