the joy of womanhood

Last night two of my sisters and I went out for coffee. One is pregnant for the first time and the other has three children and before I knew it they had launched into an intimate womanly chat involving each of my elder sister's labours in quite some detail. I had never heard how horrible labour can be before and I do not want to hear it again. I don't think I will ever make the mistake again of thinking of childbirth as some precious, non-traumatic experience, every moment of which a mother treasures forever. And I think I will have to forget a lot of what was said if I am ever to consider having children again. (I really think that if they sent a whole lot of women who had had difficult labours in to speak at Sex Ed classes, the numbers of unplanned teenage pregnancies would drastically drop.)

The funniest moment, however, was when some unsuspecting male sat down along the cafe couch from us with a newspaper in hand - my pregnant sister had just launched into a description of the stretching exercises and tools a pregnant coworker of hers uses to prepare her nether regions for labour. It took maybe half a minute for the penny to drop and then, slowly, our eavesdropper turned carefully away and slid further down the couch while we grinned with satisfaction and continued our discussion. That alone, I think, made womanhood seem worthwhile again.

The photo: I went to the zoo today, accompanied by five children, sister, her hubby and my dad, aaaand my new camera, which arrived about twenty minutes before we left. Hurrah! I love it. 12x optical zoom. Yummy.