let me tell you 'bout the bears and the babies

Pic and I were just reading The Berenstain Bears' New Baby and Pic asked me, 'How's the baby going to get out of her uterus?'

'Well...,' I hesitated, 'The baby's going to come out of her...'

'Mouth?' Pic asked.

I laughed a bit but then told her, 'That's a good guess, but the baby's going to come out of Mama's vagina?'

'Why?'

'So she can be out in the world with us.'

Pic looked a little concerned but I told her babies are small and vaginal openings get bigger. I made the whole process seem a lot easier than it is, but I don't think I needed to be more detailed than that. What I told her is probably already way more than a lot of parents would have told their children, but I don't want her to grow up with some weird notion that babies emerge from mamma's mouths or bellybuttons or fully-formed from their fathers heads (although this explanation flashed into my head, I suppressed it).

So yes, this is what I get for reading these kinds of books to Pic. She's known for a long time now that a baby (or babies) reside in the mamma's uterus when they're still inside the mamma but this is the first time she's asked me about the baby's emergence.

Anyhow, in the book, Papa Bear and Small Bear (Brother's name before the '80s basically) go out into the woods to make Brother a bed because he's outgrown his bed just in time...when they get back, Mama has given birth (at home? alone?) and is up and around again. It's been a while since I've read it, but The Berenstain Bears and Baby Makes Five seems to portray a much more realistic picture of the process (nothing too in-depth, of course) -- at least the reality that many people I know experienced. (Of course, my mom did give birth to me in our home, but she was not alone.) I just couldn't let the storyline of The New Baby alone because, really, who gives birth at home, alone and then is back up a couple of hours later? And, yes, I know it's a kids' book and we're talking about cartoonish bears here, but I couldn't let it be. Although, now that I think about it, this must be what the birthing process seemed like to a lot of men (my dad not included because he was also at home when I was born) at that time and earlier when they waited in the waiting room, passing out cigars. Pregnant Mamma goes into the hospital room and Mamma and Baby come out.

So, I didn't mean for this post to be so long and rambly, but, well, here you have it. Pic'll probably end up asking some random question about growing vaginas to Papi and he'll be rightly perplexed and probably a bit concerned. I might just have ensured that I never have grandkidlets but I'd rather tell her what I know to be true than have her learn the really hard way. And, I avoided the c-section conversation altogether because 1) I doubt that Mama performed a do-it-yourself c-section and 2) I have no idea how to explain that without scaring my child half-to-death.