the miracle of...

Do you like the redecorating in here?!? Of course you do.

Now then. Since I have been boring you all senseless, I see no need to change tacks. Let's discuss a couple pregnancy/birth related articles I've read today. Easy one first. Apparently there's been some kind of backlash (in the media at least) about dads in the delivery room. Well, I'm sure I've told you all before about how I snapped at my ex during labor because he was rubbing my back the wrong way and I made the student nurse, who I'd bonded with immediately, take over "because she knows what she's doing." You people think I'm a bitch when I'm PMSing? You should see me in excruciating pain! But, yeah, I woulda probably wanted to have my mom with me if I'd had a choice. Of course, she was a super squeamish individual, so that would never have worked out. If my grandmother hadn't been 80 by then, she would have been perfect. She woulda made me feel better *and* she'd have known what's what. I dunno. I guess that giving birth felt like such a primal and womanly thing to me, I wanted other women around me, even if (like my little student nurse) they hadn't given birth themselves or even seen it. But I also know I'm an outlier. Many many women rhapsodize about having had their husbands or baby daddies in the delivery room. So, I guess what I'm saying in this: everyone should do what they want. Do what you do. Easy peasy.

Secondly, there's apparently an 18 year old woman in Australia (her first name is Ambah. Spelled like that, yes indeed. White trashery knows no international boundaries!) who, having given birth at the tender age of 16 or 17, has now borrowed $13,000 to get a boob lift, tummy tuck, and vaginal rejuvenation so her body will return to its former glory. I'm not exactly sure why this is a news story, as uncomfortable as it may be to contemplate, because she's a legal adult who can unwisely borrow all the money she wants and have all the elective surgery she can convince her (Malaysian) doctors to perform. But I guess it surprises me most because I was under the apparently sad misconception, based solely on the one data point of, y'know, *me*, that the younger you are when you give birth, the easier it is for your body to snap right back. I mean, I gave birth at 23, had my pregnancy weight melt right off me effortlessly as soon as I was done nursing, never got a stretch mark on my belly***, and while said belly wasn't ever quite as flat as it was prepregnancy, I didn't have any loose or hanging skin there. I thought this was all because I was in my peak physical condition then, but apparently I was just damn lucky. Huh. (Also someone had told me to rub vitamin E oil on my belly as it was expanding, and I think that works. If you get knocked up, do it too and report back, 'k?)

***My boobs are another story, having been stretch-marked from puberty and then again from birth control pills, breast feeding, weight gains and losses, etc etc from age 12 to the present. They are pretty atrocious, but I will say, only one guy I have ever slept with ever made a remark about them, so I think that worrying about your stretch marks is one of the ways chicks unnecessarily make themselves crazed. No one gives a fuck about them but you.

And don't get me started about vaginal rejuvenation, especially in an 18 year old who's had one kid. Do some fucking kegels and knock a few thousand bucks off the surgery bill. What a scam. Probably thought up by some plastic surgeon who wanted a new sailboat *and* had a small dick.

Okay. That's all I have to discuss about procreation today. So far.

xoxo