Ah, the ranty entry I had in mind yesterday, before other things took precedence. Yeah, it's about pregnancy and childbirth. Sorry.

So, while I thought I had filed my 'Birth Plan' a couple of months ago (drugs please! yes have some!), it turns out no, the hospital has a birth plan form, and they really like you to use it, as they are apparently incapable of figuring out "I do not want family members other than my partner in the room" means 'keep everyone the hell out' unless it's in their handy preformatted checkbox blank. Surprisingly, this is the one thing which is giving everyone pause, though many of my other choices are causing consternation. What do I mean I don't want everyone there?

Is this so weird? Yesterday I caught the second half of the afternoon episode of A Baby Story (I know. I should so not be watching this show at this point. Actually, I really shouldn't be watching Maternity Ward on TLC at all, and yet I do. It's like a game. Can I guess the complication or wacky genetic anomaly before they reveal it? And if so, do I get a cookie?). I swear to god, the couple on this show- having a hospital birth, we're not talking one of the episodes with home birth and healing circles (and if that's your choice, dandy. Me? Drugs please. Have I made that clear? Thanks.)- had everyone under the sun in the room. First it was her mom. Then her sister. Then his sister, and her best friend, and his mom, and I was already staring at the screen incredulous when they wheeled grandma in perched in a wheelchair. At this point, I would not have been surprised in the slightest if the USC Trojan Marching Band high stepped in playing 'Tusk'. I began screeching in disbelief when her mom stepped over, peered between her daughter's prone legs, and waved everyone else, including the friends, over and they all came over and looked.

The show cut away to one on one shots of one of the sisters and one of the friends saying what a surprise it was to be allowed to be present, and how beautiful it was, and the friend had this sort of brittle, shell-shocky tone to her voice, as if when it was all over she was going to go home, sit in the shower, and rock back and forth for a while. And you know, just know that when she and the mother go out for a 'girl's shopping day out', and are at some chic little restaurant picking over their salads with dressing on the side, at some point mid-conversation the friend will look at the mom and think, "I saw your cootchie. And it was stretched this big." And for evermore, at some point in every interaction between the two of them, the friend will think of the mom's angry, stretched, life givin cootchie, and a little part of her will die all over again and she'll go home and drink herself silly on pinot grigio.

For some people, this is the birth they want. Fine. I'll be sitting over here, doing it wrong, seeing this journey not as a journey of beauty, but as a journey which gets me to a desired goal. Yes, life inside me, beautiful, yes, bringing it forth out of my body, trala. Guess what. I've seen way way too much go wrong, thanks to my former career, to ever ever risk doing this in something other than a fully staffed and sporting at least a level II NICU medical facility with no extraneous family members or friends cluttering up the area. And you know what? Deep down I know this will be fine, I know I am heading into the last lap with a healthy fetus, but there's something about spending 2 years of your life in a high risk, high traffic urban Oby dept which strips all the romance of this away. Well, that and my innate super mega bitchiness.

So I'll be the panty sweaty pregnant woman not using an elegantly framed photo of my beloved family as my focus object- I'm currently torn between using a photo of Chris Cornell (mmm, those eyes!) or a production still from Pirates of the Carribean (mmmm, Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, half-shirtless!). I'll be the pregnant woman waving the damned mirror away, and I'll be the new mother whose husband does not cut the cord- not because he's squeamish, but because we've talked about it and we personally view it as some sort of demented nouveau patriarchal haHA! look, role for DAD! You've toted it around for 9 months and now with one hearty snip I SEVER this bond! and just, ew. If anyone gets the joy of releasing the child from its total dependence on my body, it's me, thank you very much.

2 more weeks at most, thanks to the induction. I'm rooting for him to come on Easter. It's a form of irony I particularly like.