Happy Birthday

So, yesterday was kind of cool.  My friend had her first baby yesterday.  She's 42. The baby is new.  I ended  up being in the delivery room with her when she had a C-section.  And just let me tell you, I saw a whole lotta stuff I'd never seen before.  Holy cats, it was wild!  The kid is super cute, though.  That's what matters. 

 

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Well, That's Not Good

I need to figure out why this story hasn't gotten more attention in the news. I know that it's partly (largely) because the media sucks. That's a given. But I guess it could also be that it's a bad thing masquerading as a good thing. Well, masquerading to soft-headed individuals. Then again, since no one has seemed to catch on yet, maybe the masquerade is really good. Or maybe people just don't get it. Either way, a federal mandate that health insurers MUST cover birth control for women is NOT a good thing.

According to the Huffington Post, reported that the Obama administration has mandated that "Health insurance plans must cover birth control as preventive care for women, with no copays". Umm....OK. Wait. Why is this? Well, one of the reasons is because the administration wants to prevent unwanted pregnancies and for some reason, they think that the key to unwanted pregnancies lies with making sure that women can afford birth control. I guess we're supposed to ignore the fact that condoms are not exactly exorbitantly priced. Whatever. But that's not really my point here.

My point here is what is being overlooked. Woo-hoo! Everyone is just thrilled that women can have birth control for free! What a glorious day! Right?! NO! No? NO. What we have here is the federal government telling a private business what they are going to do. Shouldn't that concern people? A lot?! I think it should. But people are so freaking ga-ga over getting anything at all for "free" that they miss the overall point. (And I have "free" in quotes because someone is going to pay for this. The article says that "The cost will be spread among other people with health insurance, resulting in slightly higher premiums." Oh, good. I can't wait.)

The government shouldn't be telling a private business how to run their business! EVER. If the federal government wants to offer incentives for companies that offer free health care, that's one thing. (And I don't want to pay for those either. But I'd rather have it be an option rather than a requirement.) But to mandate that they provide birth control for women for free is out of line if you're asking me. Where does it stop? Or perhaps a better question is when are people going to realize that the government doesn't know better than they do? Anytime soon? Do you think? What's that? No? That's what I thought. We're doomed. Dooommed!

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Not Giving Birth, but Having a Cow Instead

What's up with political groups or subsets of politicians being branded with (or promoting themselves as ) some cutesy little name? Has this been occurring for a while and I've just been able to tune it out until now? Or is this new? Whichever it is, the names are lame and the folks behind the names are often lamer. Seriously. Names such as the oft mentioned "Blue Dog Coalition" in the House of Representatives. That group had sort of evolved from the "Boll Weevils Group". Who in the hell names themselves the "Boll Weevils Group"? Aren't boll weevils those little beetle like things with poke-y ends on 'em? That's what you want your group to be associated with? As politicians?! What's up with that? Was Ladybug's Picnic already taken?

But of the groups with the ridiculous names, there's one that I cannot avoid hearing about no matter how hard I try (and believe me, I've TRIED!). Not only that, they have a cause that is just as non-sensible as their name is. Yes, I'm speaking of those nutjobs who have all joined together to form the largest mass of malfunctioning cerebral matter on the planet; those that we call 'The Birthers'.

I realize that it's very easy to get "The Birthers" confused with other names that might sound a lot like it. Like "The Idiots" or "The Morons" or "Too Much Time On Your Hands". It's very easy to misspeak and use one of those terms when the term that you were really looking for was "The Birthers". So if it keeps on happening to you, if you keep on saying "idiots" instead of "Birthers", just keep at it because you MAY actually get it someday. But if you don't, well, at least you're accurate.

The Birthers are not folks who have given birth, as the name might (and DOES) seem to suggest. No, the Birthers are folks who believe that President Barry, President Barack Hussein Obama, is not, repeat NOT a "natural born citizen" of this country, the good ol' US of A, and is thus not eligible to be our President. Um, wait. For reals?

Yep. For reals. According to the Political Hotsheet over there at CBS News, the whole thing started when President Barry was running for President. I'm guessing it was an offshoot movement to the whole "He might be a Muslim" tangent a bunch of softheaded folks became sidetracked with. So in an attempt to quell the fakeroversy that the Birthers had kicked up amongst themselves, Candidate Barry produced his certificate of live birth showing that he was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. Behold!

