Not a Mother

I am not a mother.

Although I like babies & children a lot (in certain contexts and quantities), there is a lot about childrearing and, more specifically, childbearing, that I do not know.

The joy (and sometimes doom) of having friends who are married and/or mothers means that sometimes I get to learn things I just didn't need to know.

And then I blog about them.

So if you don't need to know things about childbearing, I suggest you stop reading here.


Continue at your own risk. Content may be disturbing to some readers.


In the summer of 2008, my friend Vanessa was prego with her first baby. At the time, we were spending six weeks on a missions project in Calgary, and had lots of time to hang out and talk. I was there the first time she felt the baby kick. Sometimes we talked about the impending birth and the things she was learning about motherhood. One of the books she was reading was called something like The Mother of All Pregnancy Books or Things Your Mother Didn't Tell You...

She shared with me this anecdote from the book, and two and a half years later, I remember it almost verbatim -

You know, they say that when you give birth, you may experience a slight burning sensation...well, they lied. It's more like an ****ing blowtorch.

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Yesterday I attended a baby shower and the mom-to-be was telling us about pre-natal classes.

Fascinating stuff that you learn there.

For instance, there are four options when it comes to cutting the umbilical cord:

1. Clamp & cut it immediately.
2. Wait until it stops 'pulsing' then clamp & cut.
3. Wait until the placenta leaves the body, then clamp & cut.
4. Wait for the body to reject it naturally. This involves carrying the baby & umbilical cord around STILL ATTACHED TO THE PLACENTA for roughly a week.**

** another attendee at this shower works in genetics research that uses placentas, and described the smell of a week-old placenta in overwhelmingly negative ways.


There are also many things that you can do with the placenta.

1. Throw it away. Actually, they take it and incinerate it.
2. Bury it and plant a tree on the site. You know have placenta-pears in honour of your son's birth.
3. Keep it in a jar. Start teaching science & reproduction to your children at a young age. In their bedroom.
4. Eat it. Apparently this helps ward off post-partum depression. You can send it away to have it dehydrated and made into pills, or, if you like to do things yourself, just pop it into a tasty placenta lasagna.

Now that I'm done throwing up in my mouth, I am rethinking all the daydreams and glamour of having a baby.

I think TV and the movies have done us a stark dis-service in the way they've cleaned up childbirth. Women used to know what they were getting into - they would have seen & heard it, and probably helped a time or two. At least with animals, if not humans. Now...it's all a mystery.

And I'm being enlightened.

Sigh.

(for the record, I'm grateful that I have friends from whom I can learn these things sooner rather than later)