Flow

Cycle 6 of America’s Next Top Obscure Celebrity has begun! I wanted to watch the season premiere as it played because, as the only one in Canada still paying attention, I feel obliged to care a little. But then I skipped the first half because that’s when Tyra culls the uber-weak and I found I could only stomach half of the second half, mostly because of the whining and also because HOO BOY these girls are getting uglier! I kid you not, one of them looks like Flava Flav. Not Okay.

Oddly, I found myself drawn to all the blonde candidates, especially this one, named Joanie. It helps that she is a smart ass. Exception made for the Very Beautiful Nnenna, who will surely win, as the last cycle was won by a white girl. Please, this Cycle, let them do a tampon commercial task. Then I can stop watching!

Speaking of girl bits, yesterday we went to another prenatal group appointment. It was great. The other tall girl in the group has had her life changed by the addition of a body pillow and I intend to follow suit. Arranging 4 pillows around me, the catt and the babby, especially when I want to turn over at 3 am, is just too inconvenient. Hi! I live in an over-indulged consumerist society! Get me my body pillow!

At the clinic we watched a DVD called “The beauty of labour” or somesuch. It was awesome. It was like all the scenes they cut out of “A Baby Story.” There were all these real live women in labour and the camera and narrator followed them through all the stages, plus there was a little animated illustration of the uterus stuffed with baby, doing its contracting thing, and a cervix, effacing and dilating. Whee! Then, just when we were all like “yahoo, babies come out like in cartoons!” BAM they switch to the vagina-cam and there it is. A crowning baby head. And a giant, stretched out like a rubber band, closely shaved vagina. The room full of women with vaginas and uteruses full of babies all said, “uhhhhggggghhhhhhh.”

It was an interesting reaction. I didn’t “ugggh” because I don’t tend to exclaim things in group settings unless I’m drunk, but I didn’t even think “ugggh.” I thought “wow. Look at it go!” I guess as straight women we don’t see a lot of vaginas. But the noises of disgust? Is it that we still think our vaginas are ugly and shameful? Or is it because we were seeing birth straight up, which is the opposite of the way we may have seen birth before – usually TV style; sterile, from the waist up and fit in between commercial breaks. I’m thinking it’s probably all of that, combined with being faced with a mirror image of something most of us haven’t fully considered. It’s easy to get caught up in tiny clothes and the kind of diaper we will use and conveniently put off thinking about the labour & delivery part.

Honestly, I had a far more visceral reaction to the shots of the women in the active labour stage. Their strained faces, their animal noises, their concentration, their reliance on themselves to get through and their dependance on the people supporting them. And I realized that what scares me most about the birthing of this, our baby, is not the pain or the tsunami of blood or the fact that a bunch of people will be staring intently at my vagina to see what comes out, but rather the complete loss of control that I will experience. I will have to depend on other people. I will have to ask for help. I will have to give myself over to Something Else and trust that it will all be okay. (I wonder if there are 12 step programs for childbirth?)

And so, these are my issues. Not what comes out – I’m pretty sure it’s a baby – or how it comes out – the way that keeps us both alive is all I really ask – or what all of that looks like but – can I trust myself that much? Can I swallow my pride and lean on other people, say that I actually need other people? (Saint Aardvark helping me get out of bed every morning is good practice.) I’m pretty sure, now that I consciously consider it, that I will, like most women, do whatever needs doing to ensure the safety of my child.

At the end of the film, they put the brand new baby on the mum’s chest and it reached its little hand out for the boob and the mum looked down and said, with this look of awe, “Oh my goodness.” While I am certain those will not be my exact words, (else the baby won’t know it’s me) the sentiment was pretty spot-on.