OK, so that's that right? Let's go home. What? That's not good enough? For whom? For whom is it not good enough? Well, for the Birthers, that's who. They say that his "birth certificate" isn't a "birth certificate" at all and that it's faked. The Birthers continue to (incorrectly) assert that he was really born in Kenya and that the document that is purported to be his "birth certificate" is really a faked up document. And that, my friends, is a pretty serious charge for someone to level. You'd think that someone would look into all of this controversy (er, FAKE controversy, ie, fakeroversy) that these Birther people stirred up and finally get to the bottom of this. What's that?

They DID? When? Numerous times, is the answer to that question. And it is not just the Obama Administration that has been claiming that President Barry is a citizen of the United States. Other groups have researched this and came to the same conclusion, that President Barry IS a citizen of the United States. FactCheck.org wrote a very well researched piece on this topic almost a year ago and yet the Birthers are STILL howling that he is not a citizen! It's almost inexplicable why, not just nutjobs are buying into this ridiculous theory, but it's being given steam AND airtime by folks who (previously) had credibility. Not sure where their credibility stands AFTER they've made it seem like there is ANY possibility that President Barry is NOT a citizen. It's really hard to find someone to be credible when they're just blowing crap like that around. Those if I were having to choose one reason as to why this continues to be an issue that sane people are made to listen to, I'd have to side with Donny Deutsch's reasoning as to why so many doubt Obama's citizenship: "Maybe because they're morons." Well said, sir. Well. Said.

Never mind that Honolulu health director Dr. Chiyome Fukino has said that "she personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures." Never mind that there was a "birth announcement that had been published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961." And never mind that there IS a birth certificate EVEN THOUGH the title of the document is Certificate of Live Birth, IT'S THE SAME THING!

Pretty much, it's the announcement of the birth in the Honolulu Paper that really should have ended this whole thing as soon as that was produced. Because if THAT is faked as well, then what are you Birther people saying? Are you saying that almost 48 years ago, President Barry's mother and father placed a fake ad in the newspaper, announcing the birth of their son Barack, as to have it appear as if he were born in the United States. And they would do this because they just wanted to cover all of their bases just in CASE, SOME DAY far, far into the future, some suspicious sole would be looking for this very information to confirm their theory that the one they called Barry was born a US citizen. Meanwhile, the secret that the prodigal baby would carry with him for the rest of his life would stay hidden and the rest of their plan would slowly fall into place. And then one day it would all be worth it. That day would be the day on which this half white, half black, Kenyan born baby would be elected President of the United States. Just like they'd planned! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!!!!!!!

Honestly, do you people HEAR yourselves when you're spewing this stuff out? And you're able to sleep at night? I don't get it. What's the point? So that you can run around and think that you know something that the rest of us don't? Guess what? We know something that YOU don't! Actually, we know TWO things that you don't! We know that President Barry is a citizen of the United States AND we know that you're freaking crazy. Congratulations, Jerome Corsi! You're the jackass who got this whole ball rolling which, in turn, happened to get you a book deal and numerous TV and radio appearances for you to spew your ridiculousness and promote yourself. Huh. Upon further review, it would seem that you had immense help in getting this to the forefront where it currently tries to creep backward into the forgotten abyss of yesterday's news.

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How to Tell if Your Wife is Pregnant

One of my many goals in life has been to have no more than ZERO children. And I'm happy to say that so far, so good. Unless anything radically changes in the near future, I should be able to hold steady at that number until the glorious day when I am officially barren! Don't get me wrong, I like kids, but I like other people's kids. As I may have mentioned before, I have no desire to be the incubator for an alien being which my body will host until it has grown to sufficient enough size that it will warrant it's unpleasant exit from my loins via a process akin to that of shoving a pot roast through one's nostril. No thanks. Other people are more than welcome to procreate if they'd like. I happen to know some excellent mothers. But like I said, if all goes well, I won't be one of them.

In the most optimal of scenarios, I'd like to think that having a kid would be something that you'd have to prepare for. And that it would be something that you'd have to plan out ahead of time. But most importantly, I'm thinking that if you're going to have a kid, you should probably pay attention to things so that you don't completely miss the fact that you were pregnant at all. Wait. What was that?

