Joel will be five next month, and he is experiencing pregnancy as a close observer for the first time.

He was just shy of three when Beatrix was born. During my pregnancy with her, he kissed and patted my belly when prompted. He dutifully said hi to the baby and liked to lift my shirt to stare in awe at my bellybutton. He didn’t fully understand there was an actual baby in there.

This time around, it is completely different. It’s revolutionary. Joel, far more than the other kids, has questions about the physical process. It’s a stark contrast to our daughter, Aidan, who at eleven is excited but also a little embarrassed about the whole thing. He hasn’t asked how the baby got in there, yet. He is focused right now on how the baby eats, if he is sleeping at the moment, and how he’ll get out.

Six children and eleven pregnancies haven’t done anything to diminish how goofy and adolescent I feel when a kid asks a below-the-belt sort of question.

That’s why I was thanking God for the emergency c-section I had with Beatrix. Not only did it literally save her life (cord prolapse) but it came in handy the day Joel first brought up the new baby’s exit strategy.

“I will go to the hospital and the doctor will make a cut in my tummy and lift the baby out.” I answered, glad to not have to explain uterine contractions expelling his brother out of my, you know, bagina.

He was satisfied with that answer, comparing it to his recent thumb-trauma which featured gushing blood and seven stitches. He said he didn’t feel it because he got shots. I told him I wouldn’t feel it either because I would get a special shot. Sympatico!

This morning, we dropped the kids off school. The car was quiet as we three homebodies drove away. Joel was wearing a cowboy hat, which forced him to look sideways. He said something I didn’t quite hear, but the word’s “baby” and “dead” were mentioned. I turned down the music and told Joel to look forward and repeat what he just said.

“I said when the doctor cuts your tummy to get the baby out, wouldn’t that make you dead?”

Makes sense. Big slash in tummy would normally be a sign of a medical and surgical emergency. Why hadn’t I thought of that when I explained this method of delivery? From an almost-five-year-old’s worldview, a c-section is ludicrous and dangerous. It’s scary. I was so caught up in being grateful for the chance to suppress a blush that I didn’t consider the alternative isn’t exactly pleasant.

I assured him that it is very quick and I wouldn’t feel anything. The doctor would sew me fast and my body will heal. No worries, buddy.

It kills me that he may have been rolling this around in his mind for a few days, wondering about the big cut and his mama, dead. I’ve always advocated for honesty with children, but I wish I had used a little more discretion in explaining how his baby brother would be born.

The whole incident makes me question why it is easier for me to talk about seven layers of my body being parted with a knife than giving birth vaginally. Probably because, if I am honest with myself and everyone else, I want to have a c-section this time. Certain circles expect me to express a strong desire to try for a VBAC. I am supposed to be sad, scared, or depressed that doctors want me to avoid labor this time.

But I’m not. I feel completely at peace with this decision.

My big regret is treating it so casually with my youngest son.

I won’t feel all seven of those layers being cut, but I will feel them heal. That’s often the case when we dive in headlong, without thinking.