Congrats, it's a, uh, it's a....

The wonderful thing about OB anesthesia is that it's fast-paced. I think out of the entire month of anesthesia elective, I had the most wonderful fun in OB. This is also where I got the most hands-on training. I got to stick needles in peoples backs and tubes and shit down their throats and I got to shut them up by strapping a mask onto their faces while I smile gently, upside down, into their eyes and tell them to inhale deeply. This is also where I have been petrified into the conviction that childbirth is the closest a woman gets to base animality, second only to sexual endeavours one can have in certain positions, that may have gotten the woman in the labor room in the first place.

First, there is no shred of modesty in a woman in labor. You are naked, although certain women insist on keeping their bras on during labor, and are basically just dripping. You are so bloated, you can hardly move because your feet are the size of overstuffed pork sausages. And when it comes time to push, well, let's just say that more than the baby's head gets pushed out.

The penultimate OB feature is the C-section. By the time you are on the table, your legs are numb and even paralyzed because either your spinal or your epidural has kicked in full swing or it gets topped up in the OR and people have to move your overstuffed sausage legs into position. You are FULLY naked by this point in time, with 10 strange people you have never met in your life, staring at your protuberant belly, among other things, including the shell shocked medical student. And then, you are filayed open, blood and everything else is all over the place and you're not really looking your best.

After much pushing and shoving, the baby emerges, blue and crinkly, hairy like a little monkey and let's not forget, slippery and smelly. Now, you get sewed up and when surgery is over, the drapes fall and you see yourself, a bloody, brown (from the betadine prep) mess and you can't see your toes because you are in horror after seeing your belly just an expanded, empty sack that's just fallen to one side or the other, depending on where the nurse moves it. And then, because you are now fully paralysed, you are cleaned up by the 2nd year resident, who all happen to be male, who places pressure on your abdomen so as to squeeze out whatever blood is left in your uterus or else it won't contract. You are cleaned up because the blood and the betadine is just bad form and then they stick a sanitary napkin in bewteen your legs, like it's going to help prevent spillage and soiling the bedspreads.

And women want to have children to experience that?! No wonder my mother hates me on a level she is not willing to admit but shows it anyway.

It's a good thing surgical masks are mandatory in the OR.