Correct. Today we go to Montcalm County, Michigan, home to Ryan and Carri Emmons. The couple recently quit smoking (and good for you guys!) and they presumed that Carri had given up one vice (the evil tobacco) for another (the glorious food) and had thus put on a "little bit of weight". Their assumption was partially true. They had quit smoking. She was eating more. She had put on weight. But the weight was due more to the fact that she was pregnant rather than just being a bit on the large side. And according to the news-press.com, that factor somehow managed to elude the both of them...right up until she gave birth in their bathtub. Oh. My. God.

I'd like to take just a brief moment here and ask WTH? I know that people say that it is possible to not know that you're pregnant for a little while at first, but throughout the entire pregnancy? How is that possible? I looked for pictures of these folks and haven't found any yet, but unless she was the size of a small house (even a teepee or a pup tent would suffice for this example) , I'm having trouble seeing how this would happen. Don't those little creatures wiggle around in there? (Ugh. Must finish blog post. Try not to pass out at thoughts of human beings growing inside of people until they're not inside anymore. Ugh. I see now I coulda done without the visual.) How could she not know?

On top of the size factor and the internal creature gestation factor, it's not like this woman didn't have any other children! No, she already has three! She should be fully aware of the policy and procedure manual for this sort of situation by now, wouldn't you think?

Apparently, I'm not the only one asking those questions. Her husband was asking the very same questions as well! And who can blame him? One minute, you have three children. The next thing you know, your wife's in the tub and just as you connect with 911, now you've got four children. Not a lot of time to get prepared for something like that in that fashion.

So the guy calls 911 and I, for one, was just happy that it was actually a legitimate 911 call. He didn't call because there were only 10 herbs and spices instead of 11 in his fried chicken or some other dumbass reason like that. No, having your wife go into labor with the mystery child and the clandestine pregnancy is a perfect reason to call 911! That's 911 material right there if there ever was any. He was about as calm as you would expect someone in his position to be. Because really, if you don't know that your wife is pregnant and she doesn't know that she's pregnant and the next thing you know, she's standing in the tub, moaning in pain and gushing blood from below the belt (Whoa! Steady now....keep typing....) you might just freak right on out. But he stayed relatively calm.

He explains to the 911 dispatcher that he thinks his wife is having a baby. "Uh, yes ma'am. My wife is in the bathroom. There's blood all over the place. She thinks she's having a baby." That theory is pretty much solidified when she yells to him that "the head is out!" The agony of moaning that follows the confirmation that the baby does have a head also backs up the "I think I'm in labor" theory. As the dispatcher, a one Angi Adams (Do all people in Michigan just drop the 'e' from the end of their names now? What's up with that?), is asking poor, shocked Ryan what his address is, he gives her an update by stating in disbelief, "Oh, my God! I'm looking at a baby!" (That keen sense of infant identification will bode well for him as a parent.)

The persistent Angi continues to try to get an address out of the poor man when he blurts out, ""I didn't know my wife was pregnant!" To which Angi responded with the only thing that you could really say with, "You didn't know she was pregnant?" Ever insistent and still in shock (and kind of sounding like he's going to cry), he says, "No, no! I had no idea my wife was pregnant!"

Ryan continues to repeat over and over, "Oh, my God. I'm looking at a baby." He also tells the dispatcher that they quit smoking recently and she had gained some weight and he thought it was from not smoking. (Psst! Someone might want to tell them it's from having sex!) It wasn't that! Nope. Sure was not from that.

At first, I was wondering if she just hadn't told him that she was pregnant, but it kind of seems that she might not have known either. If she did, she didn't seem to feel that whilst still in the tub, after just having given birth to the surprise bundle of joy, that wasn't the best time perhaps to let him know that she knew. I don't know when would be a good time for that if it were something you had to tell your husband, but I can definitely narrow it down to before the kid is born. That I'm fairly certain of.

When do you have that talk with your wife if she doesn't bring it up? I'm thinking maybe soon but it's hard to say. She could be one of those folks that just forgets things now and then! I was glad to hear him say that the kid looked like him, because that would have been an explainable reason to not mention all of the being with child to your husband if the child you were with wasn't with him! If that were the case, you would have really put yourself in an uncomfortable position (and not just because there was another human being trying to crawl it's way out of your loins). There you are, in a bathroom that your husband will likely never use again after this incident, and the kid shoots out (or whatever they do) and he wipes it off with the shower curtain or whatever is nearby and handy, and then says, "Hey! How cute! He looks just like the UPS man! ::: blink ::: :::blink :::: Wait a minute." Yeah. Awkward.

