Spades are Spades.

Coffee and I went out to pick up some groceries today and stopped at a local pharmacy to get shampoo and face wash. The cashier – who recognizes us and is quite friendly – asked how the kids were doing. We joked around a little and then she mentioned that one of her kids (the eldest) is biological and the other two were adopted.

We noted that our three were adopted and she smiled and proceeded to tell us all about the horrors of her experience with childbirth and how she immediately had her tubes tied after that kid was born – hence, the adoption.

I was thinking to myself how refreshing this conversation was – despite wanting to get out of the store with our purchases – because she didn’t attempt to bring “the magic of birth” into the story or tell us that it was “all worth it!” or anything else along those lines. In fact, she specifically noted that “seeing [her] new little baby” did not do anything for her in terms of making it all worthwhile – it remained the worst experience of her life.

I mean, she flat-out said that she got her tubes tied right afterward because IT WAS THAT BAD.

And that’s when another random customer got involved and started talking about how incredibly awful her labour was – more than 50 hours – and how it was totally unnatural it is to try to shove something THAT BIG through the vagina.

She half-yelled the part about her vagina.

I was giddy. Vagina-talk in public AND openly going against the common blissful childbirth stories? Awesome.

Yes, the conversation went on far longer than we’d have preferred, but man.. it was nice. It was seriously nice to hear two people admit that the entire thing sucked and not try to claim otherwise. Refreshing, even.