For The Love, Moms. Let's Talk About Literally Anything Besides Birth Stories, Please.

I’m not into the whole birth story thing.

Whenever I’m roped into these conversations, things tend to get a little weird.

“My contractions were terrible. But my drugs were good. The pushing was kinda rough, but then — whoosh! — a baby fell out. That’s about it.”

And in my brain, that really is about it. Birth was a medically necessary event that culminated in a tiny human exiting my body.

The baby is here! Hooorrray!

And moving on.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe child birth is a momentous occasion. It gave me the two greatest children on the planet, so obviously, I’m a huge fan.

Before birth, I wasn’t a mother. After birth, I was. So birth is great. Yay, birth!

But.

For me, the whole process was a means to an end. Yes, it was an incredible physical feat, and yes, I’m grateful that mine went well. But y’all, I just didn’t spend too much time pondering it.

That is until a few weeks into motherhood, when I emerged from my hermit hole desperate to make friends and willing to do whatever it took to bond with my fellow moms.

Clueless little me popped into every parenting group, church event, or random flock of playground parents that I could, in search of adult interaction. And to my complete surprise, with literally everything else on the planet we could possibly discuss, the conversation inevitably gravitated toward — you guessed it — freaking birth stories. Every single time!

I mean, whoa, ladies. We literally just met, and we are already discussing perineal stitches?

Please say no.

Clearly, childbirth is a topic that women love to bond over. Sadly for me, when the Motherhood Fairy was sprinkling “give a crap” dust on all of the birth-story swappers, I somehow got passed over.

Because literally every time I’m around parents, this subject is breached and a tiny bit of my soul dies.

Isn’t it hard enough getting out of the house when you are attached to tiny humans 24/7? With all their wanting and needing and pooping, and for the love, mamas. I just want to talk about something adulty.

Like, hey, did you see Grey’s Anatomy last night? Or have you tried that new eyebrow threading place?

YOU GUYS LIKE COFFEE, RIGHT?!

But no, no, here we go with the birth stories. Again.

Which is fantastic. Because we’ve known each other for the 10 whole minutes that our children have been parallel playing in the sandbox. Perhaps we should wait until at least the third playdate to hear about how epidurals are overrated? Call me old-fashioned.

Mamas, I won’t fault you this fun exchange. It’s just…I don’t get out much, okay? And I love my cubs as much as the next mama bear, but I’m still kind of waddling from the last one I pushed out, and I could really use some adult time, so can we please talk about something, anything, but birth stories?

Correction: Anything but babies would be lovely.

No milestones. No poop and pee banter. No rehashing how many hours we are all not sleeping. (Okay, that one is kinda fun. Let’s keep that one). Heck, I’ll even talk politics at this point.

2016, AMIRIGHT?

But, please, let’s just cut the fat and accept that since we are all here in sloppy clothes and sunglasses, chugging coffee and rocking some wicked messy buns, it is apparent that we are all mothers. We have all managed to arrive at this playground with varying sizes of children. Children that somehow came into this world by exiting a human body in one way or another. Cool? We got that.

Let’s skip the details of that fascinating journey, and enjoy the fact that our children are magical, but holy crap, we are pooped, and there are 800 bajillion other things we could really be discussing right now.

Like, hey.

Did you hear that Target is gonna be serving wine soon?

I’m just sayin’…