OH. MY. GOD.

I have been researching childbirth. Reading essays, stories, looking at diagrams and pictures. Talking to doctors left and right. Watching videos of women giving birth. Oh. My. God. I am petrified. So far beyond conventional fear, i don't know what to do to keep from going hysterical.

The majority of women poop during delivery. Yes, you read right, they poop. The pressure down there makes them poo and/or fart like crazy. And those who opt for the epidural are so numb from the waist down, they can't control it and they don't know they are doing so unless they see the horrified expressions of their husbands and boyfriends or hear and smell themselves. Could you get any more degrading than that right there? Taking a dump in front of a bunch of strangers and the man you are supposed to be a sex goddess for. Let me assure you, i may not have gone through it all yet, but there is nothing remotely sexy about having kids. I don't care what TV says, pregnancy is not sexy yo. And having to face your OBGYN after taking a dump in his face, what is that?

I am shy to so much as blow my nose in front of people i know. I know they say all inhibitions and modesty fly out the window when you feel like you are being ripped open with a blunt pair of rusty scissors, but I think i would just collapse and die. I would be so far past mortified, Webster's would have to come up with a better word to describe it all.

Let's not even talk about having to sit there with your legs in stirrups, open sesame for the world to see for hours on end, feeling like Gibralter is trying to pass through the equivalent of your nostril. And all the pain after the big pain. Going to the loo will be painful for a while afterwards because you're all stitched up. Hell, i think i am going to be terrified to walk or so much as move a muscle down there for fear or ripping open and bleeding to death. I probably will not want to eat at all.

How are we expected to go back to normal after such? How will i be able to look him in the eye after he has witnessed a gross, bloody, squirmy, slimy baby squeezing through door number one and out of door number two......well...number two? Ew. He is not going to be there. i can't take it. Mom might be, but i do not want him near that. I do not want him to see me like that. It's bad enough he has to see me going through nine months of rancid puking, funky sweating and God knows what else is to come. I think i am going to hurl at the anxiety of it all.

Oh. My. God.