So everyone made it through the ordeal just fine. Everyone except maybe me. But I guess I can look at it as a refresher course (not that I need one, I'm just saying) to remind me just one more time why I'm striving for childlessness. If I need more reminders, I can always listen to the 911 call again as well. Fortunately, a link to the complete audio of that call is below, so if you'd like a reminder as well, feel free to listen.

Link:

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Check, Please! OctoMom's Hospital Bill

I'm still attempting to not overload on Nadya Suleman, aka the OctoMom, posts, lest: a) My head explode, b) I explode, c) All nine of you who read this explode, or d) All of the above. But I was perusing TMZ and shamelessly, without permission, nor malice, borrowed the photo below because it's just too damn funny to pass up. The story behind the photo? While (thank God) OctoMom has turned down a $1 million offer to do porn, somehow she feels it is more "ethical" or "acceptable" or something to make that $1 million by selling the video of the Mocktuplets being born instead. Behold! A very funny picture depicting that very scenario!

I have a really hard time looking at that photo of her pregnant (without a For Sale sign impaled in it) without cringing and reeling back in horror. But looking at it this way, I still cringe and reel back in horror, only I'm laughing as I shield my face, screaming, "My eyes! My EYES!!"

I understand she needs to make money off of someone besides the California taxpayers. And as a California taxpayer, I'm all for that idea. I wholeheartedly stand behind anyone but me paying for her kids! Which brings me to the issue of the hospital bill. I understand that Kaiser has applied for Medi-Cal to pay for this debacle. (Kaiser, by the way, knew she did not have insurance but took her on as a patient anyway because, I'm assuming, they felt the publicity would be great. And I'm assuming that they knew that they could ask Medi-Cal to cover it. I'm not OK with that simply because Kaiser is a member-based HMO. She wasn't a member. They knew that. They took her on anyway. How is it my responsibility to pay for it? They knew what they were getting into, so they should suck it for the bill.)

According to the LA Times (who has been doing a fabulous job on this story) "2007 records show that Southern California hospitals received an average of $1,198 per day, per patient" when billing Medi-Cal for reimbursement. Take the2007 estimate of $1,198, realize that it is most likely a low estimate, and then multiply it by (sweet Jesus) eight and you'll end up with $9,584 per day. The Mocktuplets were born on January 26. I'm writing this on March 6. That's 40 days. That's $383,360 so far. Add on top of that the $150,000 that just the delivery is rumored to have cost (they had 46 doctors and nurses there for that freak show) and we're at over half a million dollars. Oh, and don't forget that SHE was in the hospital for at least two months before the gate was opened and children came spilling out. At a very reasonable 60 days and using the same reimbursement figures as above, that's another $71,880. Now we're at a whopping $605,240. I DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR THAT! (Sorry. Didn't mean to holler.)

If she ends up selling that tape to....who? Who is going to buy that? Who would want that? A clown college?? So that they can use it as training footage for clowns coming out of a Volkswagen?? Who would buy that?! (And why do they keep saying "tape"? Was it really "taped" on a "tape"? Not digitally recorded? Taped? Like on Beta?)

All sanity issues of any potential purchaser aside however, I'm going to have a huge problem with her getting to walk from the entire bill. And I'm not saying she should turn it all over to the hospital or use it all to reimburse the state. I'm saying she needs to start taking some sort of responsibility for something in her life! Ten percent. Am I out of line by saying that she should fork over ten percent of the hospital bill? I don't think I am. After all, she was quoted as saying, "My goal is to not be a burden on any taxpayers." Fabulous. Start with your OctoBill.

Wow. I thought I was just posting an amusing picture and then letting it be. Apparently, I've worked up a full lather of ire over this situation and it's not going away any time soon. By the way, mainstream media? You guys are pathetic. When I read stories about the :::gag:::: birthing tape up for sale, I keep reading that the hospital, despite the "historic nature" of the birth(s), did not videotape it (what's up with that, Kaiser?) and they don't know who did.

