Recent discussions about baby-proofing our future have caused me to reflect on and rant about the lack of physical contribution that the male body makes when it comes to reproductive matters (despite the rather essential  tadpole offering that facilitates baby-making). It’s not their fault, but someone has to be held accountable.

We (women, that is – I am assuming that the majority of you are female) assume at least part of, sometimes sole, responsibility for contraception, before we succumb to ‘instincts’ (or insanity). We ride the waves of nausea, dizziness and erractic eating during pregnancy. We lug a bowling ball on our front (and around our sides if the ball is female….kidding) and then pass this ball through our most delicate orifice in the most primal and undignifying way. We donate our breasts to milk production, inflamed and infected ducts, stretching and then drooping. And then we start back at artificial hormones.

The men? The only transformation that their bodies undergo around the years of reproduction is the loss of some strands of hair, the greying of others and a little more spread around the gut. So, can we return to sender? Or do we just need to accept that women have been chosen for these roles because we are simply braver, stronger and, well, more superior?

We recently welcomed the newest member of our extended family into the world. He is gorgeous and squeaks like a little bird. Only a week old, he sleeps, feeds and squirts. He is oh so cuddly and has major potential to wreak havoc on women who are prone to the clucks.

Mother nature cannot be trusted. She has ulterior motives – namely, to expand the population. She brings these adorable little people into the world, complete with something (yet to be discovered) that sends pulses of motherly urges into unsuspecting minds. Before we know it, we are growing feathers and pecking at bugs. Memories of sickly or immobile pregnancies - wiped. Vivid recollections of labour and birth – majorly suppressed (to suggest that this could be erased would be a lie). The teary fog of sleeplessness – forgotten. The challenges of toddlerhood – tucked away in an awkward little corner of your mind.

If you’re not on guard, these impulses of the clucks can grab hold and turn into temporary insanity, during which you begin to seriously consider donating your body, your mind, emotions and hip pocket to another being. True stuff.

The thing is, these little cuddly squeakers grow, change and become real people with needs and impulses of their own. Unlike dogs they cannot be motivated or rewarded with cardboard-like snacks, locked up, kept on a leash or micro-chipped. They won’t be obedient just because you are their master, and they can’t be de-sexed. Kids can’t be booked into the Kennels when the travel bug bites, and the consequences of poor training are a little more significant than torn cushions and puddles on the carpet.

A dog is for life and so is a kid. So to all those ladies of child bearing age, BE ON GUARD (and consider getting a dog). Mother nature is after you.

Oh, and for those who may be wondering if the clucks have got me yet? NO CHANCE! I purchased an all-weather, cluck-resistant suit of armor that has a lifetime guarantee.

• anal
• probe
• rotating
• balloon
• electric shocks
• gloved, lubricated fingers of a stranger

I should say that the main reason for the above was my aforementioned flatal incontinence. Now, there’s dignity!

There can’t be a worse job in the world than that of a…actually, I’m not entirely sure what his title was…but someone who sticks objects and fingers in the back passage of others. There can be nothing enjoyable or rewarding about that, for either party. But that was his job and, unfortunately, I was the subject, I mean patient, beamed up for an examination, some probing and NO memory erasing! The least they could have done was to knock me out!

My preparation for this ‘experience’ was both good and bad. The anxiety around having someone poke things in that area on a background of constipation was enough to convince my lazy digestive system to fire on all cylinders this morning. Phew. But my psychological preparation left a little to be desired. I was kindly invited into the room before I had even had a chance to sit down in the waiting area, and to feed my baby (I had planned it all perfectly…arrive early, feed the baby and then leave him with his daddy, happy and satisfied..they were running early and my plan vanished, leaving me with full breasts and my husband with a hungry baby). To be honest, I’m not sure how one would mentally prepare for such an experience…

The ins and outs of it, I shall spare you (the list above should give you some idea of what went on, and leave you begging for a mind eraser). Plus, I may be punished by the little green men if I give away the secrets of my alien encounter. Let’s just add a list of thoughts and feelings, in chronological order:

• awkward
• embarrassed
• uncomfortable
• are you serious?
• surely not…
• oh, for god’s sake!
• quick, find a happy place!
• wrong, so wrong
• please let me go now
• resignation
• realisation
• violated
• upset
• embarrassed
• awkward

Birthing has been described as empowering, beautiful, miraculous. But the post-birth consequences? Oh, the indignities.

This is a two-part post, based on two recent events in my undignified post-birth existence. Two-part because there’s just so much to cram in and I didn’t think it fair to condense the content so heavily that you miss out on the details… upon reading, you may disagree, and scrub your eyeballs so hard that your vision goes all scratchy. But it’ll be too late. The words will have imprinted in your brain. Hence the warning.

