My Pubes May Have Upstaged My Child In The Delivery Room
At a certain point in the pregnancy I couldn’t be bothered with worrying about my bikini line. I mean really – I couldn’t see them and could barely functionally shave them. It was the winter in New York, so it’s not like I was going to be getting into a bikini. I’ve never let a woman with a hot vat of wax near my vulva, and I had no intention of starting when I was nine months pregnant. But one night, when I was up late eating a Drumstick (the ice cream, not the chicken), I happened upon the movie Knocked Up, and everything changed.
As pregnancy comedies go (of which I am not a fan) this one is actually pretty funny. I was enjoying re-watching it until it got to the scene where Seth Rogen’s friend accidentally walks into the delivery room when Katherine Heigl is crowning. He is visibly disturbed and a little terrified-looking when he sees what looks to be the top of the baby’s head emerging from her vagina. I became visibly disturbed and a little terrified when I see that said vagina has no hair on it. None, whatsoever. For the first time during my pregnancy, I thought about my pubes.
The next day, I decided to talk to my husband about it.
Do you think I need to do something about whatever is going on between my legs?
What’s going on between your legs?
Well, I haven’t really been able to shave down there.
Oh, I KNOW.
Why did you say it like that? Is it crazy down there? What’s the damage? You might have to shave it for me.
I’ll do it. I’ll do it right now. Let me get the clippers.
The clippers? For real?
This is the moment when what should have happened, didn’t. I should have stopped him, because never in my life have I taken clippers to my pubic hair. I didn’t need a buzz cut, I needed a trim. But my gestating baby was obviously eating my brain, as I allowed my husband to lay a towel down and get to work.
This seems like it’s taking a really long time. What are you doing?
I’m done.
He’s surveying his handy-work with an oddly vacant look in his eye. Almost as if he realizes this can never be unseen. I reach down and it feels weird, but honestly I didn’t care enough to even look. I was just happy it was taken care of.
Fast forward three days to the day my child was born. My body refuses to go into labor, I am two weeks overdue and I end up needing a c-section. To prep you for this, they shave your belly. I see the lady give my vagina a weird look. I say, “He did it,” and point to my husband. She’s clearly trying not to laugh. I would probably care about this more if I weren’t about to get a baby sliced from my womb. I let it go.
We get into the delivery room, they give me the epidural and hoist me onto the operating table. I see the surgeon give my vagina the same weird look the O.R. prep lady did. I say, “Whatever is going on down there is his fault. He took his clippers to it.”
Immediately the all-female O.R. staff starts laughing hysterically.
Not only did my husband give me a buzz-cut, he gave me a fade. Very funny, honey.
Ladies. Don’t worry about your pubic hair before you go into labor. And definitely never, ever let your husband anywhere near it with a set of clippers.
(photo: ifstewart/ Shutterstock)