Before my brother was born, I thought that babies were things that people just had or didn’t have. Like hair.
I guess I just never stopped to consider, hey, where did this baby come from? just like I never stopped to consider, hey, where did this couch come from?
When my mom was pregnant with my brother, my parents told me that this future person was inside my mother. *Explosions of insanity* Like, did she eat him? Is that ethically correct? I don’t think I fully comprehended this until she gave birth, though.
I remember the day before my brother was due, my mother was basically a hot air balloon. If the baby is that big, then how does it even get out?
So I asked my mother, “How does the baby get out?”
And my mother and my cousin shared this look and neither of them answered. So I started guessing. “Does it come out of your mouth? That’d be so uncomfortable. Would you be able to breathe? Does it come out of your butt? Is poop a baby?”
At this point, to stop me from going any further, my mom said, “They’re going to cut it out of my stomach.”
This, obviously, horrified me. I imagined some evil cartoonish surgeon taking a huge, rusty knife to my mother and then stitching her back up like a zombie.
I mean, this was kinda true because she had a c-section.
So then four-year-old me kept thinking. Because that’s healthy. What triggers a pregnancy? I decided that it happens spontaneously. Like you’re just eating breakfast one day and bam you’re pregnant and you instantly become a human blimp. But then what’s stopping my mom from having another kid? I was not happy with the first one; a second would be a nightmare.
Little Arachnid: “Mom, what’s stopping you from getting pregnant again?”
Arachnid’s Mom: They gave me an injection so I won’t have any more kids.
Well, okay. Good enough for now.
Until people started asking if Scorpion got his nose from his dad and his eyes from his mom. I understood how Scorpion would get his eyes from his mom because I mean, he was inside her. But how would he get anything from his dad? My dad wasn’t pregnant. Maybe it’s from kissing. Like, in all that icky salival exchange noses are transferred to babies. But no. Then they wouldn’t have actors kissing each other on Good Luck, Charlie because then they’d all have kids! It’s all probably transferred through the air. Because after they get married, the dad and the mom live together, so then air particles are transferred and that’s where Scorpion gets his nose.
This explanation worked for me for years until we got back from a baby shower and I started thinking again.
If babies have to be surgically removed from their mothers, what did cavemen and dolphins do? Because they don’t have hospitals.
Babies must come out of their mother’s belly buttons! What else would belly buttons be used for? Right? Right?
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