This is one of those stories that will most likely make you all hate me, but it’s the truth so I feel compelled to share it. Also I don’t want you to get any ideas about what kind of wife I am, or what kind of wimp husband Wade is.

I’ve only ever had two stitches in my entire life. One was on my arm, when I was probably eleven or twelve; I had a mole removed. And one was when Henry was born.

One suture. That was it. Admit it, you kind of hate me now.

Henry was six weeks premature; he weighed just under five pounds. He was so teeny, all skin and bones. We called him Chicken Baby because he looked like a chicken. My mother-in-law loved that.

I had an easy labor; I was eight centimeters dilated before anyone realized I was actually in labor (eh, it didn’t hurt that much — see, you HATE ME) and the whole pushing part took twenty minutes. It would have gone faster but I wasted one whole contraction laughing at some joke Wade was telling. It’s hard to laugh and push at the same time (all you girls who have not had babies yet write that down).

I was induced with Charlie, because after the totally unplanned and chaotic arrival of my firstborn, I wanted some control over the second birth. Also I did not want to be dragging my crazy toddler with me to the labor and delivery unit because honestly I was going to need my whole concentration to push the baby out, or something like that. I went to the hospital at 6:00 am and they hooked me up to the Pitocin at 7:00, then they unhooked the drugs for an hour because I can’t tolerate an IV in the back of my hand, only in my arm, but I never remember that until my entire hand has swollen to twice it’s normal size and I can no longer make a fist. They put my IV back in at 9:00 but didn’t give me any more Pitocin because I was moving along just fine, and at 12:15 Charlie was born.

This time Wade remembered not to tell any jokes.

Charlie weighed six and a half pounds — he seemed gigantic compared to Henry. We called him the Big Lump of Charlie. Again, a big hit with the grandmothers. But even though he was a big lump, no sutures. At all.

Okay so how much do you hate me now?

My doctor sent me home after both deliveries with prescription strength Ibuprofen, because that was really all I needed. The morning after Henry was born, the doctor came to check me, and told me that I could go home; Henry was in the NICU and I had already spent three days in the hospital, so I took her up on that. I got up and got dressed, and when the social worker came with the paperwork for Henry’s birth certificate, I was sitting up in the rocking chair. She looked around the room and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I need the mother’s signature on some things — I’ll come back.”

Because what crazy woman who just had a baby is up and dressed twenty four hours later?

Since you already hate me at this point (at least those of you who have had babies, because the rest of you LOVE me, right? with my suture-free birth stories!) I’ll tell you one more really fun thing: When Henry was born, my water broke, unexpectedly, at 34 weeks. Wade and I raced off to the emergency room and the nice nurse asked if I was having contractions. No, I said, no contractions. She hooked me up to a fetal monitor and a contraction monitor and left the room.

And came back twenty minutes later to tell me that I was having contractions every four minutes! and they were lasting sixty seconds! Which was great because I couldn’t feel them!

When I went into the hospital to have Charlie, they hooked me up to the monitors again, and before they shot me up with Pitocin, the nurse happily reported that I was having contractions! every six minutes! lasting almost a minute each! Again, great, because I couldn’t feel them!

So when I try to bring up childbirth as an example of a time I have Suffered Greatly, I don’t really get much mileage out of it. And no Vicodin at all, sadly.