“I’m having a caesarean to keep my girly parts intact”

That is what a woman said to me recently, adding: “I booked in for one as soon as I found out I was pregnant.”

There we were at the David Jones fashion show and
I was chatting with a few friends and acquaintances. When caesar-woman
joined the group, small-talk naturally turned to pregnancy. Then she
dropped her clanger.

As we clutched our cocktails that little bit tighter in the stunned
silence, she merrily picked up her shovel and kept digging: “You know,”
she emphasised conspiratorially, “so I don’t get all stretched and
floppy down there.”

Oh my lord, it’s happened, I marvelled, while wrestling my urge to smack her: I’ve finally met a real-life woman who’s Too Posh To Push. I thought they were an urban myth. Or a Hollywood truth. But regular women? Who knew!

Fortunately, at that moment we were ushered to our seats and the conversation ended. But as the models flounced down the catwalk in their pretty summer frocks, I started obsessing.  “Why am I so cross with that silly woman?” I asked my friend afterwards. “Because she insulted us,” she replied. “By telling everyone she’s having a caesar to preserve her vagina, she’s basically saying all women who’ve given birth the other way are the Grand Canon.” Yes! That’s it! Damn her!

“And it’s an impossible thing to defend,” continued my friend. “If you try to say it all snaps back and that your partner is perfectly happy, you can tell she’s thinking “yeah sure, but he only tells you that because he wants to have sex with you. He’s lying and you’re the Grand Canyon and I pity you.”

Over the next few days, I re-told the story to other mothers who were similarly peeved and insulted.

“Before giving birth to my first child, a doctor told me “sex will never be the same” and suggested a Caesar” huffed one friend.  “I asked in what way specifically would it be different and he said, “Well mainly it impacts on your husband…most men I speak to agree it’s not the same.” I wonder if this is a medically proven fact or a conversation he’d had on the golf course, being the insightful 70-something he was. I managed to have sex often enough to get pregnant three times in two years, so I guess my husband had no complaints!”

And this from a friend who gave birth last year: “After 20 hrs of labour followed by am emergency caeser, I tell you they could have pulled my child out of my nose at that point and I wouldn’t have objected – the state of my girl parts was the last thing on my mind. We didn’t have sex again for about four months by which time my husband would have jumped at the opportunity even if there had been a grenade up there. If he was disappointed, he forgot to mention it through his enormous post-coital grin.”

But enough from the ladies. I decided to ask a couple of single blokes who’ve dated women with kids for their honest appraisal of the situation. I figured this would circumvent any accusation of bias based on the self-interest of men asked the same question by the mothers of their children.

I’m pleased to report that both my single male survey subjects do not think that good sex and vaginal birth are mutually exclusive events. “Hell no, you can’t tell the difference” insisted one, “Every woman is different anyway, kids or not.”
“Any guy who complains is just making excuses for his own shortcomings,” confirmed the other, amusing himself for a good five minutes with that witty pun.

Britney Spears admits she’s too-posh-to-push and had two elective caesareans in 18 months. Something she described as “a piece of cake.”

Really? Several women I know who’ve given birth both ways say it’s bollocks to assume a caesar is the easy option.  “I was standing up in the shower half an hour after having my first son naturally,” said one mother. “But I had to have a Caesar with my second and I could barely move for two days. The pain was awful and the recovery was longer than I’d expected. It’s not like getting a Brazilian. It’s major surgery.”
Another friend who had to have an emergency caesarean after two natural births is more blunt: “Babies are meant to come out of vaginas not the sun-roof. But thankfully, we’re blessed in this modern age to have medical options. Without them, my last baby would have died. Making it an issue of vaginal vanity is ridiculous.”
Yes, ridiculous. Caesar-woman, are you listening? Now, uncross your legs and enjoy your pregnancy.