The More Things Change....

About a decade ago, I was at work after hours with a couple of my female colleagues. We were discussing our different experiences with childbirth, each trying to top the other with horror stories. The phone rang and caused a brief interruption in conversation. The doctor the caller was looking for was paged overhead and we girls went right back to the task of discussing our tales of postpartum woe.

Several minutes had gone by and one of the gals, OK-me began discussing how during the birth of her youngest, she'd had a terrible laceration in her nether-regions and had asked the doctor to take a few extra stitches to tighten it all back up down there. She figured since he was in the area, why not make it look like it belonged to a teenager again? About that time, the doctor who had taken the call that had interrupted us came running down the hall, laughing her ass off and yelling simultaneously for us to hang up the phone. It seems the conversation had been broadcast overhead for everyone still in the building to listen in on. There were quite a few. Truth be told, just about the entire office heard that conversation.

It's one of my best rocking chair memories. I'll cherish the look on this doc's face as long as I live, standing there laughing with tears running down her cheeks. I love a good laugh, even if the laugh is on me.

I am the woman I am today because of the experiences I've had in life-including horrific childbirth tribulations and embarrassing slips of judgment. Some of my experiences have been good, some were bad. I'd rather some things had never occurred, but I don't suffer intense remorse or regret over decisions I've made. They are what they are and I do try hard not to repeat mistakes. I guess that's why I have such a hard time imagining what it must be like for women, in this day and age, to feel driven by shame over mistakes made. Enough so that they feel pressured to get back what they've already given.

Do a few extra stitches make the truth go away?