LIVE FROM THE WOMB!

July 1995 "Live From The Womb!"

Comedienne Carole Burnett once compared childbirth to trying to pass an 8 pound bowling ball. That's about right. Natural childbirth, eh? I can now say without exaggeration that I have faced death (or at least pain that certainly felt as though it would have typically ended in death, if not a beautiful child) and lived to gripe about it.
So much for truth in advertising. The media has deceived us for years. Consider those sit-com mothers, such as Lucy Ricardo, who appeared prim and pressed after she delivered, rather than shell-shocked and spent. Where was the screaming, the clawing at the sheets, the near fatal groin wounds Ricky may very well have sustained had he been a real world husband? Was Lucy superhuman? No wonder there was a baby boom, when women everywhere were led to believe having a baby was no more difficult than dropping down to the corner market for a carton of milk and a dozen eggs?
So there I was, in all of my naked abundance-hips shaking, brow sweating, and chest heaving-poised in a variety of unflattering poses, rolling about in unrestrained agony. Modesty had no place in that tiny white room. Had the medical powers that be paraded in the press for a live from-the-womb report and photo shoot I wouldn't have cared.
"Get it out!", I groaned, ripping at the seams. "Must get it out!"
"Would you like something?" the nurse asked. And for ten seconds of pain-induced insanity I begged for it all: The shots, the pills, the patches. Dope me up, woman! Fly me like a kite! But before she could provide any such relief, it was over. One good, teeth-gnashing push and...He was out. My weary eyes focused upon this tiny, trembling miracle, placed in my arms. He cooed, his green eyes already open and as bright as the Irish countryside. He was beautiful. Wrinkled, blue, bloodied but beautiful.
"Welcome to the world little one", I whispered, kissing him. "Sorry to break it to you kid, but I'm your mother. But, don't worry. I'll take good care of you." And I pray I have and always will do. I love my son, and can not imagine life without him. I would endure the pain of childbirth ten times over if the alternative would be the absence of this bright, beautiful, incomparably sweet child in the world.