My sister just had twins, so leading up to their birth, there has been a lot of talk about babies and the inevitable questions of procreation were shot out at me like a machine gun. The first one Azul asked was, “How do the babies come out?” My initial thought was, whew, at least he didn’t ask how they got in, and I replied very confidently, “Through the birth canal.” Good thinking me! That bought me some extra time, was my next thought. He didn’t quite understand what a birth canal was and it just went over his head. I dodged a bullet. A few days later, and now that he knows the babies come out through the birth canal, he wanted to know how they got in, in the first place. And again, this round of shots came at an inopportune time and I was not ready to delve into the subject, so I very carefully explained, “When a man and a woman love each other very much, they go to a fertility doctor, who then makes a baby and puts it in the woman.” We both laughed and the conversation moved on. Now, I wasn’t lying to him, that is what happens in many cases and I know more and more couples who do it that way than the good old-fashioned way.
The morning the babies were to be born we talked about it again. This time while comfortably cuddling in my bed in the early morning. He asked, “Are the babies going to be pooped out?” Which seems like a logical conclusion, since he is familiar with the digestive system. He knows when food goes in his stomach it is eventually pooped out, and it proved that he did take some time to think about it by himself. So, I praised his efforts and thought process and then said, “When the babies are born they will go through the birth canal and the out the vagina, that is a woman’s pee-pee.” (And yes, I am going to stick to the term pee-pee for now! He’s only five!) He looked at me wide-eyed and said, “They must be tiny babies to come out your pee-pee!” And then laughed. In full baby talk now, I continued the explanation and concluded with, “A woman’s body is amazing and is made to support babies and give birth to them.” Still looking at me said, “Show me on you.” I laughed and said, “Oh, we’ll get you a book!” And we did.
The book was very cute and talked about some bodies having a uterus and some not, and sometimes having a baby hurts a little and sometimes it hurts a lot. (I am calling bullshit on this, it hurts a lot!) At the end of the story, Azul, launching the last bomb, said, “I’m glad I don’t have a uterus. It won’t hurt me at all.” And that was what he got out of all the baby talk, he doesn’t have a uterus, so it won’t hurt him. Sigh!