Saturday, August 06, 2011

What You Should Know Before Getting Yourself Knocked Up

"I have always wanted to act ever since I was a little girl. I would put a blanket under my shirt and pretend that I was pregnant. Then, I would go through childbirth."

Dakota Fanning

I often find myself stricken by how unnatural natural childbirth is and after working for three weeks in the labour ward, I am becoming increasingly convinced of that notion. Pregnancy is perilous from conception to delivery. An embryo can get itself implanted in a woman's tube instead of the uterus and tear it apart, causing substantial internal bleeding (and death). A woman can be afflicted with eclampsia from the fifth month till weeks after the baby was expelled, and that can cause seizures (and death). The placenta can anchor itself far too low in the womb or get dislodged, and that also predisposes to massive hemorrhages (and death). Our intelligence have left us with freakishly large heads while our upright posture cursed us with dangerously narrow birth canals, and that can arrest a baby's passage through it (resulting in death). The mother can also suffer from severe infections (and death) if some nasty bugs make it through the amnion. Even after the baby comes out, severe blood loss can still complicate things (therefore death). I'm not even going to go into the even longer list of other less-directly-fatal diseases that pregnancy can cause like anaemia, diabetes and hypertension. Evolutionarily speaking, we are perched upon a very precarious position of cutbacks and compromises. I fear that very soon, we will be like English Bulldogs; 95% of which can only whelp through a Caesarean section.

The procedure of birthing in a Malaysian government hospital is, frankly speaking, quite devoid of any kind of dignity for the mothers in labour. When you come to us, we will give you an enema so you don't get faeces all over yourself when you are trying to shit your kid out. We put a rubber tube up your pee hole to get rid of your urine so your bladder won't be in the way. We stab your veins so we can hydrate you and if the need arises, transfuse you with blood. Every two hours or so, a random stranger will pop in and stick his or her fingers up your kitty to see how much your cervix has opened and how far the foetus have progressed. When you are finally ready to push your little bastard out, your hindquarters will be exposed to everyone in the room (which includes medical students and student nurses). They will study your nether regions with great interest while you squirt amniotic fluid, blood, mucous, piss and crap all over your bed like an animal. Your midwife or obstetrician may also give you an "episiotomy", which is a very uninformative way of saying that he or she will take a pair of scissors to your vagina with extreme prejudice (without any form of anaesthesia, of course). The alternative is to allow your freakishly bigheaded baby to rip you ragged on its way out. Mind you that I'm only divulging what is normally done to mothers in labour, and I have not even go into the details of just how fucking painful it is for a human being to come out through your pelvis.

This is one of the reasons why I do not want to have any children - I simply cannot put anyone I love through all that.

Also, I hate kids.

Phoebe on a Riverside Bench
Not to mention that it will also ruin the Long-Suffering Girlfriend™'s svelte figure.



Not father material,
k0k s3n w4i

17 comments:

c3rs3i said...

THANKS VERY MUCH for that information.
So this is what you meant when you said: "knowing intimately how the human body works gives me great satisfaction" You said nothing about sharing that knowledge though!

Side note, I used to think it unnecessarily chivalrous for guys to pull out chairs and open doors and such for womenfolk. Not that I think girls mind of course but now I think they should expect/demand it.
It is now my opinion that men owe women at least that much.
For the tearing vaginas of your mothers, sisters, wives, friends etc all over the world; For your lives at the risk of theirs; For the continuation of your lineage;
Paying for dinner and carrying shopping bags is trivial recompense, if any at all.

Pou Leen said...

I decided to not read after the first few lines.

I'd rather know the gory details when it's time to.

I believe when that time comes, I can bravely endure what I have to, as a soon-to-be mother.

Diyana said...

so what does your long suffering girlfriend has to say about having babies?

p said...

i don't ever want to be that fat o_o

Phoebs said...

that was me xD

shanaz@RS said...

And this is why I keep coming back for more delicious read from Kok Blok. While I do not hate children, I am very certain that I will not have to ever ever get pregnant. The thought of having a big-headed miniature human in me is repulsive enough. Thank you for the gory details, doctor. I shall now renew my vow to never have children of my own.

SueZ said...

hi just new here..

for me, ya ..quit feel unconfortabe when strangers also put finger in your "secret place" but they have to...and being pregnant is nothing wrong, it very amaxing experiance since man can't feel ths feeling and experiance..but trust me, to delivered is more easier rather than take care their baby itself...

Nana Eddy said...

hey~ it's been awhile :) err... Too much info, I think. haha. We'll see when the time comes, will u want to have a child of your own. (^_^)

Sapphira said...

