Being pregnant is a roller coaster ride filled with ups, downs, and weird food issues. It’s also a great time in your relationship—you're going to have a baby! Babies are cute! We’re going to be the best parents ever! But if you’re planning to have a baby, you’d better gear up for at least one serious argument. And it’s about your vagina.
Mila Kunis recently said that she wants fiancé Ashton Kutcher to stay “above the action” when she gives birth to their first child. Unless, she added, he wants to “risk his life” to see what’s happening down there during the birth.
Sound dramatic? Totally, and I completely get where she’s coming from. I felt the same way when I was pregnant—but my husband, Chris, had a different opinion. It was one of the most polarizing experiences in our relationship, and as I later discovered, a lot of couples go through it.
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When we started trying to have a baby, I randomly stumbled across a few stories that talked about how watching the birthing process can scar a man. (It was a weird afternoon between me and my buddy Google.) Basically, these stories said that when your significant other sees your lady bits doing all kinds of Cirque du Soleil-like shenanigans, he can have trouble erasing that visual from his mind in the future. Not every man feels this way, but that wasn’t a risk I wanted to take.
I solidified my stance that I wasn’t interested in giving my husband a front row seat to the action when I gave birth. Not only that, this is my vagina we’re talking about. I haven’t flashed it to a room full of people since I was two, and it’s not something that I’m in the habit of just whipping out—especially not when, oh, I don’t know...a child is coming out of it.
Chris and I had chatted about it one night before I was even pregnant, and he said he was on board with whatever I wanted to do. Granted, I slipped the discussion in during a commercial break between Entourage reruns, but I figured that would suffice. I conceived soon afterward and assumed that we didn’t need to have the talk again.
Then, Christmas happened. While hanging out in a room with my extended family, the subject of our son’s upcoming birth came up. And then...everyone proceeded to talk about my vagina like I wasn’t in the room.
“Chris, you have to watch the baby come out. It’s the most meaningful thing in the world,” one cousin said. “You don’t even notice her vagina and what it’s doing. It’s all about the baby...but it is pretty grody,” said another.
“Yeah, I’m not OK with that,” I interjected, before getting shut down by everyone. “No, no—it’s cool!” “You’ll be fine,” “You have to let him watch.” And, the most memorable: “If you’re that worried about it, just get a wax beforehand.” Because that will help when my lower half is doing its best boa constrictor imitation.
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The discussion about my vagina went on for, no joke, 45 minutes. When it finally wrapped (thank you, Nana, for breaking it up), Chris was hooked. Turns out, he had started to think he wanted to watch the birth even before Christmas, but the subject never came up. After The Time My Entire Family Discussed My Vagina, he was convinced. He had to watch the birth the second it happened. It would be the highlight of his life, an experience he’d never get again. To deprive him of that would be downright cruel.
Yep, too bad. On some level, I get it—men feel a little left out of pregnancy and the whole birthing process. Watching their child be born makes them feel like part of the action, kind of like surround sound or high-definition TV. Unfortunately, my nether regions weren’t interested in starring in their own reality show special.
What followed was a fight that lasted for days. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t OK with me just deciding what I wanted to expose and not expose. He couldn’t believe I wouldn’t let him see his child the millisecond he was born. We were both pissed, and it wasn’t the kind of thing that bringing home a surprise pint of ice cream could solve. I got so mad, I even threatened to go into labor and call him after the baby arrived (yeah, that didn’t go over well).
Then, one day, he was over it. He said that if it meant that much to me, he wouldn’t look even though he really, really wanted to. If that was a last-ditch appeal to get VIP access to the birth, it failed. Mama wasn’t budging.
When I finally did go into labor, he stuck to his word. He stayed above the shoulders the whole time and even turned his face to the wall and shuffled awkwardly by when he had to walk past my (completely exposed) lower half. I would know, I was watching him like a hawk.
In the greater scheme of having a baby, clearly this is a minor detail. Once you’re in labor, the goal is to get the baby out safely—and if you happen to get through it with minimal bodily harm, even better. The desire to maintain your modesty swan-dives down the list pretty early on. That said, a part of pregnancy and childbirth is learning to give up some control. But giving up the power to control who saw my exposed body was not something I was willing to relinquish.
I know not everyone has the same opinion on this as me, and to each her own—it’s a personal choice. A few friends told me I wouldn’t care whether Chris saw things on the day of the birth. They were wrong: I definitely did, and I’m so glad he wasn’t watching.
Korin Miller is a writer, SEO nerd, and mom to a one-year-old dude named Miles. She has an unhealthy addiction to gifs.
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