For the Love of Serena, Will Someone Phuleeze Get Me Pregnant?!

Three things I will never do:

1. Spend an evening of intimacy with Ronnie Wood.
2. Share a bowl of chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds with Barack Obama.
3. Work myself into the Lotus Position without dislocation.

Three things I can never do:

1. Serve Eggs Benedict (covered with a perfect Hollandaise sauce, sprinkled with fresh chives and smatterings of smoked salmon) to Benedict Arnold.
2. Sit strapped into a cockpit seat, alongside the pet monkey I don't have, as a pioneer traveller aboard a Sputnik spacecraft.
3. Have a baby!

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After winning the women's title in Madrid on Sunday, Serena Williams made the following statement:

"Women are way tougher than men. That's why we have the babies, you guys could never handle kids,"
"We ladies don't complain we just do our best. On the WTA (tour) we are real performers, we are not about going out there and being weenies." 

These philosophical musings were in reference to Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic blaming their poor performances on the court's new blue clay.

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It is conceivable that men will once day allow themselves to be medically tampered with to such an extent we will experience pregnancy. Whether they will find an orifice accommodating enough to allow a form of delivery for us other than Cesarean Section is a seperate challenge.
In the meantime, can we agree that "you don't know real pain until you've experience pregnancy and childbirth" be taken off the table as a counter argument to vasectomies, cystoscopies, head colds, and men's complaints in general?

If I could experience childbirth, I would. (No, you wouldn't.) Yes, I would.
However, I think the truth is: women wouldn't want me to have pregnancy on my physical C.V.; it would kick one leg out from under mom's OBGYN table. Where do you go from there? A man who's been through it all, and still complains about pneumonia? How do you shut him up then? 

If men were to bear children, we would survive the process. Why? How? For the same reason women do: we'd have to. One does what one must when one desires something enough, like children for instance. Or medical school; or becoming a pole vaulter.
Are pregnancy and childbirth more difficult than the training involved in Olympic pole vaulting? I don't know. I will never run along a track, jam a flexible pole into the ground, and catapult myself vertically twenty feet over a bar, hoping to land on a mat the size of a mattress on the other side.
Nor will I ever have a gestating human slowly push many of my major organs to the corners of my abdomen while stretching the uterus I don't have to the size of a basketball just before he/she forces his/her way past my pelvis which has expanded barely enough to expel this child I will have to care for for the rest of my life.

But neither has Serena Williams lived these experiences.
What she did accomplish on Sunday was win a tournament, pocket $630,000 in prize money, and then call me a weenie - a condition which apparently explains my inability to bear children.

The metaphor of men's inexperience of childbirth frustrated me so much during my wife's two pregnancies, I wrote a book about it: "Men Get Pregnant, too. (Despite Never Pushing a Watermelon Through a Pigeonhole). 
What I've discovered is: getting a book published appears to be nearly as difficult - although not as painful - as pregnancy. I might have an easier time pushing the thing past my cervix than I'm having promoting it to bookshelves at Barnes & Noble.
Perhaps Serena can lend me the money to self-publish in exchange for a stake in the book's profits? If not, I'd be happy to be the subject of the 'Serena Willams Medical Fund Promoting Pregnancy in Men'...as long as any experimentation doesn't come at the expense of my weenie. 

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Comments

[Pamela / Pamela's Heavenly Treats]

Ok Kenny you have some serious posts, I just love them. I do agree with IF men were to have babies YES they would get through it, because it is something that you want. Just like us woman. I do also agree that she should not have voiced that esp since she has no children. Again great post!!

[Ashleigh]

You make great points. I personally think that women go on and on about how hard pregnancy and labor are just so they can hold it over men's heads. If it were that awful no one would have more than one child.

[Joy]

Good point. I on the other hand, having felt natural childbirth, would have to say I have indeed never felt anything like it before or since. But that said, neither have I experienced many of the things you tough guys go through! And I can't imagine watching my loved one go through such pain and not truly feeling in pain myself (as my hubby wrote on his blog).

Warmest regards,
Joy
http://www.PardonMyPoppet.com

[Kenny Bodanis]

Thank you for the little nod in our direction. It's much appreciated:)

[Kenny Bodanis]

LOL! Where have you been all my life? I should introduce you to some women I know...:)

[Kenny Bodanis]

Thanks, Pamela. It REALLY got my goat that a millionaire who's NEVER experienced childbirth made that comment.

[MomLiya]

That's quite interesting post. I am sure giving birth to a child is indeed the most painful thing a lady would go in her life.. But, I don't believe in saying...what if Men were...because as per my personal faith, God has planned things in its right way. No one is better than other. He has willed it and is happening!

Thanks You for a great post!

[Amber--JadeLouise Designs]

Ok, the ONLY person that can make a comment like that is a women who HAS had children, and she can only make that comment if the men are calling her a wimp for wanting pain medicine during the entire process. Or for saying he could "do it better". (yes, i know some men like that...sadly). Then, I think the man may be in need of some serious "putting in his place". But such an off-handed comment like hers...that was just uncalled for.

[Carla Barilá Karam]

Kenny! I just love reading your posts!! Always very interesting and thought provoking. Peace.