I spuddle.

I’m reading Heather Armstrong’s book, It sucked and then I cried. That’s the title of the book, the book itself doesn’t suck, or doesn’t suck so far. I can’t really judge it fairly as I’m only on about page 10 because for some reason every time I pick the book up, someone comes and throws themselves onto my lap with the force of a boulder falling from a cliff and puncturing the roof of your car, killing you instantly. A bit distracting, really. During the sixteen consecutive seconds I’m given to read at a stretch, I keep having one recurring thought: I have to blog about the clots even though it will likely cost me some of the fifty readers (or “relatives”, as you might call them) that actually read this blog on a daily basis, in spite of the fact I don’t post every day.

That’s right, it’s time to stop reading if you’re squeamish or pregnant or male or not interested in gross pregnancy facts or annoyed because you had a beautiful birth experience and you don’t want your beautiful experience polluted by my negative energy. And I liked having my babies. I did.* In spite of the pain and whatnot, I’d do it again. Maybe. Well, probably not. Actually never. Over my dead body.

See before you get pregnant, even if people do tell you horror stories about pregnancy, birth and newborns, you are biologically programmed to not hear them. And, let’s face it, other people’s stories are so far removed from you (i.e. not about you) that you may not listen too closely. And even if you do, you don’t apply their story to YOU. Why would you? That would be weird. None of it is about you. Until it is.

So without further ado, I give you the five most shocking things about pregnancy and childbirth that I’m pretty sure no one told me ahead of time, but perhaps should be used in public service announcements to deter some of the 20% of American girls recently surveyed who said they hoped to have a baby before high school graduation. Because nothing says “grad party” like staying home with an infant who is blowing chunks of half-digested breast milk all over the pyjamas you’ve been wearing for six weeks because nothing else fits you anymore and will likely never fit you ever again and who cares anyway because it’s clear that you will not be leaving the house in the near future. Obviously these kids missed the memo about how grad is about wearing a really pretty, overpriced dress and drinking so much that you throw up around 7 pm and pass out and miss the rest of the party you’ve been waiting your ENTIRE TEENAGE LIFE to experience.

I digressed again. This whole blog should be called “I digress” instead of “I spuddle” but I really really like the word “spuddle” even if it has been redefined to mean something pee-related on urbandictionary.com. Come to think of it, that still does accurately sum up my life. So fine.

Five things in no particular order.

1. After you have a baby, you are not finished passing things from your vagina. No one mentions how the placenta is ATTACHED TO YOU and then COMES OUT. Sometimes, as in my case, it needs to be pulled. Yes, pulled. You heard me right. No one mentions the part about how — you know when you cut yourself really badly you rush to ER and get stitches and that’s gross and painful but the worst part of the injury is the horrible pulling feeling of the stitches being sewn through your flesh? — when the placenta is yarded out of you, it’s like that feeling, only times one million. You are apparently supposed to be so caught up in the moment that you don’t notice, but I noticed and sometimes still throw up into the back of my mouth when I think about it or type lengthy paragraphs about it on my blog. What else they don’t mention is how horrifying it is to see one — yes, I know it’s natural, but “natural” does not mean beautiful, and I offer up my own face first thing in the morning as evidence of this — or how it looks like a ham or how your husband will never recover from the sight of it (although he will still list “ham” in his “top five foods ever” list). (I should be honest here and tell you that although I’ve had two kids, I never looked at the placenta myself. I was busy thinking about unicorns and rainbows and sparkly puppies and stuff.) (In other words: stoned.)

2. For days — DAYS! or even WEEKS! — after you have the baby, you will bleed. But it isn’t like bleeding as you would picture bleeding. It’s like your body stores up all the blood it wants to bleed and then delivers it in individual packages. According to the nurse, you are not to worry unless the clot is bigger than a grapefruit. As far as I’m concerned, if you are comparing a blob of blood that has been expelled from your body to any size or shape of fruit, you have a problem. The citrus-sized clotting alone is enough to make at least 5% of those American teens to re-think their wacky “baby before diploma” program.

3. Yes, labour hurts. Everyone knows that. We’ve all seen that movie with that Heigl girl and Seth Rogan. And certainly passing a baby from your body hurts. It really hurts. Think of things that have hurt you in the past and then laugh at them because that is what you will be doing when you enter into the World of Hurt that is childbirth. During this hurt, you will make sounds you didn’t think humans could make. But the reason you are making these sounds is because while you were well-versed on how labour hurt like “bad cramps” (HAHAHAHAHA), you were not advised about how the actual birthing process would feel like someone was burning your area with some kind of acid that they subsequently lit on fire and then pressed a branding iron on just for good measure. Nothing about that is related to these “bad cramps” they speak of, but it does bring up my next point. Which is tearing. I do not need to say more about tearing except to say that while this is often mentioned, it’s mostly just alluded to, much like I am doing right here. Think about what’s going to tear. THINK ABOUT IT. Here’s a tip: I found that by not pushing at all, and only pretending to push, there was none of that “tearing” because the baby came out her own way. I’m just saying. There is something to be said for ignoring all the people shouting at you to PUSH ALREADY. They are just in a hurry because they are missing American Idol or Lost or that infomercial for ShamWow and they are thinking only of themselves. As usual.

