Apparently I’m not the only one deathly afraid of childbirth: Helen Mirren is too. I feel so much less guilty now. But Helen’s fear is so extreme that she’s completely disgusted by it – after seeing a video about childbirth as a teen, she was so traumatized that she swore she’d never have kids – and she followed through on that promise. I’m quite sure I’ll need to be given massive amounts of drugs and tied down, but I’m pretty sure that as long as I have my future husband’s arm to bite down on, I’ll be just fine. Helen Mirren, on the other hand, cannot be swayed with drugs and biting.

Although it was a school for girls only, Dame Helen said that in the biology classes they were taught nothing about sexual reproduction. Then came the occasion the class was driven by bus to a boys’ school. She was about 13 or 14, “just at that age when you’re just beginning to be self-conscious about your physicality and about boys and all that. “And they sat us all down, boys and girls, all about 13, 14 years old in this horrible school hall. “And then this tweed-skirted dykey sort of woman, short cropped hair, comes on and says, ‘I’m Dr Joyce’ or whatever, ‘and what you’re about to see is one of the greatest miracles.

“I’ve seen it many times you know because I’m a doctor and giving birth is one of the most beautiful things’.” Dame Helen recalls how the group were wondering what she was talking about and then the film began. To this day she can remember it – the whirring of the projector and a close-up of a woman having a baby. “And that’s all you see and these are 13-year-old boys and girls who can’t look at each other anyway, and it’s bloody and it’s disgusting. “And then occasionally a little subtitle comes up because there’s no soundtrack. It says, ‘Now prepare the rubber sheet’.”

She said she had put her hands up to her face, realizing she could not watch it. Within 30 seconds two boys had fainted and were carried out while the ‘stupid woman’ said: “Wasn’t that wonderful? It’s a miracle.” Dame Helen said: “I swear it traumatized me to this day. I haven’t had children and now I can’t look at anything to do with childbirth. It absolutely disgusts me.”

[From the Daily Mail]

Mirren also says he mother was a royal bitch, and that didn’t exactly make her want to become a mother herself. Though with the description she just gave, it’s hard to argue that childbirth is… let’s just say I think the gods or evolution or nature or whatever could have come up with a kinder way to go about it. I think it’s a really good idea never to watch a childbirth video. That way, you’re not scared until about the last ten minutes when the doctor tells you what’s about to happen. And you assume he’s full of it, because an entire baby can’t possibly come out of there, what a moron. Then all of a sudden it does. You’re a little pissed that you had no clue, but it’s all over with so who’s to quibble. I’m pretty sure that’s the absolute smartest, healthiest way to go about the whole thing.