when i was in seventh grade health/science class, we watched the miracle of life.
it scarred me. SCARRED, i tell you . . . me and and all the other four hundred seventh graders forced to watch it. for years we'd joke about the miracle of life, and it was synonymous with gross, terrifying, the supreme evil of sierra vista middle school, etc.
well, when i saw it at the library in santa monica this summer, i checked it out. i figured it was about time to confront those inbred fears, you know?
turns out, the movie is 59 minutes long. and the first 55 minutes involve nothing more than pictures of cells moving across the screen. the first 11/12 of the movie is totally and completely boring, actually. it's just the last four minutes that so totally terrified all of us SVMS students back in the day: where they show a birthing scene.
and guess what? it still grossed me out and terrified me. here i am, a decade older and wiser and just a few weeks away from giving birth myself, and it still makes me shudder to watch a birth scene and to contemplate doing that myself.
also, on a related note: when we went to a childbirth class in santa monica, the lady showed us a quick and relatively not-terrifying birth video. and while we were walking home, tommy said, in a voice of total seriousness: "i don't know why anyone would ever want to be an OB-GYN after watching that video."
i laughed so hard. . . . because i knew EXACTLY where he was coming from.
i sure hope, for both of our sakes, that the baby takes it easy on us when he does decide to come out.
5 comments:
um i don't blame you for being freaked out. i never saw a birthing video cause i knew i'd be terrified to give birth. just have peace of mind that you don't have to watch while you're giving birth. people tell you when to push or your body will tell you and you seriously don't think for one second what it must be looking like. tommy on the other hand...good luck :)
I keep thinking about that movie too! I'm terrified because of that movie I saw years ago. I've told my OB-GYN I'm totally fine with doing a c-section if we need to.
I took the opposite approach to child-bearing: I knew absolutely nothing. No classes, no videos...I didn't want to know what anything looked like or what was going on our there... And I can tell you, although I had few expectations, it ended up being a beautiful, spiritual experience. (the epidural contributed to that beauty and spirituality though.) : ) You will be just fine.
call uncle joe.
haha lauren and sarah--thank you for your comments. i'm not worried as long as i don't have to see what's happening down there (and you're right, i won't). phew! and thank you, sarah, for adding that about the epidural--that made me laugh. thank goodness for that option!
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