But with parenting comes such topics and issues, and so, in writing as honestly as I can, it would be remiss of me to exclude them. We’re all here for truths, yes? And perhaps a little entertainment along the way. So here goes (navigate away from this page NOW if you meet any of the above criteria).

Okay, a little game that involves some imagination. Below is a list of words and phrases. Your job is to ‘Name That Scenario’ !!

• gloves
• blue paper towel
• swab
• cold gel
• speculum
• cervix

Pretty straight forward, yes? Now let’s add few more phrases to cement the scenario for you and really drive home the indignity:

• stress incontinence (urinary)
• ‘have a little cough’
• flatal incontinence (gas that won’t stay in…)
• ‘open your legs and relax’
• fermented apple

All true, I’m afraid.  There can be no good outcome when the above words and phrases are combined in a pokey office with poor ventilation, bar a grate in the door for dignity to escape through. It turns out that giving birth – sharing your privates in a not so private way with people who hardly know you – is not the end of it. And it seems that being in your twenties is no ticket out of the sufferance of indignities that you may believe you’re entitled to with your youthful body. No, no, no…

Enough said for now. More in Part 2. Sweet dreams.

Anyhoo. Watching the second last episode, which followed the stories of two babies who needed intensive care, had me holding my breath,  feeling depressed and counting my lucky stars. How absolutely unbelievable is it that my babies were born with no assistance and with no major health problems? How unbelievable is it that conception occurs in the first place and that a foetus develops inside a uterus?

For all the complaining that I have done and will continue to do about my little ones, I still marvel at their existence. 10 fingers (though their fingernails are often way too long and black with dirt..and possibly poo), 10 toes, eyes (that choose not to see their own mess or obstacles in their path), ears (that hear only the words ‘eat’ and ‘playground’ and ‘Uno’) and hearts that tick.

When the going gets tough and I want to get going (on that train away from parenting and to a serene place that doesn’t exist) it helps to be reminded of just how lucky I am.

As if we weren’t already bombarded with ludicrous expectations from every angle about what we and our babies should be doing, Dr Phil has introduced us to his first grandchild. She is perfect (their words, not mine) – alert, ‘very intelligent’ (note, at the time of filming she was 4 weeks old!), never cries and falls asleep peacefully as soon as she is swaddled. But let me step back a little to the (filmed) labour and birth.

The daughter-in-law new mummy is stunning. You know, long blond hair that shines like satin, tanned skin, straight white teeth, large breasts, dainty nose and a make-up job that ought to have taken a good half day to slap on. This is how she looked during contractions. The labour was 30 hours apparently but you see no sweat and hear no cursing or animal noises. And either she had an epidural or she was knocked over the head, because the pushing part that usually elicits some shattering screams or grunting groans, was all calm, quiet and effortless. ‘The birth was amazing!’ Nice one.

So let’s re-cap what we’ve learnt from today’s episode:

1. Pregnancy is no excuse for looking anything other than perfectly manicured.

2. Labour is no excuse for looking anything other than perfectly manicured.

3. Giving birth is an ‘amazing’ experience. It is calm, quiet and pain-free.

4. Having given birth is no excuse for looking anything other than perfectly manicured.

5. Babies are calm, quiet and pain-free. So are new mothers.

Okay, all clear? There should be no doubt left in any woman’s mind now that WE ARE ALL HIDEOUS, LAZY, CRAZY CREATURES WHO NOW NEED THERAPY!! Anyone have Dr Phil’s contact details?

The uterus is supposed to keep contracting after the delivery, to help get rid of the big meat patty (placenta) that has been sustaining life in the womb, and to clean itself out. Mine did for a while, but then got lazy, deciding that it had really outdone itself with the efficiency of the birth. So I bled and bled and had innards exiting with a plop until a doctor (I had been managed by midwives all the way through and didn’t intend to ever liaise with a doctor) declared that she had to get a clot out here and now or I would be taken upstairs to have it done under general  anaesthetic. She then demanded that the midwife give me gas because ‘this is going to hurt’. Now I was in no state to either think clearly or assert myself, and hearing ‘general anaesthetic’ was enough to make me agree to anything else. So I sucked on this gas. Never again.

If the process of labour and birth itself is not sufficient to induce crazy emotional states, then the gas will do it. As I inhaled deeply, at the instruction of those who know better, I began to feel completely out of control and unable to control anything going on around me. Then the tears began. Floods of tears and howling that belonged to the grief associated with the loss of a loved one. On and on it went and the worst of it was that the gas didn’t even touch the pain. Amidst the chaos I heard the doctor reassure my husband that I hadn’t lost my mind – it was an effect of the gas. I hate to think about the look on his face that invited that explanation.

