Womb-Itch or Giardia? Why I Don’t Drink Missoula’s Water

By Big Sis, 7-25-07

It all started in late April, when I was passed Savagemama’s one-year-old daughter at a barbeque.  The munchkin was covered in a sweaty slime of carrots, avocado, and mango pulp.

“Oh, good…Auntie Big Sis is here to take you now.” Eliza—the munchkin in question—promptly smeared her colorful dinner all over my outfit.

That was the moment I officially accepted my fate for the remainder of the summer: a single, non-pregnant girlfriend to lots of recent and soon-to-be mamas.  The upside was that at least I wasn’t the only one at the table eating with her hands anymore.

There’s something in the water here in Missoula, and it’s not just Giardia from dog poop near Rattlesnake Creek.  It’s the womb-itch virus.  This virus has infiltrated slowly, steadily, and sometimes quite stealthily into the system of almost every person I’ve known here.

And womb-itch doesn’t just infect the women, either.  Plenty of men I know also formulate plans for conceiving their own little bundle of joy (this perhaps also involves some fantasizing).  Those plans, in my little world, seem to have all coalesced into embryos around September of 2006.  Yup…right at the beginning of hunting season.

I think I’ve found a connection here.  Increased breeding desires seem to arise in direct proportion to the elk’s bugle.  Missoulians or their respective partners go out and kill large game, and the nesting instincts kick in.  Then, they drink the water to wash down the deer meat, and womb-itch virus explodes full-force.

Nine months later and here we are: babies squirting out everywhere.  Three new ones arrived just last week, primed and ready to be Auntie Big Sis’ next food-painting munchkins at a barbeque featuring the last of the ’06 game meat.

Now these babies are damn cute, don’t bet me wrong.  I’ve got womb-itch to rival the best of ‘em.  (It’s just that I’ve wrangled the virus into remission—far, far in remission—so that I can milk another decade or so out of my independent, selfish lifestyle.) The new babies who popped out into the world are awesome and lovely, sweaty dinner paste included.

It’s the prep work before they got here that made me sweat bullets. I hosted and attended several baby showers recently, diving head-first into the unknown world of baby-dom.  I figured trial by fire was the easiest immersion into the new world of my best friends.

What’d I learn from these baby showers?  Enough to keep my personal womb-itch fully in remission.  Though blissfully ignorant before the baby boom, I’m now an expert on things like diaper services and belly-casting.  “Breast pump” and “cervical twinge” were integrated rapidly into my daily vocabulary.  I’ve participated in fascinating discussions about epidurals and dilation, ultrasounds and perineum (feel free to research this fun body part on your own time). 

I also learned some interesting things about myself.  For instance, I discovered that while isn’t always easy to be the only single woman at a party, it’s way harder to relate with my friends when I’m the only non-pregnant woman in the room.

On a happier note, the barrage of girlfriends-succumbed-to-womb-itch has positively impacted my dating life.  It’s forced me to think outside the box when I want a beer after work.  After all, even if Missoula is fairly laissez-faire about most lifestyle choices, women with bellies the size of small Beluga whales are still looked at suspiciously when waddling up to order a round at the bar.

Consequently, I’ve unearthed a good variety of new playmates recently.  It helps that I’ve been open to doing pretty much anything with anyone, especially if it doesn’t involve exchanging baby booties and birth stories.  I’ve gone ballroom dancing, cliff jumping, mountain bike riding, sailing, and raspberry picking, all with folks (yes, some of them even single men) I might never have spent time with if my usual playmates weren’t busy with the baby epidemic.

All in all, it’s been a fruitful summer.  New life, new friends, and new perspectives on love—and just how unconditional it can be when the recipient is a sweaty, happy little munchkin. 

One last note, though: hunting season is right around the corner, so beware of drinking too much Missoula water...unless you’re prepared to bear your own little fruit next summer.

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