Tonight was our last birthing class. Apparently our spawn will not remain inside The Woman forever, and will indeed come out in a somewhat disturbing… uh… I mean beautiful way. Alright, let’s face it. These days we have unlimited access to TV shows covering every conceivable scenario when it comes to giving birth – and in rather graphic detail. So by the time you make it to these classes, you should have a pretty darn good idea of what lay ahead.
Nevertheless, when going through this information – especially in video form – along with total strangers, many glances and nervous laughs will be exchanged. Sooner or later all of the men will hone in on the same thought, “Thank god it’s not me.” We just do not have the natural fortitude to handle childbirth. That’s not just me trying to score points with the misses – it’s an honest assessment. The human race would have died off long ago if the genders switched childbearing rolls.
Humorously, after watching the explicit video during the first class, it was one of the expectant mothers than turned around and said, “Did that freak you guys out?” But, to be fair, her husband might have simply been in shock.
Tonight may have been the most traumatizing personally. We covered the epidural and – holy crap – that thing looks worse than the pain. I mean, let’s get one thing straight: I’m the man. The extent of my discomfort will be lack of sleep and maybe a sore hand if she squeezes too hard. So I have absolutely no say about medication. The Woman gets what The Woman wants. But I have to admit that after seeing the epidural and hearing about the drawbacks *shudder* attempting to keep it natural has so much more appeal. Especially when it was pointed out that the husband is often kicked out of the room for it partially because he might PASS OUT… W!T!F! Are you serious? At least the videos of cesareans took my mind off that…
In all honesty, the class was pretty useful in evening out the expectations. The teacher was a birthing doula and presented all of the options in a very straightforward and unbiased way. Unfortunately that still doesn’t change the fact that… HOLY CRAP!… I’m going to be a DAD in under TWO MONTHS…
Maybe that means it’s time for me to stop posting to my blog at midnight… the again, when else will I be able to?
It’s not long now, eh? And it is a good thing women do the birthing. Otherwise the species would end. 🙂
If you want to read a great book with lots of science to back up the importance of doing this naturally, I would recommend “The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth” by Henci Goer. Heck I’ll mail you my copy if you want it.
Seriously though, it’s not as bad as all the movies make it seem. I mean, it’s no cakewalk, and there will likely be some screaming, but if she lets her hormones work for her she’ll be in a zone and nothing but happy when she’s holding the spawn.
Heh…I remember the videos we watched all the women were birthing nude for some reason. Apparently in a lot of the videos the women are nude. The instructor tells us, “of course, you don’t have to be totally nude when you give birth”.
Get used to midnight blogging. when the kid wakes up and you are rocking it to sleep for two hours, blogging will keep your mind off of things. It gets easier to type on a laptop while rocking
The idea of an epidural scared the bejabbers out of me when I was pregnant, so much so that I did everything in my power NOT to have that obscenely long needle jabbed in my spine. That being said, although there was actual pain during the labor process, I don’t think it was so bad to warrant totally obliterating it, so I just had some drugs to take the edge off the worst contractions. But maybe I just have a higher threshold of pain than most women. The hormones really do get you in the zone, though, and with my third I needed no pain relief at all (except afterwards when I couldn’t sleep due to the post-birth cramps). And of course, there’s always that prize at the end that makes you pretty much forget whatever suffering there was….until they’re teenagers, when it all comes back to you.