I was hanging out over on Val's blog early this morning when I was again, awake at an ungodly hour... she is starting to ask the tough questions about childbirth and the first days postpartum. Stupid me, I never asked a lot of these questions and so things like random hemmerhoid checks, being grilled about whether or not you have used the bathroom yet (either one, nurses are obsessively interested in both!), XXL icepack maxi pads, the night sweats (my GOSH the night sweats), and blood clots the size of my head were all fun little surprises!

Thanks to my friend Meghan, who had her baby two weeks before me, however, the mesh panties at least, were not a total shocker.


Seriously. The whole experience is just indescribably undignifiying. Luckily, I was out of it enough due to lack of sleep and general discomfort and so distracted by the baby that I didn't really give it much thought at the time... just the scattered, "Wow. This is really humiliating!" thought followed by total gratefulness for the nurses who kept showing up with warm squirt bottles of water to hose things down.

Wow. Someone remind me why do people do this more than once?