Tag Archives: birthing

I’m a planner

Later I plan to be very drunk.

Last night I shared a bed with a seven-year-old, a la Michael Jackson. Or not. But someone decided sleeping on the floor in a Disney Princess sleeping bag is scary, and our creepy old house is, well, creepy. Just because bats sometimes roost in the rafters, and the place is haunted. So we watched the bonus DVD of The Incredibles approximately twelve times until the whimpering stopped. For once, I’m not talking about Mr. H. His niece and nephew were over for a sleepover as part of a long-promised birthday gift for his brother. The rightful parents managed to sleep until 8:30 this morning, which is about two hours better than I did. Urchins! I mean choir of angels.

I’ve been thinking about children a lot since a close friend is soon to deliver (a human baby). I am reading a book called The Birth Partner in preparation for the big event. So far, reading has consisted of opening the book to an illustration and yelling “euuuuaaghhhh!” and then making Mr. H look at it. I think I’m supposed to be there to keep my friend from punching someone. Every time I see her, I stifle the urge to shriek “Boil some water!” or “I don’t know nuthin’ about birthin’ no babies!” But I keep it together because I know she’d hit me. And she’d have the right to give it back even worse some day. Perhaps when I’m sitting in the V.I.P. lounge at the airport, sipping a drink while my purchased child is trundled off the plane on the luggage conveyer. Oh. You say they let children fly in the main cabin these days? I wouldn’t know; I am always schnockered on tranquilizers during flights.

Oh, but I jest. Someday we may inadvertently create life. Scratch that, I am going to get so, so pregnant! Probably while drunk. I can’t wait to lie to a child of my own. I told li’l nephew to concentrate on turning on the DVD player with the power of his mind while Mr. H used the power of the remote to turn it on, and the kid totally bought it. Later, a woodchuck came up to the deck door. Nephew screeched “What’s THAT!” The animal released his bowels and ran off, and we told the lad it was a river chipmunk.

And this concludes another episode of Bad Idea Theatre.

Domestic Blitz

I am going to take a moment out of my busy Betty Lunchbucket schedule to tell you how much I hate TV birth shows. Not to mention average Amerikan expectations of birth in general. That should be enough to ensure that most of you stop reading right there. Meow meow meow meow….pushing the limits of Vomitola. First mormon slander, now afterbirth!

As I was busily folding laundry, I flipped to TLC hoping to find someone with bad hair to mock. Instead, a hapless woman was wincing and grunting flat on her back in a hospital bed, pumped up with labor-causing drugs. The doctor came in, inserted an entire arm, and tut-tutted because the woman’s failsafe valve hadn’t managed to open up any further since the last time she was checked, a whole hour before. They’d been at this entire process for about eight hours, since they started the labor induction that morning. So off she went for a c-section! I guess if your child doesn’t fly out of you like a hot buttered football in the first hour, you are just shit out of luck. There was no apparent distress for the baby; it seemed like the doctor just wanted to get the show on the road.

I find my latent hippy dippy side coming out like nobody’s business as I contemplate the terrifying abyss of future parenthood. I’m still not totally sure what I want to do, or when, but I am pretty sure I don’t want “it” as seen on TV. Until recently I always thought I’d want to be drugged out of my gourd if I had the misfortune to whelp anything. That philosophy (of staying drugged out of my gourd) has served me well up until now, so why mess with it? But I remember seeing my mother have my sister, so I know a natural childbirth is possible, with no screaming or flailing even. Of course I flip hurriedly past those photos in the ol’ family album. The first time Mr. H met the parents, we both stared at the first page, puzzled, until I realized what we were observing.

Basically I just don’t like being told what to do. Damn it.

-xxoo