If you’re like me, sometimes you wonder about people.
Everybody does. Sometimes it’s buried deep within, but nary a soul on the planet hasn’t looked at someone and wondered what on earth?
Once I worked in an office where a coworker sent out a mass email containing ten photos from the waterbirth of her first granddaughter. It was really one of the most gratuitous violations of privacy I’ve ever seen. Once you’ve seen a picture of a woman in a tub giving birth, it cannot be unseen.
I don’t get waterbirthing. I realize that I’m biased, but of course. I’m a land-dwelling mammal.
Some have told me that water birthing is more natural. I disagree. Not even the apes give birth in water. Now, I realize that I’m still biased here. I’m an oxygen-breather.
Unless you’re a dolphin or an Indo-Pacific dugong, being born underwater is not natural. Which infant wants to be expunged from the birth canal into…not the brisk oxygenated atmosphere he’s spent nine long months yearning for…but a tub of water? He comes out of the water eventually anyway. Being born underwater does not endow him with the special abilities of Aquaman.
Anyway. It’s cheaper, I guess, to have a woman come to your home and deliver your child in a bathtub, but I’ll just pay the extra $5,000 for a hospital bed and an endless supply of cafeteria mac & cheese, which, let’s face it, is much more comforting than a warm bath.
It’s a kid. It’s not a used Corolla you try to haggle down. It’s a kid which, hopefully, will come loaded with luxury features like eyeballs, ears, a brain, and opposable thumbs. And even if you have them at the hospital, they’re still cheaper than cars.
I forgot to mention that, in the ten waterbirth photos, the husband joined the wife in the birthing tub. They did it together. Which is cute, I guess, but mentally scarring.
I realize I’m biased. I’m a land-dwelling mammal.
I’m an oxygen breather.