In fact, if your baby's birth story doesn't involve the back seat of a cab, a cab driver, an ambulance, a crash cart, a priest (or rabbi), a six-week stay in the hospital, or at least three babies coming out of your vagina that you weren't expecting, I gotta say, you should just keep that story to yourself. Don't be putting that sh@# on Facebook. Nobody cares. Just post a picture of the kid, with the sex, the name, and where people can send their cheque and then stop talking about it because your story, as amazing as it is to you, your immediate family, and the people stuck in line with you at the grocery store, is not very exciting or even remotely interesting to anybody else on the planet (except people looking to fill content on their websites).
Look, I hate to break it to you but your story is so commonplace, so ridiculously routine that your obstetrician, a man who has not forgotten a single birth in thirty years, has no clue who the hell you are when you run in to him on the street, and that's when you run into him outside the hospital the day after he had his hands cupped around your va-jay-jay (well, your wife's anyway). I know every birth is special. I know every proud parent wants to tell the story about the birth of "their" child. But someone has to say it- shut up! You tell a story like a rambling pre-schooler (and I don't humor adults). Your story sucks! But, look on the bright side: you got a baby out of it.
You want to hear a real horror story? The worst labour and delivery story ever told? I got one for you. No, it doesn't involve anything life threatening (although my wife told me if I left the room she would kill me), and it doesn't involve hours of labour or even a lot of blood. It involves the crap a man goes through to make sure his wife has a pleasant birthing experience. No, there's no scalpels involved (although that epidural needle was pretty freakin' scary) and no emergency procedures (although, I did try to find a coffee at three in the morning and somehow ended up in the darkness in the basement of the hospital next door and needed someone to talk me back out). This story's about love, the real love a man feels for the mother of his unborn child, and what he's willing to do to comfort her in her moment of need. This is a story of a man taking one for the team and taking it like a man. This one's... just listen to the f-ing story...
"It was a dark and dreary day in the wee hours just days before the Ides of March. My wife, dressed in a hospital gown, laying on her side, an epidural needle stuck deep into her spine, asked her friend if she brought any movies for us to watch as we waited for the contractions to inch their way closer and closer together.
"Movies?" I asked. "You guys didn't mention anything about movies?" "Sure we did," said her friend; her best friend since childhood; the only other person my wife had asked to be in the delivery room, "This could take days. You need some good movies." "What kind of movies?" I asked. "Why girly movies of course!" Giggled her friend. "This is a girls night!"
I could feel myself starting to feel woozy. The room began to spin when she said: "You have two choices - "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun or Troop Beverly Hills?" She smiled at my wife as she dangled not one, but two versions of my own personal hell in front of her face. "Pregnant woman's choice!"
I looked for the exit, but I knew my fate was sealed. "Here honey," my wife said," sit on the bed with us. We have lots of time before the baby is born." And so my nightmare began. My wife and her friend fell asleep, on me, in the first five minutes. And no matter how I tried, I could not get free. I was watching the worst movie ever made (Troop Beverly Hills)... on repeat, for six hours, and there was no escape.
It was like Chinese water torture, burrowing in to my brain, as the sounds of the labour monitor, her friend's slurping/snoring, and Shelly Long's annoying voice chipped away at my sanity. I couldn't scream. I couldn't escape. I couldn't move... The horror.
Had it not been for the birth of my child, I might still be stuck there today, listening to the slurping, and snoring, and Shelly Long singing the Girl Guide song. I can still hear the screaming- my wife's- as she woke up to tell her friend to shut the hell up, only to realize as she looked at the screen that 1) Shelly Long is really annoying and 2) she was about two minutes from giving birth.
I called the Nurse. She freed me.... blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda... my daughter was born... we made some calls... I got my wife a coffee... and two days later we were home. But, I will never, ever, ever again, watch an episode of Cheers that doesn't star Kirstie Alley. It's just too painful."
Need I say more??? I'm a freakin' saint, I tell you. A SAINT!!!!!
The End (Thank God)
Pssst: Your wife wants to try to sleep while she awaits the next big contraction? Don't give her chic flicks. I have a simpler way. Just read all the comments on this link:
http://community.babycenter.com/post/a503545/no_one_ever_told_me........
It worked for me...
oh, I have some horror stories but i won't litter here. I will tell you mr. dad, that if nothing else (outside of following the birth of my precious baby I said "just take it away, now." I do remember my nurse. Her name was "Monica". Monica made a grave error at one point during my labor. She leaned in close enough to me for me to grab her by the front of her shirt and tell her "look, $50.00 bucks if you get me that epi right now, RIGHT NOW!" Nope, did not not happen. the kid is ok and so is Monica last I checked.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I offered our nurse $50 to get me a more comfortable chair and some popcorn for the show...
ReplyDelete