I sent everyone a cute hospital photo with my new baby – I didn’t notice a mortifying detail until it was too late
I didn’t mean to send a picture of my vagina to all our friends, family, pastors, teachers, and bosses, current and former.
Sometimes these things just happen, you know. Oh, you don’t? It’s just me? Well, then.
For months before our first child was born, I cultivated an email list of everyone we’d ever known.
As first-time parents, we obnoxiously believed that every single friend or teacher or elementary school librarian would want to see our slimy little newborn.
(I’m not kidding about the librarian. Mrs. Bennett is one of those people who never get cut from your holiday card list, or the one you would use if you sent those.)
I was making the list in 2008, so we didn’t have social media outlets to declare the news the minute she left my body.
When it was time to push, my husband, Lee, was next to me. My mom was outside the delivery room, insisting that she was supposed to be with me in there. My saintly doctor blocked her, saying it wasn’t a good time.
And it wasn’t. My girl didn’t come until I had been laboring at the hospital for 18 hours, having squeezed my husband’s hand enough to make nail marks an hour before that.
In my defense, he tried to tell me it was okay and I should go back to sleep. That’s when the nails came out.
To add insult to tearing perineum, the labor and delivery nurse we met at 2:53 am when we first arrived at the birthing center had gone home, slept, and had her day, and then returned for her next shift, becoming my nurse again for the end.
She promised the baby would come by 9:00 pm. At 9:01, I was bitter.
I screamed at her every time I pushed, “You said ‘only one more time’ last time, you lie!”
Jocelyn finally arrived at 9:24.
I was sweaty. Lee was sweaty. My mom entered, cool and collected. I held my girl and then I learned that I had to deliver the placenta too. What sick joke was that?
I had avoided pregnancy books. I didn’t want to know the details.
The computer had a brand new system online starting that week, so the lying nurse asked if some other nurses could come in to learn it.
Maybe it was the drugs, but I said yes, my feet in stirrups, not feeling much from the waist down, bag of blood and other bodily matter hanging off the end of the bed, and placenta finally evacuated.
During all the pushing, I had torn, which I didn’t yet understand, except that more nurses were seeing me below the belt than I ever imagined because I couldn’t put my legs down yet. Come on in, everyone.
At some point, my husband was holding Jocelyn and my mom was taking a picture.
Did she mean to capture the reflection of my vagina in the doctor’s plastic mask?
Did Lee mean to make my privates public when he uploaded the picture to our laptop?
No and no. None of us meant to email out my vagina.
But in the picture we sent to the world — or at least our world — pastors and all, Lee is smiling and holding our bundled-up little girl, already wearing one of those white knit hats with light blue and pink stripes.
He looks proud, and she… well, she looks like a baby.
And there, in the background to their left, was a red glowing orb, the light on my parts reflecting as something magical in the mask the doctor wore.
We didn’t know. We sent the picture out with the stats — 8 pounds, 10 ounces, and so on — and then we cooed over the little person made from the two of us.
And there, in the background to their left, was a red glowing orb, the light on my parts reflecting as something magical in the mask the doctor wore.
We were conservative back then, with most of the pastors on the email list being evangelical men.
We met Brenda, my matron of honor, and her husband Rolando, a groomsman, at such a church, where she was the most modest of all the women.
She didn’t consider sandals to be appropriate because some guys were turned on by feet.
As we were learning to care for Jocelyn and trying not to break her, replies to our email came in.
One was to Lee from Rolando.
He was savvy with photo editing and wrote: “I edited Shannon’s genitals out of this one. Congrats!” having attached an edited version of the photo.
We didn’t know how to send out the new one without calling attention to the vagina in the room on the first one, so we said nothing to anyone.
Maybe other people ignored the shining orb, the magical vagina, but I doubt it.
You’d think that would be the end, right? What else could happen?
Well, years later I stepped into the break room at Lee’s office to grab something for him while the kids — we had six by then — colored on enormous sheets of draft paper on the floor.
On the bulletin board, plain as day, was my vagina. The picture was small so it wasn’t as obvious unless you were looking for it, but the infamous picture was there.
I took it down quietly, walked to Lee’s desk, slid it face down toward him, and whispered, “How long has my magical vagina been on display here?”
It had been hanging up for 11 years at his workplace and in hundreds of email accounts right after I gave birth.
Embarrassing, yes, but now that baby girl is 16, so I don’t think my vagina exists in anyone’s inbox anymore.
To all of you who will someday give birth or have any other invasive procedure, set a clear rule: only pictures along the wall not facing you.
Or maybe no cameras in the room.