To add insult to injury, I then had tubes inserted – one to replace lost fluids and the other to drain fluid (I think you know what I’m talking about…). It must have been decided that I had not endured quite enough discomfort, because on insertion of the drip in my wrist, the doctor literally struck a nerve, and still, more than two weeks down the track I have a slightly numb and painful index finger.

Another downfall of rapid delivery is the effect on a certain set of muscles that I, before getting pregnant and giving birth, took for granted. They play the most important role in maintaining dignity during such tasks as laughing, coughing, sneezing, lifting and sometimes simply standing up. ‘I think those muscles are in shock,’ one midwife suggested when I told her my tale of ‘escapes’ and ‘floods’. In shock because of how quickly a 3.6kg person had emerged through the tunnel. ‘Obliterated’ is the phrase I would use. But I refuse to believe that this is life now, in my late 20’s with a fear of spontaneous and reflexive activities, and I was furious at a suggestion from my younger sister that she buy me some Poise – ‘Don’t you dare.’

So, was it good to have it over and done with, in three hours? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

There were rumblings for a few days prior. Niggles and small leakages (that I now recognise as trickles of amniotic fluid, rather than incontinence – yep, I know the difference now, but let’s save that sad tale for later). Signs, perhaps, that my body was preparing itself for round two in the battle of birth. But despite getting desperate to ‘pop’, to bend over again, cuddle my husband close and run after my little man, there lingered denial that the time would ever actually come.

In the darkness of night I awoke to period pains and wet undies. I grunted out of bed and waddled onto the cold tiles towards the bathroom, clean knickers in hand, feeling more put out about having to leave the warmth of my bed, than the wet undies situation. The plan was simple – empty my bladder and the pain would go away. It didn’t. I tried to maintain a sleepy state of oblivion as I peeled back the doona and crawled back  into bed – the cramping would go away, it did last time.  I’d just try to go back to sleep until  our 4 year old alarm clock thumped into the room with declarations about the arrival of morning. Turns out it wasn’t that easy to simply roll over and resume slumber and so I wriggled and moaned quietly until my husband grumbled, “What are you doing?” “It hurts,” I offered as an explanation. We checked the clock, because maybe that held the answer to a) what was really going on and b) what we should do about it. It was 1:30 and although it makes no sense now, the fact that it was the middle of the night was confirmation for me that this was it, game on.

At this stage, being a List person had its advantages. Needing some distraction and purpose I plucked the ‘Hospital Bag’ list from the fridge and set about collecting the items, gently (of course) guiding my husband to the ‘Callum Hospital Bag’ list. It didn’t take as long as I’d hoped and I was left pacing between the bathroom and the bedroom, back and forth, not sure what to do with my contracting self. I finally found my rhythm and The Zone (a special place that I found during my first experience of labour; an intense, focused, don’t-mess-with-me  state) doing a circuit of the house, gripping a cooling wheat bag to my tummy.  From The Zone, all things must be in place. Things that would usually irritate me become Big Issues, and so seeing my husband stand still, not actively doing anything, made my eyes widen and my respiration rate double. God dammit, this was no time for idling! ‘Call Mum’, I growled. At this point he did something that no partner of a labouring woman should do – complain. Apparently I had sounded snappy and rude and he had taken offense. Fortunately for him I was deeply enough within The Zone that starting an argument was not on the agenda. ‘Just do it.’ I heard bits and pieces of this conversation as I passed him in the corridor, and was convinced by the lack urgency that they would start discussing the weather next. I picked up the pace and gripped the wheat bag with white knuckles.

The wait for her knock on the door took an eternity, as I did laps of the house like a person with dementia who paces the corridors of a facility, not really understanding why, but knowing that stopping was simply not an option. I cursed as silently as I could, trying to remain aware of the young ears in the bedroom next to ours and the fact that there was plenty of time for blasphemy once we reached the hospital. Meanwhile my husband called the hospital and, based on his estimates of the timing and strength of my contractions, was encouraged to stay at home a bit longer. But as soon as the front door clicked shut and our son was whisked into the dark night, I asserted that we must go, now! The car trip was awkwardly quiet as the contractions slowed and we both sat wondering if this was indeed a false alarm (because that would just be so inconvenient and embarrassing, and what worse time to be exposed as a drama queen?). Turns out it was no false alarm and within an hour of buzzing ourselves through the doors of the maternity unit, our son was born. “Gee, I’m glad you didn’t listen to me when I told you to stay at home a bit longer,” our midwife offered when all was done.   Me too!