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I am a man and I will never personally experience pregnancy or, God willing, child birth. I am not complaining - I’m boasting.
I’m pretty sure I will live a very fulfilling life as a father even though I will never have to push a child the size of a watermelon out of a hole the size of a snap pea. I’m okay with that.
“You know, I’m a little anxious about this whole childbirth thing…” I say at dinner one night.
“YOU’RE anxious?” my wife counters.
“Yeah… I mean, you hear all sorts of stories about it…”
“Don’t I know it!” agrees my wife.
“I mean, I’m going to have to be sitting in that hospital waiting room for hours. I hope there’s something good on TV…”
At this point my wife is not the only one being kicked at the dinner table. When she’s done kicking me she politely explains that she expects me to be in the operating room, helping her give birth.
“And how am I in any way qualified to help with a complex medical procedure?” I ask.
“I want you there for moral support.”
“Ahh. So what do I do while you’re screaming and huffing and cursing like a sailor with Tourette’s syndrome?”
“You sit there are feel guilty because you’re the one that caused all this,” she explains.
“Yes, Dear…”
This conversation leads to us attending a class at the local hospital a few nights later. The class is somewhat helpful in explaining some of the things you can expect when your baby is first born. We pick up three valuable tips from this short class:
1. If you don’t breastfeed your baby then you might as well just drive home with your baby tied to the front bumper. Without at least six months of breastmilk your kid is going to be sick for the rest of his or her life and most likely grow up to be an office janitor, liberal arts college professor or a porn star. This class very rationally informs us that feeding your baby with baby formula is tantamount to giving your child antifreeze laced with bleach.
2. You can expect your baby to be one damn ugly little nugget of slimy meat for the first couple days after birth. Babies are often born with cracked skin and mishapen heads and covered in goo and with discolored splotches all over their skin. This is unsettling at first until you realize that you wouldn’t look much better if you’d just spent the last 9 and half months growing 100 times your starting size and floating around in a hot tub of your own filth.
3. If you have a baby boy there’s absolutely no scientific reason to have the little bugger circumcised. One could argue that you should have your baby circumcised if you aren’t going to breastfeed because, you know, being circumcised might definitely help him with that porn star career.
We learn so much from this class that my wife and I decide to sign up for more. We really want to learn as much as we can because after she gives birth this whole parenting thing should be pretty darn easy…
Right?
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5 Responses to “Our First Childbirth Class: Breasts and Genetalia”
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thordora says:
We didn’t go. And we turned out just fine. It’s all a bunch of hooey anyway, and I don’t want to sit there with other couples experiencing the “miracle”. ich.
July 12th, 2006 at 11:09 am -
G.H. Yeung says:
I loved the post; my wife and I never did go to any of those pre-birth classes. However my wife, who is of a studious nature read everything about birthing and about breastfeeding. I read what she told me to read and we managed fine.
My wife is still breastfeeding my child (who had turned 2 this past May). I feel that it is wonderful for a mother to breastfeed. I know that however it is difficult to continue to do so when real paid maternity leave is rare (instead of using up your accumulated personal leave/sick time). I was able to support my wife during her first months (having used up all my sick leave). To support my wife I made a deal with her that I took care of the output if she took care of the input for the first month.
One thing about breastfeeding is that the diapers of breastfed children do not stink horribly. Not like it smells like roses but does not offend the nose as much as formula fed babies poop. -
Ahmie says:
Really, none of it is that bad - we (as women) scare ourselves into at least 90% of the problems we suffer in childbirth. I labored, completely unmedicated, for 5 days (yes, DAYS) and slept through every night of that (my son was born at lunch time). The drive to the hospital was the worst part (stupid potholes). It’s NOT a medical proceedure any more than any other normal body function is a medical procedure in the normal course of events (in other words, not every bowel movement is potentially impacted, right?). Use common sense, our species wouldn’t've survived if reproduction (which is very energy intensive, takes a long time to cook, and when the child is breastfed the fertility is supressed so that the next one doesn’t come along too quickly) was as deadly as we’ve been lead to believe. The majority of deaths in childbirth reported by our grandmothers were BECAUSE THE DOCTORS DIDN’T WASH THEIR HANDS BETWEEN PATIENTS.
As for breastfeeding, it’s really got other benefits aside from the whole health thing. It’s also a darn sight more portable than formula - as long as mom’s there, food’s there, at exactly the right temperature, mix, and it’s even clean without having to boil anything (only artificial nipples need boiling, assure your wife of that
). Practice a bit with a baby sling (unpadded, trust me) around the house and she’ll be able to do it without missing a beat wherever she’s at, without folks even noticing.Now if only there were as attractive of nursing clothes as there are of maternity clothes.
Oh, and the circumcision thing - let him do it himself, he deserves the “joy” of that experience if he decides to enter that particular career, doesn’t he?
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Paul says:
Man did you ever hit the nail on the head with this post. We went to those god awful classes, all three of them. with couples experiancing their miricale, going natural and breastfeeding crazys. My wife wanted the pain meds quick, eventually had a C section and we didn’t use anything they taught us.
I can’t stand the comments I get concerning breastfeeding, people ask ME why we arn’t doin it. My response its not my equipment, and they still argue. Neither of use had milk from the tap growing up and we both turned out fine,
And the front bumper is a great idea, we used the roof rack -
Tom Coffee says:
Paul,
Yeah… I just found out recently that I wasn’t raised on breast milk. I wasn’t raised on formula. I was raised on WHOLE COW’S MILK because the head pediatrician at Johns Hopkins was recommending it at the time.
Today cow’s milk for babies is the equivalent of rat poison.
Yet here I am.
The way I figure it the human race has been around for a pretty long time and we’ve managed to get by without the rules and “knowledge” that we have now. We’re a pretty hardy race, despite our sometimes best efforts to kill ourselves…
-Tom