The beauty of childbirth

Whoever said childbirth was the most beautiful thing in the world has clearly never seen one. 

Let's talk vaginal deliveries first:

• Firstly, babies never arrive when you want them to. The first day I was on duty, the labour ward had a record low of two deliveries the whole day, neither of which happened within my fruitless 12-hour shift.

• Childbirth is painful. Chinese people grade labour to be 10 out of 10 - the epitome of all agonies - and we all know how adept our race is at inflicting misery on others (think 五馬分屍, 挑腳筋 etc.).
• Labour can easily take ten to twelve hours for first-time mothers. I start cursing 45 minutes into my wait for my dentist's appointment. Imagine lying in a bed for half a day, wondering when the 頭 will 蒲頭, not to mention the constant painful uterine contractions. And you're probably not supposed to cuss either, since the baby's still inside you and any profanity would be bad 胎教.
• You hear about vaginas being torn wide open by babies' heads. The good news is, we can control this by means of an episiotomy. The bad news is, this entails preemptively snipping open the vagina  - a sharp, straight wound heals more nicely than a jagged one - with a pair of scissors. And in our mothers' times, WITHOUT anaesthesia.
• Amongst the many things a woman is more prone to suffering as aftermath of a natural delivery is uterine prolapse, which is enough said if you've been following my blog. 
• By the way, the epidural is a lie: it's true that you become temporarily pain-free, but you can't push if you don't feel any contractions, so if you want to deliver that baby you'll have to eventually go through the torment. Did you really think God would let us women off so easily? That apple Eve ate better have tasted damned good. 

Now, before you say, "well that's okay, I'm going to get myself a Caesarean," allow me to first impress upon you that Caesareans are, in fact, not all fine and dandy:

• With the spinal anesthesia, you are still able to feel the obstetrician's every pull and drag on your body, and you can trust that there will be a lot of tugging involved. 
• Once we have incised through the skin and fasciae, we reach the recti abdomini and make a small cut here. Now you may wonder, how is possible for a baby to pass through? Fear yourself not: two doctors, one standing on either side, each insert both their hands into the muscle layer and on the count of three, lean backwards and rrrrriiiippppp the musculature apart in opposite directions.
• By the way, you remain conscious throughout the whole procedure, so you will be able to hear all your years of ab workouts get torn to shreds.
• For those who think your vaginas will be spared if you opt for a Caesarean, let me tell you it gets violated either way. We stick our hand up there to check for any clots and tissue remnants hiding in the uterus after we close the abdomen up.
• It actually takes longer for you to recover from a Caesarean than from a normal vaginal delivery.

One of the questions doctors get asked is, "well what would you pick?". If it isn't obvious by now, my answer is I'm clearly not having any children. My mum just laughed when I told her that. And when I confronted her - who in their right minds would have a second child after experiencing this pain once, what the hell was she smoking etc. - she compared childbirth to having a hangover: you vow to never ever drink/have babies again, and then before you know it, you're three months into your second pregnancy, hurray! How's that for an analogy.

Of course, this post is just 片面之辭, but our mothers never really do receive enough credit for the terrible ordeal they go through to have us. I gave my mum a facial and neck massage before typing this post up. What was the last nice thing you did for yours? I hope you are hanging your vagina/abs-destroyng head in shame.