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We're in for it...



It's 2:47 p.m. on Friday the 20th of April 2001. I just left the Labour Ward. It was my second time in there. I'm not overcome with emotion as I was yesterday when I watched a delivery for the first time. I'm getting used to it.
I've witnessed four deliveries now and I've only just started my clerkship in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Four little heads popping out of their mothers. Then wailing, blood and silence. It's over. Tears of joy.
I've heard stories about how the pains of childbirth are all wiped away by the sight of the healthy, crying baby. Well.....I guess. Partly. All the mothers I saw were still in pain long after seeing their babies. Nevertheless, they all cried tears of joy and said little prayers after seeing their babies.

The fathers waiting in the corridors smiled as well. Most of them wanted to see their wives immediately after the delivery. I remember this one guy. He was short, dark and skinny. His wife, tall and plump, had just been delivered of a baby boy. The man came in to see her and he got just as emotional as she was. I remember thinking "this is about the only time you could get a man to be this emotional". I was thinking how the guy would probably forget within less than a week, all the pain his wife had to go through.....

I'm terrified now. I always was scared about childbirth. But now that I've watched it happen, I've gone cold. One of my male classmates said that he couldn't imagine having to bear such pain. He thanked his stars that he was male. Another one said that he found the sight of childbirth "disgusting" and that if he had been female, he would have been totally discouraged from ever wanting to have children.
"Lucky" them.
To the first guy I said, "And they say men are the stronger sex!". I had no words for the second guy.

Women are strong. Maybe men have more physical strength, but that's where it ends. Women are stronger mentally. So when people say "women are the weaker sex" they are not correct at all.

Watching the deliveries made me realise how similar we human beings are to the rest of the mammals. Amazing. Even with all the advancing technology, giving birth to a baby is still quite primitive, save developments such as Caesarean Section and epidural analgesia. One would have thought that by now, couples would be going to "Baby Banks" or to "Baby Breeders" where you just drop off your sperm and egg and pick up the baby nine months later. Or better still, the baby gets delivered at your doorstep. ("Delivered", get it?)(LOL)

Anyway that ain't happening soon. Great idea though. But not anytime soon; or ever. Right now, women just have to go through the pain, physical change, mental strain, emotional task, joy, wonder, pleasure that is pregnancy. No problem at all.

"We're in it together"


So dear women, love one another and don't hate! Be nice to other women - we're in this together!! ;-)