Belly Button Babies

When considering where babies came from, I never believed anything as silly as Storks dropping laughing infants off on doorsteps in the middle of the night. Maybe if I had grown up in South Carolina or Florida, or maybe if the myth had been about seagulls, which growing up in Duluth had made me intimately familiar with, I would have bought into the common story.

However, through my own tike logic and hearing terms like "sleeping together" I did solidly believe that a little miniature baby crawled out of the dad's belly button, across the bed, into the mom's belly button, where it grew for awhile. What else would belly buttons be for? Of course, the little baby being so little, it took a solid nights sleep for the baby to make it all the way out of the papa belly button into the mama belly button. All while mama and papa slept soundly.

The question of why a baby wasn't formed every night mama and papa slept soundly never crossed my mind. I never wondered what the chances of a belly button baby completing the voyage actually were. It just happened.

Of course, sex-ed and society in general soon bombarded me with answers to that very question. As I learned the real basics of the seagulls and the bees, so was I soon convinced that even being in the same swimming pool with a girl created a good chance I was going to be a teen dad that never would go to college (not to mention the unfortunate uncurable condition I would acquire.)

I'm certainly not trying to claim that this idea was bad for me, or any hormonal teenager, to have. Teen logic without these scare tactics would have served nearly as well as tike logic in preventing an unwanted pregnancy.

It is interesting, though, when you really begin desiring and planning for a baby how perceptions change. It's hard to shed the implanted idea it will happen instantly. It is equally hard to hear all the sad stories of the couples that have trouble conceiving at all, let alone instantly...

I have heard that it is perfectly normal for a healthy couple to take up to a year to get pregnant. Well, for now PuddleMama and I try to balance patience and excitement. And I figure it won't hurt to jump in a swimming pool with her during the peak of her luteal phase or to make sure both our belly buttons are exposed before we fall asleep....