4. Drugs are good. This only makes the list because of all the hoopla about natural childbirth and the ridiculous societal pressure to give birth in a certain “right” way, thus engendering feelings of guilt about circumstances you have little control over (i.e. emergency C-sections) or circumstances you DO have control over but can’t choose because that makes you a Bad Mother (i.e. drugs). I cannot tell you how many people asked me after my son was born if his birth was “natural”. I didn’t even know what the hell they were talking about as I was still stoned for about three months afterwards so I just nodded and smiled serenely.

I had two kids. For the first I was so drugged up that when the whole thing was over, my eyes were facing in two different directions and I couldn’t feel my tongue. I liked it. Not the eye-thing, that was weird, but the hazy dream-like quality it gave to the room and the surroundings and the sense of alarm throughout when he was “stuck” and even that janitor who changed the clock. Now I remember it like it was sort of a black comedy that I happened to be starring in: it’s sort of funny, and kind of neat, and I’d watch it again if it was on cable. There is nothing wrong with that.

With my daughter, I apparently had already mostly birthed her before I began screaming for drugs which they refused to give me because it was “too late”. I tried to stop her egress for long enough for them to give me my fix, but no one wanted to play along. It did not feel like any more of a beautiful experience just because it hurt more, and feels less like a movie in memory and more like a really painful thing that I was forced to experience on a moment-by-moment basis.

Also while I was screaming “FUCK THE GODS!” or whatever, the nurse said, “She can hear you, you know!” This is important information for you because it may inform your decision about whether it’s OK after all to take drugs. Because maybe if I’d had more drugs, I wouldn’t have had to communicate so strongly with my poor, innocent half-born baby. (I’m sure that the fact her first words were also “FUCK THE GODS!” was just a coincidence, but I can’t be 100% certain.) Instead, I would have sung her “I am the eggman, you are the walrus” or something catchy by Abba. If she’s scarred for life, I blame the lack of drugs.

5. You will not sleep through the night again for years. This sounds like nothing in contrast to the clotting and pulling and screaming, but I’m telling you, it’s the part that those high school kids need to take careful note of, if they are still awake and reading this, that is. When you are in high school, statistically you sleep more than the rest of your life combined. These are your Sleep Years. You will ruin your life because all that sleep you are meant to get in adolescence, you will not get to experience. You will spend the rest of your life struggling to stay awake. It’s true. No one will deny this, unless they are the type who do not have a baby monitor and let the baby “cry it out” from birth onwards. I did not do this, and perhaps I’m overly involved in my kids’ night-time melodramas, but seriously: Sleeplessness makes you nuts. Oh! Also! I read that breastfeeding mothers often are in an “Alzheimer’s-like fugue” which is a nice medical-sounding term (and a really cool word, by the way) saying mothers don’t remember fuck all for the duration. And it’s not really because of the breastfeeding, it’s because of the SLEEPLESSNESS.

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Well, there you have it. As I wrote the list, I realized there were at least 4000 other things I could put on the list, but those were the top five that came to mind. Keep in mind I’m sleepless still, so therefore still in the fugue (holy jeebus, I love that word), and may have missed the most obvious points. I feel confident that if you read Heather Armstrong’s book, too, you will either be reminded of some of the things that coloured your beautiful birthing experience or she will outright tell you some of the Shocking Secret Facts of Childbirth that No One Will Ever Tell You. I look forward to reading it. Someday. If these kids would stop burying it in the sand or trying to eat it or jumping on it from a great height while I’m holding it over my face, resulting in me having to go to the ER to have stitches in my eye**. How gross would that be? NOT AS GROSS AS CHILDBIRTH, I CAN TELL YOU THAT.

*Honest to God though, that moment when the baby is finally extracted from your broken bleeding husk is actually the best thing a human can experience. I’m not kidding. It is. But that wouldn’t serve well in a PSA, would it? If I said that up front, no one would read or absorb the Gross Facts part and all those highschool kids would plunge ahead on their plan to Wreck Their Lives And Miss Finals Because You Can’t Study While You Are in Labour.

** Not that this has happened, I’m just forecasting a possible future if I continue down this dangerous path of “trying to read a book, fer cryin’ out loud.”

Filed under: Kids, Me, Myself and I