Lesson ten: Balls are more important

Now we have an heir and a spare my husband is booked in for the chop chop op. It’s pretty understandable to have some nerves ahead of any procedure but there is a lot of wittering going on about a knife going near his fun zone. If it’s mentioned he gets nothing but sympathy from men of a certain age, giving him knowing nods and pats on the back like this is the biggest physical sacrifice someone can give their family and I’m certain I saw him practising a limp the other day. You know what I got before child birth? Informed I was designed for it. I guarantee a man was behind that piece of engineering.

Disclaimer; Dad if you’re reading this, stop now. Anyone who’s nearing labour, stop now.

It’s not that I’m unsympathetic of his upcoming pain and the understandable hit his masculinity will take that day, but he was present when our children came in to the world so I’m pretty sure he’s aware of the logistics of it all. He is definitely aware of the state I was left in after our daughter was born. One doctor stopped in his tracks and asked ‘so… it doesn’t normally look like that?’. Well, no. Normally my down-town doesn’t look like a balloon animal. Normally it doesn’t look like a caricature of a vagina and normally I don’t need to sit on a bed of ice for a week.

Second time round was a breeze though.

Just kidding. It was just as farmyard as the first. It’s hard to forget the doctor calling for a back up opinion on what-should-go-where when stitching me back up. Then the back up calling for back up. Half the bloody labour ward was down there giving an opinion which culminated in a masked face popping up to inform me there’s a bit sticking out but they’re almost certain it will sort itself out when it heals up.

So if we factor in two labours, a general anaesthetic months later (to sort out the bit sticking out that definitely didn’t sort itself out when healing) and prior to all this, emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, I think we can maybe, just maybe, put the upcoming 30 minute procedure with a 3 day recovery period in to perspective. O and after two vaginal births it’s pretty likely I have a prolapse to look forward to down the line.

Still, I’m not totally heartless so I’d like to put together a bit of a care package for him. So far I have;

– 1 tiny violin