What’s it like? she asks shyly, unsure she wants an honest answer. Is your… (she looks for witnesses within earshot, leans in to whisper)

...patootie ever the same again?

Ahhh, the child-free friend. How morbid is her curiosity?

I take a deep breath and begin, gathering unexpected, uncensored momentum on the downhill slide. Despite qualifying the epic with plenty of ‘wasn’ts’, ‘nots’, ‘buts’ and ‘not-alwayses’, the inquirer will always – always – depart your company with the following nuggets churning around in her head:

• giant needle
• third-degree tear
• alien abduction
• squishy
• episiotomy
• “just a little cut”
• fifteen masked strangers
• strapped down
• stitches
• drippy
• droopy
• industrial-strength
• barf
• bucket
• audience
• “…and then the head came out”
• “couldn’t sit down for a week…”

Then I look at her and realize her mouth is open, slack-jawed as she listens. She looks as though she’s just made a decision. Perhaps to never get pregnant.

I know now why mothers relish the chance to describe their labours in terms of fantastical gore. We do it nonchalantly (“You only had first-degrees? Lucky twit! I tore all the way back to my *@$*&#$!”) to make a point: none of it mattered as much as we thought it would.

None of it was as scary as I thought it would be, or as uncomfortable. I healed. I lost the inhibitions, the scars, the embarrassment, the weight. The mystery is gone, replaced by a confidence-building matter-of-factness. Experience trumps melodrama. Hearing these words come out of my mouth – remembering that it all happened to me – gives me a secret, deep-down pride. Pride that I can be nonchalant. I own it. I mastered it. I survived it. It’s mine, down to every last popsicle. I cherish the mess of it. You do too, don’t you?

Problem is, such gore-cherishing costs the inquirer dearly. Next time we’re together, I must rewind – tell her more about the magic, the sweet, palpable female righteousness, the deliciousness, the godliness, the super-heroineness. The awe on a new daddy’s face.

But there’s really nothing I can say, is there? She won’t know for herself until she discovers her own reserves of strength and humour and bravery. And she will. Until then, I hope she’ll forgive me. And eventually stop doubting the continuing sprightliness of my patootie.