Last night my wife tricked me into going to one of those child birthing classes. I know, I know--Superhusbands should be above-and-beyond attentive to every major milestone in their wives lives. Normally I don't chafe at this, but I am in sore need of some real, soul-resting sleep. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could take a pass on this thing, which would probably just be an orientation of some kind, and I may have a moving appointment, so...
One look at her crumbling face told me that I would hear about my absence from the class until well after Junior is out of college and, presumably, well into his own REI career. I went.
One detail she left out: IT WAS THREE HOURS. I don't know what I learned, exactly, except that deep, slow breaths help, and the words for which the acronym T.A.C.O. stands are very important. I believe it has something to do with water breaking, but I was distracted by studying the faces of the other men in the room. Were they as miserable as me?
I'm no man's man. Not by any stretch. I can fake it within reason, but if talk turns to football or an assortment of topics usually mastered by others of my gender, I quickly reveal myself to be a non-homosexual oddity of some kind. Which is to say that normally I'm pretty good at the sensitive, attentive-to-your-needs stuff. But not last night. I was screaming inside for one freaking moment of freedom. I was not in the mood to hear about mucous plugs, water-tacos, or Stage I, Phase II of whatever.
When we'd first gotten there, I noticed an ominous item on the list on the blackboard. Underneath all the things we were to learn about was "Birth Video." O, sweet, weeping Barney, I thought, that can only mean one thing. I'd somehow avoided live birth videos all through high school and college. At county fairs, I managed to avoid, mostly, seeing videos of various livestock being born. THAT almost caused me to retch, but I held it down.
Now, this is very odd. I'm not particularly squeamish, although, given the choice, I'd certainly choose something other than, say, being dropped into a vat of pig entrails. I've cut, smashed and burned my body in various ways over the years, and the results have always been bloody, pussy sores of one kind or another. I once dropped a motorcycle on my leg and the exhaust pipe seared a welt into my skin exactly the same shape and color as the great red storm on Jupiter. When it later got infected, well, let me just tell you it wasn't pretty. But I never came close to puking.
I once attempted a stupid skateboard stunt and managed to mangle my left forearm. I thought it was just out of it's socket, and I passed out when I tried to...oh...I don't know, "put it back in." (Hey, I was 15 and an idiot). I still bear the the metal plates in that arm.
Last year I nearly cut my finger off while chopping wood. (Hey, I was 32 and an idiot). Lots of blood. Weird, gross-looking flap of skin. But no puking.
And even more pertinent, back when my dad owned a ranch in Montana, he dragged me out to help deliver a calf that just wasn't coming out. I'll spare you the details, but it was literally a bloody mess. We actually had to attach chains to the poor little guy's hind feet and winch him out of his mother. It was gross, but kind of cool.
But last night I had to focus on the wall-phone behind the t.v. to keep from swooning. Now 33 and still an idiot, I stole glances at the screen and occasionally saw the oddest thing--a tiny little human sticking out of the hind quarters of another human being.
That's when it hit me--we've done something horribly unnatural. This is the miracle of birth? No, no, that can't be right. Everything I've seen on TV has taught me that people have zany adventures rushing to the hospital, there's 20 minutes or so of wacky dialogue, and then an unusually large, clean baby appears in the hands of a handsome doctor, and everyone's problems are solved, at least temporarily. NOTHING in my television-watching experience has prepared me for this impossible, bloody, and who-knows-what-else mess that comes from one's beloved.
New item for the delivery bag: whiskey.
Wholesaling REOs- Motivated Listings
5 years ago
3 comments:
My father points to this phenom as proof that "my generation" has no manhood. I attended those birthing classes in preparation for kid #1. I was in the room for the birth of all three. My only contribution in the whole process was ice-cube delivery. Where was my dad when I was born? In the bar across the street, natch.
jimi
Hmm. Wouldn't being in the same room, witnessing the miracle, and later being able to resume normal marital relations "with gusto" be better proof of one's manhood?
On the other hand, I don't think I'm a strong enough man to tell my wife, "Honey, I'll be in the bar. You can take care of this, I think..."
Lol.
1) Take note of where I was during the 3 deliveries ... it wasn't at the bar.
2) Did I mention that he's divorced and I'm not?
That said, my contribution to the whole process was nil ... and we used nothing that we learned from the child birth classes. Sometimes a man's just gotta stand up tall and say, "Yes, my dear."
jimi
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