Next Dinner, We're Sticking to Sex

I’m all about inappropriate dinner conversations-sex, nudity, foul jokes….but when a guest at my Rosh Hashanah table started going on about the importance of looking in the mirror at child birth- that’s where I draw the line.

It all started innocently enough: my daughter’s 2nd birthday was on Sunday and we were all saying how we couldn’t believe she was turning 2 already. I then of course felt the need to tell my Sure-To-Be-World-Famous-One-Day birth story. It’s all very dramatic- water broke 5 weeks early, husband out of town, everyone I knew was either drunk or unreachable….yada yada random neighbor lady takes me to the hospital….yada yada husband counts down pushes on speaker phone as he runs up to the hospital door to make it in the nick of time for her birth. You can get the full story when you come for Shabbos one day-but I digress.

I mentioned that even though the whole day was probably one of the best in my life, I found it awkward that the random neighbor lady always enjoyed being front and center to my hoo ha when the doctors came in to check my progress.

“Well you can’t blame her, surely you wanted to witness your progress.”

“No” I said.

“But didn’t you look at yourself in the mirror as you were pushing?”

“No” I said.

“Witnessing the miracle of life is one of the most beautiful things in this world! Why would you miss that? You are only going to have your first child once! What’s wrong with you? How could you miss out on that? How could you not want to see it?”

“How about those Red Sox?” I said.

I am nothing if not a good hostess and to bitch slap that woman at my table would have been rude.

I saw about 100 videos of a woman giving birth; that was good enough. I’m sure my daughter looked sort of the same as she made her grand entrance-but OBVIOUSLY my cooter was faaaaaaaaaaar more attractive and less yucky. And I’m sure the 32 minutes of pregnant pilates I did in the course of my entire pregnancy ensured my thighs didn’t hang over the edge of the bed like Video Woman’s. Surely not.

Having a baby is giving all of you to another person. You relinquish control of every ounce of yourself for the well being of something you can’t even begin to imagine how much you will love…..how much you will grow to love. THAT is a gift from God. The healthy baby that emerged, THAT is a miracle. I don’t think it’s necessary to see my china stretched to its limits to experience the “miracle of life.” Heck, I experience it every day when I kiss her. When I watch her grow. When I laugh and sing and play with her. When she calls me Mommy.

If you want to see it, wonderful, more power to you. Just don’t feel like you have to because it’s the cool thing to do. I’m sure many people think it’s fantastic, but I’m fine drinking milk without seeing it squirt out of the udder. When you have a baby there are miracles every day you get to enjoy. You can avoid the R rated one if you want.