Thursday, November 02, 2006

Tender spot

A fellow blogger, of whom i am quite fond, had a baby a few days ago. Isn’t that the most exciting thing ever? Go and read all about it and tell her and her sweetie congratulations for her beautiful baby girl.

It reminded me of a visit by my OB-GYN to my hospital room about 18 hours after i had given birth to Em.

My holy temple of womanhood had been violated in OH SO MANY ways. I was stitched and stretched and if i had been brave enough to look i think i would have resembled raw meatloaf down there. Putting ice on my privates is something i normally avoid, but in this case, ice was my friend.

So i was sitting in my hospital bed, attempting to figure out how to hold this baby whilst she ate, with an ice pack on my nethers and diapers on both me and the baby. (Luckily for me, Em took one gander at my breasts and they were her friends. She knew exactly what to do, which just left me to figure out what to do with her body while it was attached to mine.)

My Dr. comes into the room and says something like “I need to talk to you about birth control.”

And i replied, in all seriousness, that it “was not a problem as nothing, NOTHING, was ever going to touch that part of my body again. Trust me, it’s a non-issue.”

She laughed like i was kidding, and said “In the unlikely event that you do ever have sex again, remember that breast feeding is not effective birth control.”

“Whatever,” i said.

I think maybe it was the wrong time to bring it up.

13 comments:

thailandchani said...

LOL!! I have never had a baby ~ and reading this confirms that my choice was the right one. Ice? There? No thank you, Ma'am!


Peace,

Thailand Gal
~*~*~

Anonymous said...

D'ya think?

This reminds me - I'm still mad because nobody talked to me about circumcision or not for my son. I've been thinking about posting that one, but, ugh, it requires research.

Nice new color.

karmic said...

Women are tougher then men in someways and that's for a good reason. Nice post and color. :)

Mignon said...

I remember that conversation! Although, at the time I thought maybe I had been slipped some kind of hallucinagen. I'm all, "Are you really asking me what I think you're asking me?" And where did that breast-feeding rumor ever start? With the Catholic pedagogy? SURE! IT WORKS! You'll NEVER get pregnant and populate the world with more Catholics THAT way!"

Marshamlow said...

I got the question too. A young friend of mine recently had a baby and when they asked her this question she felt violated. She feels she was harrassed, etc. I tried to explain that every doctor asks every woman this question, it is a rule or something, but she feels that her doctor was just plain evil for daring to ask. I think we all feel a little violated, perhaps they should ask the question at one of our appts. before the birth, before the ice and the stiches.

Chicky Chicky Baby said...

Raw meatloaf?

That's exactly the picture I had in my head after I had my baby. And I, too, was too afraid to look. I still am and my kid is 18 months old.

Antonia Cornwell said...

Thank you for sending all the good vibes over my way!

I want to say something compassionate like "I feel for your bits", but that just sounds awfully wrong. I hope you know what I mean. Even without stitches, I am still doing the John Wayne walk after going to the bathroom. Oof.

I had a nice team of people at the hospital on the whole, but there was one terrible midwife with a touch like cold metal fire tongs who would NOT stop with the internals even when I begged her to in tears. We were all so glad when her shift finished and I got a human being instead. It is violating, and it shouldn't be.

You're so lucky Em knew what to do with the boobs! We're getting there.

Girlplustwo said...

um, you think? i remember a similar conversation and something about a freaking immaculate conception. lovely congrats to your friend...

meno said...

thailand gal, i can tell you that IT HURTS. But you get over it.

de, so what happened? Did they just do it? Or not do it? Glad you like the color, i felt the need for something warm to cheer me up as it's freaking cold and rainy and dark here.

sanjay, you are a brave man for reading this. We are tough, but once that baby gets in there, you pretty much have to do what it takes to get it out. :) Glad you like the color.

mignon, a conspiracy theory! I'll believe pretty much anything of the Catholic Church. (Sorry if any of you are devout Catholics, but they have done some amazing stuff over the years.)

marsha, yeah, you'd think they could pick a different time to talk about sex than right after every person within the hospital has had their hand inside you.

mrs. chicky, There's just no need to ever look, it can't be the same.

ss, (sorry, the name is too long to type) I guess there must be some law. Also, you typically don't go see your OB-GYN until 6 weeks after birth. By then it could be too late. Think of Britney Spears.

antonia, you're welcome. If there's anyone who could understand what i'm talking about right now, it would be you. Glad you don't have stitches. They ITCH. Esme and you will figure out the boob thing. I liked breast feeding. It was sweet.

jen, yeah, wrong time!

urban-urchin said...

Yeah the stitches itch. Like hell. I got them twice. I know only too well how your private bits feel like ground beef. I ended up with Bladder infections after each birth which was an added bonus. Whee.

Mother of Invention said...

Having never had a baby I can't say that I know how you felt, but I do empathisize. I've had plenty of pain syndromes involving those parts!
Nice that you could nurse..my sister had inverted nipples and couldn't nurse her twins. She had to do the bottle things every 2 hours...and each twin was on the alternate hour!!!

Imez said...

Raw....hamburger.

Thank you.

Thank you so freaking much.

Due next month, by the by.

meno said...

u-u, yes, it's a humbling time all right.

MOI, twins? i guess you handle what you have to, but yikes!

ooooh, sorry es, But you know what? You will be fine. It's all temporary. I was up and doing a short hike 3 days after i left the hospital. And the parts have healed, and they do all the same things they used to. :)