All I Want for Christmas is My Beard Removed

When I was pregnant with my first child, I wasn't surprised by the stretchmarks. I wasn't surprised by the weight gain (well, until it reached eighty pounds and I was all, "Um, wasn't this supposed to have stopped like sixty pounds ago?"). I wasn't surprised by the swollen feet. I expected all this, at least to some degree.

But you wanna know what did surprise me about my pregnant body?

The beard.

I grew a beard.

Not one stray chin hair. Not two or three. But a straight-up beard.

As you know if you're a reasonably educated person, the scientific equation goes like this:

Woman + fetus(hormones) = beard - attractiveness = (O)mG(w)TF?

( ... Or, you know, something.)

Even after the pregnancy, the beard lingered. I would remove the hairs, they would keep coming back - like those people that keep showing up on different reality shows. And then like a karmic kick in the teeth, I sprouted new, equally stubborn hairs with each pregnancy.  I added to my family, and my beard did the same. Take the above equation and multiply it by three, and the answer is "one bewhiskered bitch."

I keep it at bay - I don't walk around looking like the lost member of ZZ Top or something - but I swear: every second I spend in front of the mirror, removing the hair from my chin, chips away at my femininity. I mean, how much more dude-like can you get than a beard? What's next, a thicket of chest hair a la Robin Williams? ... A penis?

That's why when I make out my Christmas list this year - which it's almost time to do - I'm going to ask Santa Claus to bring me a certificate for some laser hair removal. (He'll likely understand, as he himself has a substantial beard.) Because when I lean into Curtis for that New Year's kiss to ring in 2010, I'd like to do it without scratching his face all up with stubble.

Anybody had experience with laser hair removal? Anything I should know before the beard goes bye-bye?