A co-worker recently told me a funny story about the day her daughter was born.
Her entire labour lasted about 3 hours. Hilarious, right? Ok, that’s not the funny part… it’s actually quite dangerous to have such a short labour. The body isn’t fully prepared for the shock of… anyway, that’s not the point of my story. Bare with me.
Because the labour happened so fast, she and her husband had just enough time to call their family to tell them they were at the hospital before rushing into the delivery room. When their parents received that phone call, they immediately packed up their stuff and rushed to the hospital.
It took my friends mom about an hour to get to the hospital, and she was the first to arrive. In usual circumstances, she would have stayed in the waiting room for quite some time before getting news of the arrival.
So, imagine her surprise when she arrived at the hospital to find her son-in-law lounging on a sofa in the lobby, cavalierly talking to someone on his cell phone, while his wife was supposedly upstairs in a birthing room in an intense amount of pain.
She chastised his for several minutes before he could get across the news that her grandchild was already born, and was upstairs resting with the new Mom.
That’s the funny part. I will pause while you laugh.
Ok, not so much funny ha-ha, but an amusing anecdote at the very least.
And one, certainly, that no one would have ever told 50 years ago.
If you are an early Baby Boomer (let’s say, pre-1960), there is a very good chance that your Dad wasn’t present when you were born. He may have been in the hospital, in some smoky waiting room puffing away on cigarettes, maybe even drinking some scotch to pass the time. But it’s unlikely that he was standing at the front of the bus, holding one of your mom’s legs while she grunted you out of her womb ushered you into existence. That’s just not how things worked back then.
No, back then there was a good chance that most Dad’s would be considered absentee fathers by today’s standards. Being involved in the birthing process? Oh, that’s the realm of nurses, doctors and maybe female family members.
That’s why I find it so interesting how far the pendulum haw swung in the other direction. In the span of one generation, we went from expecting our Dad’s to skip the birth to expecting them to be actively involved in the process.
So, that begs the question – who had it right? Our forefathers, or us?
I’ve said this before, but there was a lot about my daughter’s birth that I wish I hadn’t experienced. When you see a head coming out of a vagina (what, too graphic?), you have a tendency to feel small and inadequate for quite some time afterwards. More to the point, I often felt helpless, ineffective and in the way. Maybe things would have been smoother if I wasn’t there at all… if I had been lounging on a sofa in the waiting room, talking to my friends on the phone, leaving the experts to do their thing.
But then, I consider how truly helpless I would have felt if some nurse had come to see me in a waiting room, to tell me my wife and the soon-to-be mother of my child had just been wheeled into an operating room, just in case the forceps delivery didn’t work and they had to perform an emergency C-section.
Or how ineffective I would have felt when told some nurse had to hold my daughter for 10 minutes while doctors helped my wife recover from anesthetic-related complications.
So yeah, sometimes our evolution goes in the wrong direction… for example, maybe we’d all be better off if Michael Bay had never made Transformers 2.
But in this case, I think we’ve done the right thing. Let’s just agree though – the back of the bus might be a more convenient place for us to sit.
I have a similar story that a friend told me about when his two sons were born. His wife was in labor and he was literally out at his local hang out (near the hospital mind you) a nervous wreck drinking vodka waters!! When he told me this story I was shocked and my first reaction was “if you were my husband I would have killed you” lol!
However after reading your post for the first time I am reflecting on the whole “Daddy in the room” question! I can’t say that having my (ex)husband in the room during my 43 hour labor ordeal was anywhere close to helpful to me! I spent more time comforting him assuring him that I would be okay than he did me!
Now granted I don’t think all people are the same and I think some people are naturally better able to comfort than others as well some people are naturally more worried and stressed in such situations. So all that being said I guess what I think it comes down to is personal choice and open communication about what the situation is going to entail.
If I were to have another baby now with my fiancée without question I would want him in the room and he would want to be there…but our relationship is very very different! To each their own I guess…
Being a single mom, my delivery room wasn’t typical. But my dad got to make up for lost chances when we were all born and he was in the room (but at the top of the bed!). He was also there when my nephew was born and I think he’d tell you that they were two of the greatest moments of his life. For my kid, my dad cut the cord and Will takes great pride in saying ‘grandpa made my bellybutton’. It took two people to make the baby and both should be in there if it’s possible – my opinion!
I can’t imagine going through the birthing process without the support of my husband. He provided me with comfort, strength and love. He held my hand while through my c-section and made me feel like everything would be alright. I love my mother and appreciated her help during my labour the person that I needed was my husband!
Well, as with so many other parenting decisions, I think this one is best left to each individual to decide, and the rest of us not to judge. I, personally, was absolutely captivated by the idea of giving birth: so much so that I had both births videotaped and have watched them both again occasionally. But I get that some people would find that weird (I just ask them to keep that opinion to themselves). I’d love the chance to be present at a close friend or sister’s birth, and hope that my daughters (and the fathers of their babies) will welcome me at the birth of my grandchildren, the way I welcomed my mother as an integral part of my support network when my kids were born. Again: very individual decision.
I know my husband was keen to be there and wasn’t traumatized by the sight of the births (at least if he was, he’s been smart enough to keep that information to himself, LOL). In fact, he often expressed how fascinating the experience was for him, even though neither of my labours was simple or straightforward.
I don’t think Dads who’d rather be absent should be chided for that decision – as long as they’re not bailing on a partner who needs or wants them to be there.
Funny! I love our perspective on things!
I had two really fast births (my 1st and 3rd). I had breakfast, lunch, a baby, dinner.
My 2nd was 22hrs and just awful…
With my third it happened so fast that we forgot about my Dad in the waiting room. My husband went out to make the calls about 30minutes after she was born and saw my Dad sitting there…woops.
As far as where hubby was during the birth – he stood right around my waist area, peeking every now and then. He didn’t get the full frontal view of the delivery, rather the view from above as the babies were born. He preferred that angle…
I don’t blame him. I didn’t want to watch myself give birth – why would he?