I Am The New Birth Control

I've been thinking about teen pregnancy and how it seems so difficult for people to find a way to dissuade young people from getting knocked up. We seem, as a society to want everyone to wait to have babies until our sperm and eggs are arthritic because then we will have the emotional stability to handle having a baby. (Although it's my personal view that you can live to be a wise old bat and still have the emotional maturity of a fourteen year old.)

So how do we discourage teens from having sex unprotected sex? I've come up with a plan: send them to me. I think I can tell them stories that will make their breasts and balls shrivel up into raisin sized sacks of fear. The real problem is that they're not scared enough yet. We've made such a big worshipful ideal out of babies and children in our country that all the celebrities are doing it. That tells teens that having babies, even if you have the first one by "accident", is cool and makes life complete.

I know that there are plenty of women out there who had blushingly wonderful pregnancies and deliveries who are still wearing their rosy glasses that allow them to forget some of the less savory details of the business of having babies. I hate you. I am not one of you. My brain won't let me wear rosy glasses no matter how much I have pleaded my case. Many other women, it turns out, didn't get rose colored glasses either.

So here's the dark side of the coin:

• Nine months my ASS! Pregnancy really lasts forever. You think it will go by fast and before you know it you'll be drinking cokes in your bikini by the beach while a nanny watches your angel sleep. Nine months is a long time to: not drink caffeine, not eat trash, not drink alcohol, not smoke cigarettes, not be in control of your bladder, not get in bitch slapping fights, and to be lonely because your non-pregnant friends are busy doing non-pregnant things.

• Your sex drive will spike. This might seem totally cool at first. Because who doesn't want to be horny every hour of the day that you're not napping like a grandma? But for many it burns strong and bright right before petering out FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

• You will never be able to do whatever you want again. You will be beholden to a little despot who needs you all hours of the day and are very vocal about it. You will never spend another moment of your life without listening for cries. Even when you finally have a little time to yourself you will not be able to turn off your mommy radar.

• You may think you only have to get through the first few months of not sleeping. It is perhaps true for a parent or two out there, but for the rest of us? It's more like five years of no sleep. By the time your kid is letting you get sleep they start doing things like staying up later than you and getting up earlier. Five years is a long time to not get a proper night of sleep. Not getting sleep because you're partying is a lot more fun than not getting sleep because your kid won't let you.

• Having a baby will rip your vagina up. That's right, it will stretch it out and if it doesn't tear you may have to have it snipped and I can tell you from personal experience that either way TOTALLY SUCKS. You think a baby's head is so small when you're holding one in your arms...but when you are having to push it out of your cervix it feels like you're pushing out a Zeppelin. You will fear going to the bathroom for weeks, possibly for months.

• It's expensive. Having babies is more expensive than having a twenty year drug habit, which, by the way, you'll want to start in on right after giving birth if you didn't already have one before. You can have babies and be terribly poor but I promise you that it will be the most dismal ride ever.

• You will never want to have sex again. After all the hormones finish wreaking their havoc, (IF THEY EVER DO), and your vagina has been ripped and stretched, leaked for weeks, and has finally returned to some semblance of normal, you will be so tired from taking care of your Zeppelin baby that you will much prefer to get close to pints of ice cream every night rather than have yet another pair of needy hands grope your body.

• No matter how much time passes you will not forget how painful giving birth was. You will have nightmares about being pregnant again. You will wake up in cold sweats and want to cut off your partner's penis to prevent another pregnancy. You will have dark circles under your eyes from the memory of that awful tearing and all the blood...so much blood! Now look, I think it's important that I remind you all that I broke my hip and while that was so painful I cried every time I had to go to the bathroom for the first month (and I didn't take any pain pills besides Advil), giving birth was worse. I had an epidural near the end but even so, it was worse. And if you think I have a low thresh hold for pain let me just repeat what my doctor said to me after she saw my hip x-rays "You must be one hell of a stoic person!".

I think that should do the trick, don't you? With everyone always talking about babies like they're some dreamy easy accessory to life it's no wonder so many teens are careless. Send them to horrible Aunt Angelina! You just wait and see if your darling budding sexual babies don't come begging you for a chastity belt.

That conclude the public service portion of my day. Next up? Something light and fluffy.