Where do Babies Come From?

At what age did you stop asking yourself, "where do babies come from?". Do you remember the exact moment that you put two and two together, and realized the true process to the creation of life? Well, I can assure you that every person that I know stopped asking themselves that question long before I did. Welcome to a life of pure childhood innocence. Welcome to a life where pertinent information was withheld from a child for far too long. Welcome to a life where a teenager wasn't able to get a date to the dance because they believed that babies were born out of their mother's behind. Welcome to my life.

I need to preface this story with saying that I grew up with an absolute angel of a mother. My father abandoned our family when I was ten years old, so my beautiful mother raised four children on her own. In saying this I hope that this gives a justified and comical reason as to why my amazing mother perhaps forgot to teach us minor (or in this circumstance, less minor) lessons about life. I also need to make it known that I always attended Catholic schools, which means that if we received any form of sexual education at all, the teachings were very vague. In this particular series of events my mother forgot to inform me that the softened tale she told me as a child about how babies are born, was not in fact scientifically true. This lead to a 13 year old me still believing that babies were born out of a mother's bottom. And this folks, is where our story begins.

Up until the end of tenth grade, I had a typical high school experience for a girl who wasn't set to hit puberty fully for another few years. This means that I absolutely had crushes on boys; however, for the most part I wasn't really given a second glance by them. This fact never really burdened me, for I knew I was destined for some sort of glow up either aesthetically, fashionably, intellectually, spiritually, or even a slight combination of all four. From a young age my mother really taught me to be confident in who I was. This embedded confidence really saved me from the regular things that kids usually get embarrassed about, trivial circumstances such as tripping on the playground, having a stain on my uniform, or not getting invited to the popular girl's birthday party. Nothing really ever embarrassed me as a kid until this horrific event. I was never phased by the minor problems of a teenager until the first boy I ever ask on a date declined my offer because he heard that I thought babies were born from their mother's behind. I can assure you that when those words were uttered from that shaggy haired, cute but gawky boy's mouth, that I felt an embarrassment that to this day, is still unmatched. Even a confident smooth talker like me couldn't talk my way out of this one.

You must be wondering how we got to this point, and how my crush found out about my deep dark secret. Well it all started when I was hanging out with my friend at the time, let's call her Sara. Sara and I were hanging out after school a week prior to my crush relaying this information that he had found out about me. To be completely honest, I cannot remember for the life of me how the topic of conceiving a child came up between Sara and I. With all of the strange and curious things that teenagers talk about with their friends, the possibility of this topic arising was very high. All I know is that at some point when we were talking about childbirth, I couldn't justify how a baby could travel through and be born from a mother's backside. I must've said something along those lines, because all I remember is the look on Sara's face after I had said it. Her reaction was a combination of confusion and laughter, because I genuinely thought that that was the method in which babies were delivered. She started laughing like it was the funniest thing she had ever heard in her life. It was in that moment that I realized I messed up. I still didn't quite know how I messed up, but I knew something wasn't adding up. After Sara was done laughing she asked me if I was joking, and proceeded to inform me that babies are in fact delivered through a woman's front parts. I tried will all my might to hide my reaction of surprise to this new profound information. Unfortunately, Sara saw right through my attempt at concealing my reaction. Knowing that I was caught red handed, I begged Sara not to tell anyone. And well, we all know how that turned out don't we. I actually never blamed Sara for spilling the beans. At my high school, part of what made you somewhat popular was the gossip that you had on other people at the school. It was only a matter of time that the news of how I didn't know how babies were born was made public. This was too juicy of a story for Sara to sit on for long.

My reaction to my crush informing me that he knew my deep dark secret was priceless. I had rehearsed all week what I would say to someone if this situation ever occurred. I thought I was so slick. I thought I came up with the perfect cover. Overconfident me back at it again. After last period when my crush told me that he heard that I thought babies were delivered from a mother's behind, I calmly explained that I only say that babies are born that way to children or around children when they inquire about the topic. I tell children this because they are too young to start getting into details about the full truth of how babies are born. I felt so confident in my response. I thought that I had the situation locked down. I could see my crush taking a second to interpret my response. It was obvious that he was momentarily considering this to be a viable justification to the rumor that he had heard. I was almost in the clear when my crush threw me a curve ball. How did I not anticipate being asked this obvious question? My crush proceeds to inquire that if I tell this story to little kids to mask the reality of childbirth, then why did I say it to Sara? I was stumped. I had no backup explanation because I was so confident and invested in my initial cover up story. I had no response, so the only thing I could do in the moment to save any kind of face was to literally run. Well, I attempted a fast paced walk because if I was caught running in the hall then that would've been a sure way to detention and I didn't need anymore problems on my plate.

As I'm fast walking down the hallway and turning the corner leading to the front entrance of my school, I'm going through the different reasons and ways to transfer to a different high school. I can tell people at my next high school that this high school didn't have difficult enough classes for me, that's why I had to transfer. I finally get to the front doors of my school and as I exit towards the busses I realize that if I transfer schools now, the lies will just keep resurfacing. I'll have to build a lie on top of another lie just so that people don't find out that I transferred schools because everyone found out that I thought babies were delivered from a mother's behind. I decided then and there that I will not live a life of lies. My mother raised me to withstand all embarrassing situations, and to rise above it. I wasn't about to start becoming weak now, I couldn't.

From that day forward anytime someone brought up the rumor they heard from Sara, I used my present day go to move and just laughed sarcastically and walked away. This reaction to uncomfortable situations has saved me so much throughout the years. I laugh as a reaction because when people realize that you no longer care about what they are saying, it takes the power away from their words. This response is actually something that I have also taught my mother throughout the years, and it goes on to be used quite respectfully. This isn't the only happy ending or lesson learned from this story though! My peers soon forgot about my embarrassing deep dark secret, they were more focused on the new juicy gossip of the week and I was old news. As a couple of years went by and my time in high school was coming to an end, I experienced something that I would never have anticipated. The old crush that turned me down because of my embarrassing secret asked me out on a date! There was no way that I was going to pass up on this opportunity for redemption. After we had hung out a few times, things started getting pretty comfortable between us. I thought I had struck karma gold. One night when we were getting pretty intimate, my crush stops and asks me if I brought any protection. I look at him right in the eyes and ask, "what's protection?" I wait until I see the same disappointment in his eyes as I had seen years ago when he said that he heard that I thought babies came out of their mother's behinds. I gave it a couple more seconds and with the proudest smile I say, "I'm just kidding you idiot." I was so happy. It took me all week to come up with that line.

THE END.