A letter of complaint

Dear Sir/Madam,

I write to complain about the human body, female model.

I am the owner of the above product and I wish to draw the manufacturer’s attention to the fact that it is not well-equipped at all to deal with the rigours of pregnancy.

The User Manual lists pregnancy as one of the Extra Conditions the basic model can withstand perfectly well. It is right there, in black and white, alongside puberty, ageing, the entire decade from age 18 to 28 sustaining varying degrees of alcohol or ridiculous footwear-related injury, permanent stomach constriction from too much elastic belt wear in the 1980s or scalp tear from hair-teasing in the same decade.

I fully admit my particular model rolled off the production line some 35 years ago. Perhaps in some markets, this could be seen as too old to be shouldering, or wombing, the burden of a baby.

But no one, body manufacturer or not, would dare to suggest in polite, 2011 company that women should get their child-bearing duties done before the age of 25.

And actually, I doubt younger versions of your product do any better at this pregnancy game either.

The fact is the female human body is not well-designed at all when it comes to having a baby.

Even the moments before conception are fraught.

The female body is equipped with the Uterine Attack Force (my term) designed to seek and destroy sperm, making it a medical miracle that fertilisation even happens in the first place.

Fortunately I am in a same-sex relationship and conceived via IVF, so the closest I came to having live sperm in my body was sitting next to my male work colleague at the neighouring desk.

And thank goodness for that.

There are clear exterior appearance indicators, also, that the female body cannot deal with pregnancy.

Stretch marks blister otherwise-normal skin (even moreso in younger, more taut models – not me); water is retained causing unattractive bloating and an alarming inability to wear shoes, while necks thicken and the walking gait of a pregnant lady becomes a Waddlegate of presidential and scandalous proportions.

Then there’s the extra weight gained. Strangely enough, they tell you that 90% of that weight is fluid, not the actual baby. SO WHAT IS THE POINT? What the hell is that fluid for and why is there so much of it? Baby, in the real world, you want a house with a pool, you've got to WORK for it! You don't get it just like that *snap*.

Knowing the extra weight is predominantly liquid is cold comfort when you stand gingerly on the scales and see you’ve stacked on 30 kilos. Actually, not me, I have put on 10 so far, but I am eating Milo by the kilo and there’s still time!

Internally, many hormones wreak havoc with emotions and acceptable levels of the universally applied mental health Crazy Scale. Often within the space of mere seconds, pregnant women will explode with rage at being woken from a nap, before sobbing into their seventh bowl of cereal after watching a Huggies ad.

Control, support and dignity functions are ALL compromised. Surely, these are structural basics when designing a product of such importance?

The hormone relaxin is conveniently released during pregnancy. No doubt this is some male engineer’s brilliant idea. He probably thought he was doing something nice, by making the body release a hormone designed to make everything musculo-skeletal more stretchy as the body expands.

You know what, mister, that’s great for the actual birth of the baby (which we will come to later) but in the meantime: THAT FREAKIN RELAXIN HAS CAUSED MY LEFT PELVIC BONE TO DETACH FROM THE TAILBONE AND TILT FORWARD. IT'S ALSO CAUSED SWAY BACK AND KNEES AND HIPS THAT CRUNCH TOGETHER WHEN I LIE SIDEWAYS IN BED, CAUSING ME ENDLESS BACK PAIN, GRUMPINESS AND SLEEPLESS NIGHTS, OK?

Get thee to your drawing board.

Then there’s the whole watermelon and garden hose thing.

I don’t know which genius decided that a 50-centimetre round circle can fit through a “thing” roughly seven centimetres in diameter. And let me tell you, Googling “average circumference of a vagina” just now has really put me off my dinner.

Alright, it stretches during delivery. Fine. But with that amount of stretching, there are little drawbacks like PAIN and TEARING!

You remember the drawing board?

So, in closing, I would like to urgently urge the entire manufacturing team to begin designing a new model that can safely and easily accommodate pregnancy.

This model should have a penis.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Marshall.