Giving birth, raising kids, becoming an alcoholic.

Carol Burnett once described childbirth: "Take your bottom lip, pull it as far away from your face as you can, and now pull it over your head."

She was so far off base it is not funny. It's worse than that. Having given birth I can attest to that. I can promise you that if you pull your lip over your head it won't hurt one bit as much as giving birth. Not. At. All.

My grandmother told me "Once you reach the point of the head coming out it will be like you need to have the biggest bowel movement of your life." Gross grandma! Eww! It wasn't like that either. It was worse. Much Worse.

Childbirth is indescribable. There are no words to make anyone understand how truly awful it is.

When you are first pregnant, and I mean with your first child, every change in your body is mindblowing. Those boobs you prayed for at 11? They are there plus more than you wished for. You watch your lower abdomen each night (I actually ran my hand over it and was amazed when I felt the enlargement). Then you throw up. A lot. Or I did at least. It's really cool how you learn what foods are the easiest to vomit when you suffer from morning, afternoon, and evening sickness. Life™ cereal should be avoided at all costs. Why? Because once it is in your stomach and you bring it back up it's like the world's thickest glue and it gets stuck. You try to swallow it back down but it won't go and the you try to finish bringing it up but it won't. So you lay there banging on the floor begging the gods to not let your life end by Life™ cereal. It finally released for me but I have never, EVER, eaten that thick shit again. Gross!

So...you meander along for nine months and watch your stomach stretch to accomodate the little being inside you. You feel it kick, flip, hiccup, flail, and punch. You watch these marks make tracks up and down your abdomen as the skin splits to make even more room for the little being inside you. And then...then...the hell, ooops, I mean the miracle of birthing begins.

Now I've had 2 of my boys by natural and 2 by induced. The two induced were 1 GAZILLION times harder than natural. Oh, holy shit it was hard. Back to to first child birthing...

With Teen I was taken to the hospital because I thought my water was leaking. Now, remember I was just 18 and fairly uneducated in the ways of childbirth and what goes on. It was not my water leaking at all but the baby (Teen) was putting so much pressure on my bladder that I was pissing my pants. Let me tell you...it's very embarrassing for the doctors to say "Oh honey, you're just wetting your pants." But they put me in the hospital overnight because my blood pressure would not normalize. It stayed at 148/110 even with resting on the left side (which makes the baby move off that artery that leads from the bottom of you to your heart) so I was put in a bed in the hospital and then had some wierd cream put on my cervix to thin it out. See, I wasn't dilated and my cervix wasn't ready. They were going to force it to be ready.

The next morning, at 8:30 am, they gave me pitocin. The first hour was a breeze and I couldn't figure out why people thought birthing was so hard. I was actually relishing the contractions. And then Hell entered the room and my life would never be the same. Hour after hour these contractions worked to expel the being inside me and my body arched off the bed and words that I didn't even know I knew spewed from that orifice in my face called my mouth.

Then it was to the labor room. Screaming the whole way. Oh, they gave me some drug in my IV to help but it didn't so I was screaming my fool head off begging them to please just "rip the fucker out and kill me! PLEASE! OH GOD I SWEAR NEVER TO HAVE SEX AGAIN IF YOU JUST GET THIS DAMN THING OUT OF MY FUCKING BODY! MOMMY! DADDY! IT'S KILLING ME!" Yes, things like that just spewed forth. But the worst was yet to come.

So when I had teen it was in the county hospital where they still had you lay flat and stick your feet in stirrups and push and push and push until you could push no more. I cried. I bawled. I sobbed. I made a deal with Satan (hey, maybe that is what is wrong with the preTzel boys) and still I begged for mercy from God. Anything to make it all stop. The burning and pressure was so intense I can only think it is why volcanos erupt every now and then.

Teen finally made it out, not without complications, and the pressure released.

Adopted preTzel's birth was hard but not terribly so.

Middle preTzel I was sure was not mine and actually called the hospital and accused them of giving me the wrong child. Almost 13 years later we're still waiting for him to sleep through the night. No, I'm not kidding, seriously. We are.

Baby preTzel's birth was induced. At one point I told the nurse "Do not let my mother in here. I don't want her here." The nurse asked what my mother looked like and I replied "The devil incarnate." She laughed and said "What does the devil incarnate look like?" "LIKE MY MOTHER! DUH!" Mr. finally took the nurse from the room and explained what I meant while I laid there threatening to cut his manhood off. I finally begged for an epidural. They gave me one. He was born. I didn't feel a thing. Not even when they had to throw my legs over my head and perform a procedure to "cork screw" him out because he was stuck. (Thank the gods for an epidural.)

So...I really thought once I got past all the contractions and panting and swearing that the hard part was over. It wasn't.

Raising them. That's the hard part. Give me back the contractions because that was easy - peasy compared to moulding their minds and nourishing their souls. When they're babies they are cute and when they're toddlers they are cute, and when they are 9 they are cute...but after that? Forget it. You might as well invest in a straight jacket now. Life as you know it is over.

Every cry will be your own.

Every hurt will be your own.

Every laugh will enlighten your soul.

Every swear would you ever uttered will be their own.

Every horrible thing you did to your parents to make them fret and worry will come back to you tenfold. Oh, it might not happen with the first one, maybe not even the second...but it will. Believe me, it will.

And you will relish every moment of everything because their life with you goes so fast you're soon watching them graduate and go off to college and leave your nest. And then you wonder why they are no longer putting cat litter and peroxide in the fish tank to see what happens. (Teen did this - and you can tell your kids it KILLS them and even though Teen thought they were "light bathing (like sun bathing)" they were really DEAD!) Why are they not spreading milk and flour on their floor to make tracks (permanent) for their Hot Wheels™? (Teen again) Why they aren't breaking out a window to take the dog out at the ungodly hour of 4 am and having some guy beat on your door because your kid is swimming in a pool of water in your alley. (Teen again.) (He broke the window out because we had installed double - keyed deadbolts to keep him from escaping.) You're wondering where all the finger prints, booger smears, and food stains go on your walls. And you wonder why farts ceased to be funny. (Well, I'm sure I will once all of them leave.)

Raising kids is not an exact science. What works for one parent won't work for the other. (The velcro and wall thing doesn't work because if they weigh enough the velcro will separate.) What doesn't work for me might work for another. (Play pens are for suckers. Middle climbed from his at 4 months.) Lullabyes might lull your child to sleep (Lullabyes SUCK shit. Middle screamed at them. Did I mention we're still waiting for him to sleep through the night?) and then it might not.

Do what you feel works for you. (But don't teach your kid not to hit by hitting them. You're setting the example so...DUH!) You will not be a perfect parent and you might make some mistakes along the way and you might even make it. Either way - invest in booze - it's much more numbing than an epidural and you'll find your kids cute through booze goggles. They will be cuter and they might find you either really funny or really embarrassing. But...the real point here? Don't get pregnant or get anyone pregnant. It's the only way to avoid giving birth, raising kids, and becoming an alcoholic.