I took a Forensic Osteology class for my major last semester. As we got to features of the pelvic girdle our professor showed us both a man’s Os Coxa (pelvic bone) compared to a woman’s. The main goal of the class was being able to identify the differences between male and female biology. The class primarily used 3-d printed copies of real bones, but occasionally there would be real human bones to show the more subtle features that can’t be replicated through a plastic print.

One day the professor brought in the real version of a female and male pelvic girdle, and talked about the basic planes of the pelvic bones. I don’t know if any of the readers here have experienced holding and looking at a female pelvis before, but let me share my experience.

First of all, the pelvic inlet (the opening in the middle) is much smaller than you’d expect. In fact, I sat there for a minute and realized that this was so unrealistically small for a five or seven pound baby to emerge from. I have very small hands, and if I put my index fingers and thumbs together to form a circle that is about as big as a pelvic brim usually is. Our professor told us to examine the bones in detail in our table groups and observe any abnormalities we saw. There weren’t any abnormalities that we could see, and we went through the regular motions of figuring out the age of the woman based on the bone features. I took the pelvis and turned it over and for the first time saw something strange. I raised my hand.

“I found an abnormality!” I said to the professor as she came over. My sweet, innocence of the situation was about to be crushed. “There’s a crack on the inferior part of the Ilium!”

She silenced the rest of the class and picked up the bones like a strange game of show and tell, and proceeded to scar us for life:

Apparently, about 60 percent of childbirths will cause a hairline fracture on your pelvis. Sometimes it’s only the Symphysis pubis, which is a connective piece that holds the front of the pubis together. However, sometimes the iliac crest, the pieces that attach to your sacrum, can form hairline fractures that can grow larger with each child you have. Since fractures heal by forming calluses, you can often tell how many children a deceased woman has had by looking at the fracture markings on her pelvic region.

This semester I am taking a basic anatomy class. We are going through the body by region, and my professor just recently gave birth to her third child. She went into a tangent one day and talked about the female reproductive system, and how childbirth effects homeostasis in the weeks and months after that little human pops out of you.

First of all, your entire lower body swells up because of added blood circulation, and to help support the added weight. The swelling doesn’t just magically disappear after the birth, though, and in a majority of fresh mothers the swelling will increase for a few days as the blood in the uterus is finding a new place to dwell.

Your vagina and anus will most likely tear while pushing that one night of unprotected sex out of your body. It’s also entirely possible that the pelvic breaking and dilation will still not offer enough room for that wonderful seven pound miracle to come out of, so the doctors will perform an episiotomy by cutting the perineum (look it up, fools, I dare you). *Screams internally.* This is also while you’ve pooped and peed in front of the doctors, nurses, and traumatized baby daddy.

After you take that precious package home you’ll have a few weeks of peeing yourself every so often while trying to walk up the stairs. The pressure put on the muscles controlling your bladder weaken them thanks to a baby, which is why pregnant women need to pee more than usual. Not only will you need adult diapers for the whole “peeing yourself” situation, you will also produce galleons of blood and blood clots and tissue the couple of weeks after you shove that little bald, squishy tangle of limbs from your extremities. This is your uterus crying.

You’ll start rapidly losing your hair, you will probably experience the wonderfulness of hemorrhoids, you’ll have constipation so bad you’ll be putting stool softeners in your morning decaf coffee, your nipples will crack, you’ll raise a human being into adulthood only so it can defy your every order and roll it’s eyes and not call you enough when it leaves the house.

In conclusion, why the hell is a paid maternity leave still a debated point in this country? Let that marvelous woman’s body heal while she weeps in bed and pees herself and her husband stands there with vomit on his shirt just confused. We need to think about the amount of trauma put on the body before and after childbirth and not treat women like disposable employees when they make the decision (or perhaps oopsy daisy themselves) to have children.

Also, call your mother more.