After a woman gives birth, there is great emphasis placed on “getting her body back.” People always want to know about stretch marks and broken capillaries. They speculate on whether ribs will ever go back to their original position (in my experience, the answer to this would be “no”). They even have the nerve to ask about how long it takes for an episiotomy to heal and make jokes about “the daddy stitch” (FYI – still not laughing).

But what people don’t realize – people who have never given birth, that is – is that whether we ever get that bikini-worthy body back or not (good luck with that by the way) is really of very little concern during those first few months. There are far more immediate issues at hand such as sleep and… Well truthfully – that’s the only big one. But other minor personal concerns may include the shock of how painful breastfeeding is, anxiety over letting shower water hit the more battered areas on your body, and the complete terror of attempting that first bowel movement.

You hear a lot about the “beauty” or the “miracle” of childbirth, but aside from any of the emotions involved (which you can read about elsewhere since I’m not writing about that), birth is physical. It’s messy and invasive and there is very little privacy left to a woman who does it. There is also blood. A lot of blood. And even guts if you have a c-section. So it’s inevitable that any woman who has experienced this beautiful and miraculous carnage will tend to become a bit less prissy when it comes to discussing bodily functions.

I should know, because I was quite possibly the biggest prude on the planet.

I have never found potty humor funny. I know – it’s not a popular quality, but I’m willing to admit to it. I just don’t enjoy fart jokes. I didn’t when I was in grade school and I don’t now. When I was in eighth grade, sassy little Cassie Coleman nicknamed me “Miss Sophisticated” since I apparently wandered through recess like it was a Junior League tea party.

I also don’t tend to appreciate innuendo humor. You would think that my husband would catch on to this and stop telling jokes that make me look around for the frat boy to whom he MUST be speaking…

It’s not so surprising then, that I’ve also never felt particularly comfortable with open discussion regarding sex or body parts, OR using the more graphic anatomical terminology. I would cringe over any conversation bordering on Our Bodies Ourselves related topics. I couldn’t help it – my knee jerk reaction would always be: “eeewww!” But at least I wasn’t annoying about it. I find myself drawn to strong personalities, people who speak their mind….and ultimately people who may be a little off color in their sense of humor. Generally, my potty mouthed friends thought I was cute, and tended to get a kick out of my reactions.

I should qualify the description above by mentioning that I’ve also had plenty of friends who don’t swear like sailors. But there is just something about me that screams, “I’m prissy! Torment me with dirty talk!” Or people go in the opposite direction and treat me like I might shatter if they use a four letter word.

While I can’t say that much has changed about my inability genuinely laugh at dirty jokes, I did at least for a little while, drop my aversion to what I once considered to be other unsavory topics.

Anyone who has ever gone through pregnancy and given birth – or even anyone who has just gone through fertility treatments – will admit to losing a significant amount of modesty. It’s impossible not to. Typically, we are only poked at by the gynecologist once every 365 days. But I found that pregnancy involves increasingly frequent examinations and tests – many conducted by complete strangers. The end result is that by the time we give birth, we wouldn’t bat an eye if the janitor asked if he could check our dilation.

Along with this comes the shedding of any recent squeamishness regarding icky anatomy-related words. About three weeks after my first son was born, I found myself having a rather loud conversation on my cell about my ravaged, post-delivery body. In the supermarket check out line. And the words “nipples” and “vaginal” figured prominently. While listening to myself, a small voice screamed, “who are you and why are you embarrassing me like this?!” But my post pregnancy self just shrugged and said, “whatever grandma.”

So – new ability to say “vaginal” without cringing? Check! Now what about gross out stories? OOOHHH – I’ve got some good ones!

If I had to name a few subjects that every mother can talk about at length, they would be birth stories, potty training and vomit (and I assume that adoptive parents would substitute their adoption story for that first subject).

I have given birth to all of my children, and I’m fairly certain that there will never be a time that I won’t be ready, willing and able to tell both of my birth stories – in detail, with commentary and tangents. This topic just never gets boring. Considering how unpleasant or at least how uncomfortable most of it was, even I am confounded by this phenomena. But I suspect it has something to do with “living to tell the tale.”

Then of course, I can talk about poopy diapers and potty training at length. I named “potty training” in my list since my children are past the age of exploding diapers. But really – it’s all the same thing. Every parent has their poop-related war stories. Hell – I just had one last week. I could go on and on about this – but that’s kind of my point.

Vomit is a somewhat specialized area in which some parents are experts, others have limited but memorable experience and the rest could be categorized as “the uninitiated.” These stories tend to revolve around the flu or that annoying phase in which toddlers like to jam their fingers down their throats. I think I fall somewhere between the first two levels – but I can tell you this: you haven’t lived until you’ve cleaned puke out of your child’s ears.

I like to think that much of what we do as we prepare for the arrival of our children also prepares us for this loss in modesty. I can only speak from my own experience as someone who gave birth to all of my children in the hospital. And I lost a huge percentage of my modesty during labor and delivery.

Probably the most embarrassing example from my first birth would be a conversation that I had with one of the nurses when it was time to push. Like any well seasoned priss, I was having a hard time with some of the grosser logistics involved. Once we were all on the same page regarding my disinterest in having a mirror held up so that I could view the birth (I told them that I felt I had a bit too much on my plate at that moment, thank you very much), I began to have concerns about potential issues related to the pushing. The instructions that I was given dictated that the muscles you used to push were pretty much the same ones that you would use when sitting on the toilet. So of course I had to ask, “but what if …you know…something else comes out?” Without missing a beat, the nurse said, “don’t worry honey – that just means that we’ll know you’re doing it right.” And with that, she snuffed out any remaining vestige of decorum to which I was still clinging, just like the last candle left flickering after a dinner party. The party was officially over as far as any of my personal boundaries were concerned.

For several years now (as of March 30, it will be four), I have been far less of a prude when it comes to frank discussion on “women’s issues.” If my friends want to talk about their cracked nipples, I don’t feel the need to escape their company. It just doesn’t bother me anymore. Until lately that is…

You see, I’ve recently started to feel the twitches of tight lipped expressions and the twinges of internal cringing. Stories about toddlers waking up screaming because their diaper has leaked all over the the crib evoke fewer reactions of “ooooh – poor baby!” and more of “eeewww – poor mommy!” So I think that I may just be gettin‘ my prude back on.

And I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. I mean – it’s a comfortable old role, but I’ve kind of enjoyed my freedom to say nipple without any internal struggle.

Maybe I’ll never really go back to my old way of life. Maybe I passed a point of no return. I may turn a little red when people want to provide me with lurid details about their sex lives – but I will never again turn green during a birth story. So it seems a middle ground has been offered, and I think I’ll take it.

Truth be told, I welcome my old squeamishness. It’s a part of who I am. And you know what they say, you can take the girl out of eighth grade – but you can’t take eighth grade out of the girl. At least in my case.