It’s worth it.
The longest day of my life was the day my daughter was born. Well, technically my wife’s birth stretched out over the course of 4 days. Her actual hard labor started 48 hours after her first contraction. Pretty early in her pregnancy, my wife made up her mind and decided that she wanted an all natural birth. What this means, to those of you who aren’t familiar with the term is that she wanted a birth without any kind of medical intervention or drugs. This made sense to me. The way I saw it, women have been giving birth without c-sections, vacuums, head clamps and pain killers for hundreds of thousands of years with little to no problem, right? So, being the supportive husband that I am, I tell her that any way she wants to do it, I’m there for her.
Naturally, that meant signing up for birth classes. I figured that this was a necessity, seeing as I knew just about nothing about the process other than the fact that the baby comes out of a women’s vagina at some point. 10 short weeks later, we were a certified Bradley Method couple. I was now a birth coach. She, the star athlete. We were ready to rock this fucking thing like it’s nobody’s business.
Here’s the thing about birth classes. They’re just as much for men as they are for women. At least, that’s the way I see it. I walked into that class knowing nothing. Absolutely afraid of the birthing process. I had previously told my wife that I would go for as long as I could in the delivery room but there might be a point where I would have to leave it. I know, I know, this sounds like as asshole move, but I was just that scared. That birth class got me used to seeing bloody vaginas. I’ve seen enough bloody vaginas now to not even flinch at the site of one. I could probably eat a meal while looking at one now, that’s how used to them I am. Another thing that class will prepare you for is how crazy your partner is going to get before and after birth. She’s going to get crazy on you. It’s not hers or your fault. It’s just something that happens. At one point, my wife who’s the sweetest person I have ever met in my life, called me, quite regularly, a ‘fucking asshole’. Needless to say, the classes helped, because I was prepared for the verbal and mental hormonal assaults. By the end of our 10 week class, I was ready. I was determined to stay with her the whole time no matter what. And I did. And I’m glad I did. Because what I saw in that delivery room was the single most incredible and fucking scary thing I’ve ever seen in my entire fucking life.
Those videos that you watch in any birthing class. Much like the cake, they are a lie. They make it seem like contractions and pushing are easy. It’s fucking bull shit. Birth is crazy. It’s the hardest and most painful thing you will ever see your partner go through. And at the tail end of it, you get a pulsating bloody cone shaped head getting slowly squeezed through a hole that just doesn’t look like it was made to have something that big get squeezed through it. That’s what you get to see. Front row seats the the bloodiest show you could ever imagine. My wife says she wants a mirror down there so she can see what’s happening for the next birth. I say I want to gouge my eyes out and deal with permanent blindness, just so that I don’t have to see it again. That shit is scary, guys. Don’t let those videos fool you.
But it’s also pretty God damned incredible. Because at the end of all that insanely painful hard work, you get to see something that no one else in the world but parents can fully understand. I can’t really put it to words. After 32 hours of laboring in the hospital, my wife had finally done it and there she was. My beautiful daughter laying on my wife’s breast, crying and squirming like I imagined she would all those months before. I remember looking at my wife, watching her kiss my daughter, holding her and looking at her as though there was no one else in the room. It was in that moment that I realized that as much as I love my wife, there’s now this other little thing that I love just as much if not more. In one second, my world changes, and there’s now a whole other reason to wake up with a smile on my face.
Sure, the bloody, hairy, pulsating head squeezing slowly out of an even bloodier vagina is fucking frightful and horrifying. But it all leads up to this.
And this is worth it. And this is why I can’t wait to get back into that delivery room.
()
button