They don't know who did? You don't know who did? What is wrong with you folks? OctoMom said herself who taped it!! She said in an interview with Mirror.co.uk “I had no family with me at the birth. Only my friend Amira Smith. She videotaped it." There you go! Amira Smith! Amira Smith! Nice job, crappy media. Your research skills are impeccable. Haven't you guys figured out yet that you cannot believe anything that comes out of that chick's mouth? Everything that she says? Verify it. You'll find that 50% of what she says is utter crap.

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Things NOT To Do When You're 70

Here's a disturbing headline for you: Indian Woman Gives Birth at Age 70. And with each and every disturbing headline comes a ridiculous sub-title! (Yours to keep as your free gift!) The subtitle reads: When is too old to have a baby? Hmmm. I'd guess that there are probably lots of answers to this question. And if that's the case, I'm going to say that at least one of the answers is seventy!! Actually, I'd like to amend that answer just a bit. I'm going to go with "seventy....duh!" Are you kidding me?!

I am not. It would seem that, according to the folks across the pond at The Telegraph, a one Rajo Devi, "...who married 50 years ago, gave birth to a baby girl on November 28, and is now thought to be the world's oldest new mother." Well, I should hope so! I'd hate to think that there is someone older than seventy out there who is currently in the middle of a human gestation period. Seventy? What is wrong with you? All of the physical mechanics of such an ordeal aside, why would any woman at seventy years old want to not just raise a child, but let it grow inside of her for nine months before expelling it out her uterus? Why? (I realize that I have permanently set up camp in the section reserved for folks who have no idea why anyone would want to do the whole childbirth thing ever. But that doesn't mean I'm not capable of recognizing reasons other than my thinking the whole situation is untoward. I can be appalled and neutral.)

Were you wondering how a 70-year old woman gets pregnant? (Ew!!) Well, it wasn't the good old fashioned way, unless you consider fertility treatments to be "the good old fashioned way". According to a one Dr. Anurag Bishnoi (Translation: Dr. Something Unpronounceable), "Rajo Devi and (her husband) Bala Ram approached the centre for treatment and the embryo transfer was done on April 19." "Embryo transfer?" Was it on a bus? A subway? Why was it transferring? This is where things started to not make complete sense. In the seniscal sort, of course. Having a child at age 70 doesn't make any sense, but there are other things as well that I question (shocking, I know).

The article states that, "It was not clear whose egg and sperm were used in the successful treatment." Wait! Hold on there, cowboy! Back up that rickshaw for a moment. It wasn't her egg and it wasn't his sperm? Well, that would make sense, considering eggs, just like those you buy in the grocery store, do have an expiration date at some point way before 70. Sperm has an expiration date as well, but the shelf life of sperm is longer than that of the egg and also you cannot buy sperm in the grocery store, thank God. But that would mean that she was, quite literally, just a host. Which leads to the question "WTF?"

See, if it is someone else's sperm and someone else's egg, you're getting a kid that is totally different than the one you and your spouse would have produced. In that case, there is absolutely NO need for you to tote that kid around inside of you for nine months. None. The hostess had said, "We longed for a child all these years and now we are very happy to have one in the twilight years of our life." Twilight Zone, perhaps. Did they not know of other options that are available for having a child without physically giving birth to what amounts to someone else's child? I mean, sure, it's her oven, but it's totally someone else's bun.

Actually, these folks seem to be confused on the whole concept altogether. This is an avenue that they pursued before deciding that childbirth at 70 was the way to go: "Devi's husband, aged 72, had also wed his wife's sister after 10 years of his first marriage did not result in children. His second wife also failed to become pregnant." So.....what now? He...he married his sister-in-law? While he was still married to his barren wife? I'm failing to see how that is going to make the situation better. It certainly can't do much for one's morale when your husband, whom you are presumedly still married to, is off attempting to impregnate your sister who (I'm assuming) is a willing participant is what seems to be the Indian version of the Jerry Springer Show. All we need now is a fistfight and a couple of chairs thrown across a stage and we're there!

"The couple said they were facing social stigma for being childless for the last 55 years." Were facing? As in "going to face"? Or "had been facing" up until this time? Because it's worded as if the whole "social stigma" hadn't kicked in yet, but they could see it coming. I can't imagine that would be the case unless there's, perhaps, a 56 year cut off for childless couples before they are subjected to stigmas socially? I don't know. Personally, I'm kind of thinking the guy just wanted to sleep with his sister-in-law.

