By NAOMI FRYERS for YourTango.com
After my husband finished, my vagina looked like a bearded dragon.
I was one of those idealistic first-time mums who wanted to look pretty (despite being heavily pregnant and on the fat side) for the birth of her son. So, I contemplated the full works: hair, spray tan, nail polish and (of course) hair removal.
Call me a dreamer, but I didn’t want my newborn son to be so scared by the sight of me when he was born that he would want to rush back in there. I was naïve as hell about the actual labour process and the fact that I would indeed lose control of body functions, so I moved forward with my plan to get dolled up for delivery.
The only challenge was that I was too fat, ashamed, and unkempt to brave visiting a stranger for a vagina wax. Hormones do strange things and at the rate my hair was growing, I imagined the worst. If you’ve ever had your hair held back while you vomited, this is what I envisioned my partner doing with my pubic hair as I gave birth to my son. Something needed to be done, and urgently.
I complained endlessly to my partner as I became more and more self-conscious about the state of my pubic hair (and how it was about to be exposed in all its glory). Eventually, he caught my drift and offered to wax me "down there" himself. I jumped at the chance to be hair-free, not realising we were about to embark on quite an intimate and unbecoming journey together.
To start, I stripped down and put a leg on the side of the bath. I was so fat that I had to literally hold my stomach up, while he rubbed the wax on and off. I didn’t feel the slightest pang of shame, by the way. I was focused on my beautification.