Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we're living in the 21st century where almost everything under the sun is acceptable, but I'm genuinely confused whenever I meet someone - especially a woman - who thinks childbirth or any part of it is disgusting.
There are two issues for me here that I should clarify - people who don't find childbirth as miraculous and awe inspiring as I do, and people who just find it plain gross. If I look objectively, I can maybe sorta kinda barely understand the latter, but I have a difficult time conceptualizing the former.
The entire biology behind creating a life (animals included) 100% amazes me every single time I think about it...which is a lot. Let's start at the beginning. I'll try to be brief about how the reproduction system works, since I know we all learned it ten or twenty years ago.
Here we have the common sperm. They are tiny, they are adorable (yes, seriously), they are many. What astonishes me about sperm is, in fact, how small they are. Human males dispense anywhere from 180-500 million sperm per ejaculation. This is especially incredible to think about when you take into account that sperm only make up about 5-10% of the seminal fluid. This means there are millions of these microscopic swimmers per drop of semen.
Next we have the average egg. While it was originally thought that women were only born with a certain amount of eggs, newer (yet controversial) studies are finding that we might be able to produce more after all. However, the egg only has one chance a month to be fertilized. The window is a mere 12-48 hours out of an entire month!
From here we all know that the sperm (with half the soon-to-be-person's DNA) eventually meets the egg (with the other half), a few break down the walls and one finally gets inside. I bring the two main components up because, again, I want to illustrate the size of them. They are both naked to the human eye and yet when they come together they create life. It's how every single one of us got here.
After this, the process of the zygote becoming a tiny person inside someone blows my mind. Did you know an embryo has a heartbeat by the second month? I've seen it. This little thing the size of a grain of rice has a heart. It's incredible. And think about the rate at which this whole human ends up being developed! I read somewhere (and I can't find the source to site, but I promise I read this) that if a baby grew outside of the womb as fast as it did inside the womb it would eventually become as large as Mt. Everest.
I could go on and on about the actual facts of reproduction, but what I'm most curious about is the effect - or lack thereof - it has on people. Of course it's a very common thing. It happens everywhere we look, and it's been happening since the dawn of time in regards to most things organic. Nevertheless, it's hard for me to understand the lack of awe people have towards it. We literally came from nothing, each of us. Not only that, but many of us have the power to make that happen again. Whether you choose to exercise that power is not my concern in any way. Whether you've given birth, lost one, had an abortion, or none of the above - I'm not here to judge. The fact that we can do any of those is what's so cool.
Having said all that, I think you can tell I'm not someone to be made squeamish by pregnancy. As appalled as I am by people's lack of wonder (in their defense, anyone can get used to anything), I equally react when I meet people who are actually disgusted by the process. You know what's totally weird? Women bleed out of their vaginas every single month. We get over that. Television advertises the detailed uses of tampons and pads. It's not a a big deal. You know what else is totally weird (in that really cool way I mentioned above)? Women push babies out of their vaginas, too. Then they often feed them nutrients from their own breasts which have naturally created sustenance. For some reason, though, this is actually disturbing to people. Having a baby is a slimy, bloody affair. When something comes from your very insides, it's not going to be clean. When something has latched onto your uterus and stretched you out and pushed itself outside of an opening that you once thought would never allow it to, it's going to hurt and it's going to be visually shocking. But disgusting? So repugnant that you wouldn't want to be in the room to watch a loved one go through with it? I can't fathom it.
Despite the fact that I still haven't decided if I even want children or not, it's become extremely important to me that if I find a future settling down mate (also known as a "spouse") they don't have an aversion to reproduction and all it entails. As soon as someone tells me how gross they think it is, part of me is a little sad as I think about their future spouse (who isn't me at this point) possibly having to go through their labor alone.
So listen - I'm totally not telling you all to go out and have babies. I'll be the first to tell you we have a major population problem. I'm also not telling you to hug every pregnant woman you see, because I know most of them hate that. What I'm asking is that you maybe truly think about the actual wonder of it, just for a minute. To think about life that came from nothing more than an 5-22 second (truth) orgasm. It's flipping amazing.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