Look, seventy is pretty old to be trying to do many physical activities. And while I don't advocate just sitting around and getting old, most physical activities that you can do when you are 70 do not put another human's well-being smack dab in the middle of your uterus. Unless there has been a drastic change in how children grow up and are raised, I'm pretty sure that they still need someone to raise them! Those are the kind of things that I think of. They are not the kind of things that these people think of, as evidenced by Ram's statement that he ".....wasn't worrying over who would look after the child if they died. The upbringing of the child is not a problem. We have a joint family as is common in rural Haryana." Well, that would explain all of the fornicating with the sister-in-law.

But he's missing the point. Sure, the 'joint family' can raise the child, it takes a village, blah, blah, blah. The fact is that it is difficult for almost everyone when a parent dies and it is almost always more difficult for a child when a parent dies. Just because you're being raised by your village doesn't mean that you are not going to wish that your parent had not died. And that doesn't happen just when you're a kid; it happens when you're an adult as well. (Look, I had 37 years with my Dad and it wasn't nearly enough. If I had only had, say, 7 years with my Dad, I think I would have felt cheated.) And the average life expectancy of people living in India is around 62.8 years, a figure which both of these folks have already exceeded by 8-10 years, so don't expect them to be around when the kid turns 5.

This is just selfish. That's all it is. People that have children or father children when there is no way that they are going to live to the point where the child is well into adulthood are just selfish. What is even the point of bringing a child into the world when you're not going to be around to raise it yourself? (And I think that about people who are young enough to be bearing children. If you're not going to raise it and take care of it and support it, why in the world did you have it?)

But there's something odd going on here. And not just because the chick is 70 and dude is 72. The picture doesn't look right. What's the deal with where the kid's hand is supposed to be? It's not there! And the guy has this look on his face like he's getting away with something.

Actually, a bunch of folks in this photo look like they're getting away with something. And what is with the woman's hand down there by the baby. That's not a hand! I'm not buying it. I don't know what's up with all of this, but if it comes out later on that they faked the whole thing up, you read it here first.

You know, there are many differences between the people I know who have children and this selfish couple in India who are far too concerned with their own "social stigma". It's not like I didn't know that my buddy is a good mom. But it's when I get to see her in action as the mother of her grown children (18 & 20? I think. Close enough.) that my level of respect for her in general just skyrockets. The time that she takes to think about them and to talk to them, the amount of effort that she puts into maintaining excellent relationships with them, and just seeing how obvious it is that she loves them unconditionally with a love that comes from the very core of her soul. It's absolutely incredible. That child-bearing, multiple-wife keeping, senior citizen couple over there in India could really stand to have a little sit down chat with my friend. I guarantee that they'd learn something of immeasurable value.

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That's Not A Panda!

Release the pigeons! We have another freaking panda!

Over there at Zoo Atlanta (Correct. Zoo Atlanta. Not The Atlanta Zoo. Zoo Atlanta. Go figure. Morons.) Mr. and Mrs. Panda, otherwise known as Lun Lun and Yang Yang are the new proud panda parents of a baby panda with no name because they don't know the sex of the baby panda just yet. I'm surprised that they knew it was a baby panda to begin with. A baby panda does not look like a panda at all. It looks like an unfinished mistake of some sort. And while I couldn't find a picture of this particular baby panda, I learned that most of them look the same. Thus, I figured that I could use a picture of any ol' newborn panda or, in this case, pandas and it would be just like the real thing. And the real thing looks nothing like a panda. Behold and trust me! Two newborn pandas, I swear!

Oh, my God, what the hell are those?! They're like little fuzzy penises with legs! Holy crap! (Why did I make that so BIG?! I don't want to see that!) Those can't be pandas! THIS is a panda:

Those things above look nothing at all like pandas. Penises with legs, that's what I'm seeing. And it's starting to frighten me. (Why do I keep looking at it?! Make it go away!)

Apparently, when a baby panda is born, it is no bigger than a stick of butter and weighs about as much as well. The panda gestation period is quite short, between 140 and 160 days. That's only about 4-5 months, which makes it a little easier to understand why the Little Leggy Penis Brothers up there look the way that they do. 4-5 months is not very long to grow an entirely different creature within your uterus or womb or pouch or stylish shoulder bag or whatever pandas have. It'd be like cooking a three minute egg for a minute and a half. Actually, it would be just like that because in both cases, what you end up with is something that is just SO gross!

