We were watching 19 Kids and Counting the other night (Yes, the show that used to be 17 Kids and Counting....and then it was 18 Kids and Counting and now it's 19 Kids and Counting!! The show about the Duggars who, as a friend of mine put it when they had their 18th kid, "Hey Duggars! It's a vagina, not a clown car!!" wow, that still cracks me up!)
So, we were watching the episode where Michelle gives birth to their 19th baby, Josie Brooklyn...if you consider an emergency C-Section due to preeclampsia at 26 weeks gestation "giving birth". And the emergency C-Section scene was pretty graphic. And the narration was quite candid, about how the mother and the baby can both die from complications caused by preeclampsia.
You don't realize how much your five year old absorbs and comprehends until you're in this position, innocently watching a family show which spawns a dozen thought provoking five year old questions.
Remember, this is a conversation with a five year old:
O - Mom, what would happen to the baby if you died while the baby was still in your tummy?
Me - Well, one of two things. If I died and the doctors caught it soon enough, they could still deliver the baby and the baby could live. OR, if I died and they didn't catch it soon enough, the baby could die inside of me.
O - What happens if the baby dies when it's still in your tummy?
Me - Well, if the baby died inside my tummy, I would still go to the hospital and deliver the baby, but the baby wouldn't be alive. that happened to Aunt Amy's baby and that happened to Aunt Tara's baby and they are both angels now. But not the baby Aunt Tara has in her belly right now, it was the baby before this baby. Chase's sister, Delphine. The baby she has in her tummy right now is alive.
O - Who's more pregnanter? You, or Aunt Tara?
Me - I am, by about a month or so.
O - Could you die when you go to the hospital to have the baby?
Me - Yes, Owen. I could die when I got the hospital to have the baby. But, that's not going to happen (all the while I'm thinking, don't promise him that you won't die, because, really, that's not a promise you can keep and then if you do die, he'll resent you for the rest of your life for breaking your promise).
O - Mom, I really hope you don't die when you have the baby.
Me - Me, too, Owen, me too. I don't think I will.
A deep, deep conversation with my five year old, all because the Duggars didn't get the message about the clown car.