I'm sure Phoebe appreciates your thoughtfulness. ;)

McGarmott said...

Hates kids? High five!

Liz said...

Gorsh, you're definitely making me have second thoughts! That description you gave--NOT PRETTY!!!! T.T

And man, possibly losing that "svelte" figure of mine? Noooooooooo~ >.<

k0k s3n w4i said...

c3rs3i: correction; only men who expect their wives or girlfriends to carry their children owe those recompenses to their partners. and remember, any child born also represents the continuation of the women's lineage.

Pou Leen: when the time comes, it would already be too late to back out. must read!

Diyana: hover your mouse cursor over her picture.

Phoebs: stop fading away T_T

shanaz@RS: i know right? having another human being in you is so gross. welcome to the club - we are doing our part to combat overpopulation.

SueZ: welcome. and trust me, the overwhelming majority of men in the world have no wish to partake in that experience, thank you very much.

Nana Eddy: when the time comes? when is that?

Sapphira: she had yet to show me her gratitude :(

McGarmott: down low!

Liz: i must also add that women look especially ugly when they are in labour. seriously, no matter how good you look prior, you are going to look like a sweaty, bloated slug trying it's hardest to shit out a stone-hard lump of constipated crap when you are giving birth. it's very disturbing.

yuhhui said...

ah.. my sentiments exactly..
It's gruesome and it's really painful !! hahha.. perhaps i should start finding someone who doesn't want kids too.. hahahaha.

c3rs3i said...

Correction denied.
Each and every person out there was birthed by a woman and each and every woman is equipped to birth - Certainly, the responsibility for the continuity of the species is not borne single handedly by women, the burden of pain is (see your post above for graphic descriptions). Arguably, only women who have given birth and those who will in the future have claim to special treatment but as there is no way of knowing the latter and I suspect the proportion of women who don't reproduce to be minute, I have thus advocated that anyone with a Y chromosome be nice to those with 2 Xs.

Terri said...

totally disagree with c3rs3i. we're women, not disabled.

you're not obliged to treat us special just because we can give birth wtf. unless you're also saying women should treat men like gods because you're physically stronger and can earn more $$$ and can provide for us. and that it doesn't matter whether you as an individual actually ARE stronger or richer.

while i definitely prefer your particular brand of sexism to the usual kind, it remains sexism nonetheless.

i'm not saying women should be treated as though they were men and i dunno, asked to carry sofas around while we're pregnant or something. gender equality does not mean the genders are the same. but men definitely don't owe each and every single woman on earth a debt of any kind.

appreciation would be nice but obligation is a totally different thing.

c3rs3i said...

Now I worry that you might think the gratitude I expressed at KSW's blow by blow of childbirth torture was sincere as well. It wasn't, truly. I also worry you might take this as criticism towards his choice of post, which it is not. The details made me lightheaded and a little cross-eyed, but rest assured, I found it an entertaining read, as ever.

And to clarify the object of your objections -
My 'opinion' on men's lifelong obligations to women was meant to be an expression of exaggeration with a sprinkle of plausibility. I would have upped the exaggeration and gone easier on the plausibility had I thought it would be taken so literally but females going around demanding chivalry sounds pretty ridiculous and, not to mention, point/hopeless enough, in my opinion.
Also, it was written with KSW, a male, in mind as the recipient given he would be an implied executor of said expectations. I would not have responded as such to a female writer - it would just sound like a precursor to a feministic jihad speech, which, apparently, is the way you took it.
I guess I should also mention that my second comment had the implicit premise that chivalry could be demanded and should be fulfilled and so the (not very meaningful) question was then, if so, who had the right to it?

Anyway, having witnessed overzealous chivalry to the point where the subject was treated like a mild invalid, I concur that women are not and should not be treated as such. Despite your presuppositions of my inclinations, I'm not c3rs3i, women's freebie crusader, persecutor of men - I strongly believe that women should not be disfavoured but neither do I think they need any favours. The same for men. Being treated well is not unwelcome and duly appreciated, of course.
With regards sexism, if acknowledging the indisputable inherent differences between genders makes me a sexist then so be it, but it's my opinion that that's just blind-stamping of manic pedantic political correctness.

k0k s3n w4i said...

yuhhui: good luck hunting. i'm a pretty rare sort of guy :P

c3rs3i: i did not ask to get born - anymore than i asked a desert rabbi to die for my sins. nice try, but there's no way you can put it on my tab, haha.

Terri: i just knew you were going to chime in. i have nothing to add except that straight men all over the world do appreciate women - mostly because women have vaginas.