Apparently, Lun Lun had to be artificially inseminated as Yang Yang had no interest in providing the natural insemination. It seems that pandas are rather particular when it comes to choosing a mate. You know, there's only about 1,500 of them left on this planet; they really shouldn't be so darned choosy. And while I know that Lun Lun did receive the sperm artificially, I am blissfully unaware of the particulars of the procedure! I am not, however, unaware of how they figure out of the creature is pregnant after all of the sperm implanting has occurred. Just like with humans (although hopefully in a different setting) they do an ultrasound. Behold! An ultrasound on a pregnant panda!


All of this has been so, so, SO much more than I really wanted to see and or know about the panda pregnancy process. (My world is a world in which things do not grow inside of other beings like an alien that is maturing inside of a select host up until the time which the creature has matured to the point of being forcibly expelled out of the host uterus in an extremely painful process akin to that of shoving a pot roast through one's nostril.) And since the little cub is so small, the fine folks over there at the zoo with the ridiculous name, Zoo Atlanta, didn't even know for sure if Lun Lun was preggers until Thursday. And out popped the Little Leggy Penis (the LLP) on Sunday!

But hold on! Now there's a problem. It would seem that Zoo Atlanta has turned off the feed from the Panda Cam (I swear). According to a one Simone Griffin, the Zoo Atlanta spokesperson, "...they wanted to more closely watch the tiny, hairless cub based on the behavior of the cub and its mother, Lun Lun, in the zoo's birthing den." So they shut off the Panda Cam and plunked the LLP down in an incubator. So they say.

Hey, you saw the pictures just like I did! That little panda is tiny! That big panda is not! Personally, I'm not so sure they should be allowing Lun Lun around the LLP until it stops looking like an LLP at the very earliest. She could squash it without even trying. She could think it's a bug and swat it into a panda pancake without really trying. That's not really a zoo attraction many would flock to.

But pandas, in general, ARE the sort of zoo attraction many, many folks flock to. If you want some folks to flock, get yourself a panda. For some reason, Americans love the damned panda. They just can't get enough of the panda. Panda, panda, panda. (I think it's that black and white fur pattern they've got going on that Americans are drawn to. What's another animal that Americans just love to death? That's right, the killer whale. Willy. Shamu. Doesn't matter the name, if you're an American, it is unlikely that you've made it through your childhood without having a killer whale jump through a hoop five feet in front of you and then shower you with water when he splashes back into his Tank O' Captivity. Americans just love a tricky orca.)

And flock the folks did to Zoo Atlanta to get a glimpse of the yet to be named panda-panda. Some of the children even brought along little stuffed panda toys with them to play with while they watched the panda cub on the Panda Cam. Those kids are going to be two things. Disappointed and confused. "Mommy, that's not a panda." "Why are we looking at a rat?" "What's a leggy penis?" They did not get dragged to the zoo to look at something was not panda-like. Yep, some very sad children leaving Zoo Atlanta, I'm sure of it.

Pandas also always have the repetitive name. Ling-Ling. Lun-Lun. Yang-Yang. Why do they have to have Chinese names at all? I mean, we're raising them. Can't we name them what we want? Why can't the Chinese part of their name be like the middle panda name and then they get an American first name? Maybe it would help me warm up to the whole panda craze if I had an opportunity to go and fawn over Steve, the Giant Panda and his cousins Gary and Sue. It might not, but you have to start somewhere and naming the panda Steve would be a great place to start.

But here's a real treat for you! Below is the video of the nameless panda-panda being born. Panda birth! It's fairly short, considering it's the emergence of a brand new creature into the world, and runs a little less than two minutes. It's not disgusting. It's not gross. You don't see fluids or placentas or any of that stuff flying around. It IS loud at times. And it is also hilarious.

Weird, eh? I thought so too. I also thought it was hilarious. After Lun Lun shoots that creature out, she appears to be shocked, just shocked that it is what it is. She sort of jumped back there like, 'Holy s***!! What the hell is that?! Where'd that come from?! Usually I'm just crapping bamboo! I've never had this happen! Yang Yang, dammit! Get over here!"

Look, as much as I don't understand the fascination with the panda, I really do hope the LLP panda is going to be OK. I also hope it grows some damn fur pretty quickly. It's going to be scaring the neighbors if it's walking around looking like that for very long.

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