A few months back I managed to make it out to a concert for a much needed girls’ night. In typical new mom fashion, it wasn’t long into the evening before I found myself talking about my son.

The conversation started out innocent enough.  I answered the standard introductory questions that often get asked when you meet new friends. “How old is your son?” “Is he your first?” “What’s his name?” No one in the all-female singles group seemed to mind that I had highjacked the conversation with my dreary mom reports.

Then something weird happened. One of the girls I had just met looked at me and said, “Vaginal.” She had this funny look on her face when she said it and her mocking eyes looked at me as if searching for an answer.

I looked around and thought maybe she had Tourretts, possibly Schizophrenia? Why did she just say that? And then it hit me.  She was messing with me. In describing the details of my son’s birth, I must have said “vaginal” about 20 times without even noticing. What was wrong with me? Couldn’t I have used a normal phrase like “natural birth” or something? Why didn’t I use a more common slang term like “who ha”,  “punani”, “kitty” or “clementine?”

But there I was surrounded by a group of lesbian women, who for the most part are no strangers to the word “vaginal” and even they were amused by my excessive use of it. So I laughed, gave a wink and said, “Yes…vaginal” with the most non-embarrassed face I could muster. I tried to finish my story but I was distracted so I made a comment about the musician’s armpit hair in an effort to redirect the topic.

But the damage had been done – I crashed and burned at my attempted conversational bob and weave. I mean, I was the girl who said “vaginal” on a first time meet and greet and now it was burned into our memory banks for all eternity. Or at least for the next few minutes. And while I’m not sure I won any points for conversationalist of the night, I did make off with some fabulous new girlfriends that evening 😉

As I was driving home that night I had to laugh. Ever since becoming a mom, I’ve become oddly comfortable with sharing such private info about my “privates”.  I mean when else is it perfectly acceptable to talk to perfect strangers about your vaginal birth or better yet, how large your cervix dilated, or your episiotomy or that fact that your goodies didn’t tear? Try working those topics into a conversation with your local grocery clerk! It just doesn’t happen. But there I was, on my pubic podium throwing those vagina words around like they were going into hibernation and I needed to get my fill before their seasonal disappearance.

Lesson of the day, folks: It’s one thing to reminisce about your baby…but you might want to keep your “Harry Manilow” out of it 😉

– The Confessioness