An event...

Not one book! Not one book in this doctor's surgery! They should be reported to the medical board for this. And the TV channel is in Zulu. I speak English and some kitchen Zulu. What's kitchen Zulu? You put the word "lor" in front of every English noun. Like, "Caroline, please eat lor food in lor pot in lor fridge!" Aside from medical treatment, everybody is well aware that you expect magazines, both old and new, in a pile in the corner of the waiting area! Some even turn their backs slowly towards the reception area, roll them up and slip it into their bags because there is a weightloss article or a puzzle that they just won't leave without or they try to tear out those particular pages, as noise-lessly as possible. It would go like this...COUGHtear, COUGHtear, COUGHtear! And the reason I'm here is because my son is not well.

And now we've just come out from seeing the doctor but for the first time at the doctors', he took an injection and he took it...like a BOSS! Me? I'd swallow 57 tablets and an olive, three times a day before I volunteer for one of those. Yesss, I've had injections in my time. Twice, not counting when blood is being drawn or at the dentist when then too, he has to rub on numbing gel first. No wonder Geese calls me a chicken! Those two particular times were in the midst of childbirth. Quick ones in the thigh. At that point, I'm like "You know what? That needle doesn't scare me. Run on my chest with studded football boots, hang me by my toenails for all I care? Inject every hair follicle on my left side, just...do it! I'm busy with more PRESSING issues right now."

Childbirth is both amazing and terrifying, specially with your second child. The chilling memories of Childbirth, The First Edition, comes flooding back! But the most extra-ordinary thing about it, for me? It's that, THAT PAIN! The excruciating pain of contractions where it's like a fist inside your body that's gripped your insides, and is just twisting them at eventual two minute intervals? Our body's are such marvelous creations, the way they just know how to dilate like that, so cute, and part the insides of your body like Moses did with the Red Sea...Wow! I was impatient though, for my second birth, "Did you say? 9cm's? Good enough for me! I saw the scan, his head wasn't THAT big!" But what amazes me about childbirth and that pain that causes some women to do grevious bodily harm to the doctor as if he put them in that situation? Is that, once your baby's born? It's gone. It's gone and forgotten and all you're thinking about is, which of your baby's facial features come from whose side of the family, while you settle him/her on your chest and start cold shivering and quivering from the fact that someone is no longer living inside your body, and stealing your calcium and ability to turn over in bed...well before the sun rises, that is.

What would it be like if childbirth wasn't an EVENT?! At the beach in your two-piece preggy bikini, enjoying the waves in the ocean and as you walk out, without the bottom on, you turn around and see your baby holding it up screaming..."I'm here! I'm here!" Or you'd be walking in the mall, and DOOF! Out drops the baby, you'd know all's well coz it would be screaming blue murder that you didn't even have the decency to hold it close and warm before you non-chalantly dropped it on its head! You might be waving me off with the back of your hand like, "oh please, that could never happen..." But imagine that? If we never had the signals we have today? Then you come up with better scenario's then, if you wanna shoot down everything I'm saying!

Maybe Eve had a plan afterall? To make childbirth an unforgettable experience! And it is, so very unforgettable. It's painful, but it's a beautiful pain...so give birth gracefully, don't have that buck-wild, crazed look on your face while you're holding the doctors head in a vice-grip with your ankles, yelling, "Get this thing out of me!" That's certainly not Rambling Responsibly...and definitely not the first vision your baby should see of his/her mother.

But most of all, be 100 percent sure that you're ready to have that baby, and that you're having it with a man who will take the time to be both a father and a dad. And if you're a man reading this? The world expects you to make that same careful choice about the woman you've decided to impregnate!
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