Some friends recently became grandparents and told my wife and me about the delivery. Apparently everything went according to plan, which meant their grandbaby came just like the book said. You know this plan. It’s when the woman goes into labor, she’s wheeled into some delivery room, and her husband goes right in there with her. He’s supposed to coach her into having a baby. This is a popular plan. It’s also silly and it seldom works.

There are at least two perfectly good reasons for this: 1). Having a baby sounds and looks easy when you’re in a classroom using pillows. You go into a room with a bunch of other pregnant couples and practice breathing. This is to help you relax. These classes take place at night, after work. Most people are way too tired to practice breathing then, so they just skip the breathing and usually fall asleep. See? Right there is a reason this plan seldom works. 2). Today, in our culture, it isn’t polite to say that only the woman is pregnant. The guy might feel bad and go quit his job or something. To keep him from feeling insecure about himself we have to say, “We are pregnant.” This isn’t true. But the guy won’t know this until his wife, who is really pregnant goes into some serious labor with serious labor pains. I’m told that Godzilla with constipation wouldn’t even begin to describe it. But because “we are pregnant” and the guy is ignorant, he will walk into that delivery room, armed with the knowledge that he can coach his wife into having this baby. He also thinks he knows how to breathe for both of them. He will need this skill.

When my wife had our first child, my coaching lasted about 30 seconds. After the first serious contraction, I realized I had positioned myself way too close to her. I should have stayed out in the waiting room. Valiantly, I tried to keep coaching. But it’s hard to say, “Breathe, dear.” When your face has been shoved around to the backside of your head and mashed into the wall. Even if I could have said it, I’m sure it would have come out sounding Chinese. By the time I realized my mistake of being in the same hospital as my wife, it was too late. She had my head in her hands in a vise grip of death, shouting, “You did this to me and I’ll make you pay!” My head was beginning to resemble a flounder with both eyes on the same side.

 I tried vainly to keep coaching, and saying “Breathe, breathe!” But the only thing that came out was, “bweeeeeevvvvwweeee, bweeeeeevvvvveeee!” And that was just me telling myself to breathe because by now her hands were around my neck and I was turning purple. 

One of the reasons for my refusal to leave, beside the fact that I was trapped, and I’m stupid, was I thought she needed me in there with her. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir could have been in there, singing The Hallelujah Chorus, and she wouldn’t have cared at all. She just wanted that baby to pop on out so she could do more important things, like ripping off my head and then going to sleep. So much for, “We are pregnant.”

I think I know why they didn’t allow husbands in the delivery rooms back when our parents were younger. It was so husbands and fathers wouldn’t be brain dead later in life, and because guys can’t take that much pain.

Questions or comments
Email Frank at:
fparrish@zoominternet.net