The Strange Reality of Childbirth

An inescapable fly in your créme caramel

I was twenty-one when my son was born

He slid forth from his mother’s hoo-haa among a slurry of rainbow-flavoured juices.

Red, green, orange, yellow, and yes, brown. Plenty of brown.

Everything except for blue.

There’s no blue in nature. That’s what they say. What fucking horseshit.

The sky is fucking blue, for fuck’s sake.

The point is, it was a mess. It’s not like on TV where the girl looks like she’s having a mild orgasm with a touch of sweat, and the next thing, this clean fucking three-month-old is just there, unattached to anything.

No, it’s not like that at all.

Have you ever seen Alien vs Predator?

No, neither have I.

I have, however, seen both Alien and Predator. I’ve seen Nightmare on Elm Street a few times, and none of them compares to childbirth.

When you finally get past the muck and slime and shite that fills your vision and your nostrils, this fucking creature slides out that looks like a giant fucking red rat.

And it’s attached to a cord. They don’t tell you that.

There’s a giant fucking cord attached to the thing.

And even once they gather up the squarking creature, it’s followed shortly by this thing they call the placenta.

The Latin word placenta translates into English as, cake (See above).

Now, according to ancient tradition, you‘re supposed to roast that fucker or sous vide it if you can find a bag big enough. Sixty-five degrees for seventy-five minutes should be fine if you like your human offal medium rare.

This thing is like the Cronenbergian admin assistant for the placenta, assisting with all kinds of stuff like calling Uber Eats for the baby when it’s having a cheat day.

But it’s called the cake cos all those joyful nutrients are still on board, so you eat the bastard. And it’s meant to be fucking delicious. Someone told me it tasted like Meatloaf. Fuck knows what that means. I’d have to ask one of his groupies.

Anyway. I didn’t eat it. I couldn’t find a sous vide bag big enough, okay?

Lets move on.

I didn’t feel anything when my son was born.

They told me it would change my life—that angels would play their cock trumpets from on top of clouds and tears would flow from my eyes. They were right about one of those things. The tears did flow from my eyes, but it was more from the stench of fresh shit than from any evangelical moment of divine ecstasy.

We love glamourising birth in our culture. It’s not just the fresh idea we have of childbirth from watching so many TV births and having no serious sex education (for my generation at least). We’re always celebrating birth as a beautiful beginning where the fat stork comes flying over Fanny Mountain to bless young parents with this innocent young creature who will quickly deprive them of their will to live.

The reality of birth, according to the ancient tradition, is different. If you are claustrophobic, please cover your ears now, because you won't want to think about being trapped in an incredibly confined space for nine fucking months like some fetal Houdini, attached to stodgy pipes that feed you the essential nutrients from the large Quarter Pounder meal and six nugs with BBQ sauce that your chosen mother is scoffing into her fat, hairy gob.

N it’s yer own fault cos ya know ya got there cos ya fancied ya mum and ya got fuckin jealous when yer saw yer dad stickin his anaemic cock into her pink Pit of Carkoon and thru yer efforts of tryin to stop em bangin ya got glued to ya dad’s pearly spunk train and ended up in her hot bio-prison.

N it’s gonna freak ya the fuck out at first, cos like any prison, ya gotta get used to the dark and the warmth.

In real prison, it’s the warmth of Big Johnno’s hot spunk pumping deep into your arsehole in the terrifying darkness of your midnight cell.

In the womb, it’s a more general type of biological warmth and darkness.

But then at some point, ya gonna get dragged down ya mama’s slick slippery slide, stretchin her elastic vagina with yer massive fuckin head before schlopping out into this fuckin bright world where ya eyes that aint never been used get blasted with the neon lasers of surgery lights like Neo just out of the Matrix.

N ya skin’s never bin exposed to air, so it fuckin burns like when ya take a strong piss during that first or second herpes outbreak.

N if yer one of the seventy per cent who don’t know what the fuck that feels like, imagine takin a fucking zippo to the head of ya cock and watching it blister under the flame.

Ever hear screaming coming from cubicles in the toilets at work and call security cos it sounds like someone’s gettin’ raped in there?

Don’t worry. It’s just a fresh herpes victim taking a regular ol’ piss.

And for a wee bairn, fresh into the world, their whole body is a fucking herpes sore getting pissed on. No wonder they fuckin scream so hard. We think newborn babies are being dramatic cunts, but they’re not.

We long-time, experienced Herpetians understand exactly where their blood-curdling screams are coming from.

And even after all of this talk about darkness and heat and claustrophobic conditions and elastic vaginas and spunk trains, if ya still think fuckin birth is like eating ice cream in a green park in summer, you should ask yourself why you blanked that shit out so hard.

Fuck it.

Look, I know you're three and a half months pregnant to Phil, the Anglo-Latvian animal communicator who only came that one day to communicate with yer old, sick childhood horse, Vladimir.

N I know you’ve been doing those classes where ya sit with ya legs open n hyperventilate like yer blowin up a balloon with ya snatch n with ya husband, Terry lovingly behind ya bein supportive cos he has no fuckin idea about what happened between you n Phil in the stable that day n he thinks the baby is his till it schlopps out looking like a fuckin Anglo-Latvian.

N I know yer just want to keep the peace n not get fuckin paranoid about yer unborn fetus gettin molested in the bio-gaff by Big Johnno.

So look, let’s just say birth is like TV, shall we? The rat is grown and clean. And it doesn't schlopp out like a wet corpse covered in rainbow juice. It slips out gently and lightly moistened like a good lemon and poppyseed cake, okay. And that vagina of yours—those miracle lips snap right back into place. They’re an industrial strength, they are, so chin up, alright?

Please leave any questions below.

All the best,

Dr Bird

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