Being Born Female

Women are crazy, don't you think? I don't mean psycho-crazy, I mean comical-crazy. The second we were born female we were handed an imaginary free-pass to talk about anything having to do with our bodies and the ability to be presumptuous enough not feel awkward about it. Well, at least some of us were.

The other day I took the kids to the park after school. There were a couple of dads there with a few kids and one other mom with her toddler son. Her son was about Jack's age so they started playing together after a short time.

We started talking and soon found out that her son was a preemie and was almost the exact weight that Natalie was when she was born. We began comparing stories, and found that even though our babies were the same size, I was 35 weeks along when Natalie was born, she was only 28 weeks along when her son was born. I would have just chalked it up to different pregnancies, different circumstances, different things being wrong - whatever - and left it at that, but she didn't stop there.

In a loud voice (sort of across the whole playground) while she was helping her son down the slide at the top of the play structure, she announces to me (and everyone else, through default) that she thinks the doctor had her "period timing" off. She started in, "I told them from the very beginning that I didn't think it was right. They did that vaginal ultrasound, but I still think it was wrong. My periods have always been a bit weird, and the one before I got pregnant wasn't even a full on heavy bleeding period, like I usually have - it was more like spotting and it wasn't even bright red..." And on and on and on. It was hysterical. Those dads were trying so hard to act like they didn't - or couldn't - hear her. They were squirming around as they started talking in louder voices to their toddlers while they were helping them walk on the wood chips, "Good job, Toby! Atta boy!" - all the while not looking her direction, or mine, purposefully.

Women are so good at putting people in those awkward I-didn't-know-talking-about-that-would-make-you-uncomfortable type of situations. Sort of like anytime I say the word "uterus" around Jeff. I think he started throwing up in his mouth every time he heard that word when we were in the birthing classes before Natalie was born - and I've used it against him many times since then.

As women, we have the privilege of whipping out our "body-talk-badges" pretty much whenever we want, because we earned them... by being born female. So, here's to women everywhere who right now are conversing about labor, periods, hormones, forms of birth control, and best of all - uteruses.