If Men Told Birth Stories

NOTE:

Regular readers of Scary Mommy recognize that this post was meant to be taken as a joke. We make fun of ourselves here, we make fun of our husbands and we make fun of our children. We do this because we are trying to fucking survive motherhood and laughing is a hell of a lot more healthy than crying.

This does not mean we do not love our husbands, our children or being parents.

OBVIOUSLY.

If you don’t like the post, move on; you probably don’t belong here in the first place. Viciously attacking the author certainly doesn’t endear you to us.

Grow up.

I didn’t care about my friend’s birth stories until I had a couple kids of my own. Now I love to hear them. It’s like veterans exchanging war stories and battle scars. We’ve all been in the trenches and wanna know what happened when a fellow solider was there, too.

But men, they don’t really get to talk about their birth experiences. They’re just a supporting role in the woman’s tale. If they did write birth stories, I imagine they’d go something like this…

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“Hey dudes ! Here’s the story about Junior’s birth. It was crazy, you guys. There was so much blood after the whole thing I was thinking vampires were going to fly through the windows for a feast of epic proportions. It was nuts. It was like war. It was awesome.

Janey had woken me up around 3am saying she was having contractions. I asked her if it was time to go to the hospital yet and she said no so I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

Judging from the pillow she slammed on my head, I was not supposed to do that.

We got up and I put on the TV, wondering if this was going to be the day and if I should call my boss and tell him I’m starting paternity leave. I’d love to call him at 3 in the morning. How funny would that be? I kinda hoped this wouldn’t be the day and then I could call him two mornings in a row at 3am. That’d be awesome.

I was watching an infomercial for some ab machine thing while Janey wandered around the house, puttering and cleaning. Why I had to be up at 3 in the morning to watch her clean, I still wasn’t sure. I mean, she stopped every now and then and leaned against the wall and did some deep breathing stuff, but she seemed fine. I was going to ask her if I could go back to bed but, judging from my earlier attempt, I decided I’d wait awhile to broach the subject.

I guess I ended up dozing off on the couch, though, because I woke up to her rocking back and forth on all fours and moaning.

That was weird.

I asked her if she was okay and she said the contractions were getting worse. Was it time to head to the hospital? Not yet, she said. Alright, I’m going to make myself a sandwich. Do you want one?

That was not the right thing to say.

She was standing up again and on my way to the kitchen I ducked the pillow she threw at me. She’s got an arm!

So I ate a sandwich, she started getting louder, and she finally said it was time to go to the hospital. It’s game time! I stubbed my toe on the door trying to get us out of the house and, man, did it hurt. I think I may have broken it. It hurt really bad. Janey wasn’t really into feeling sorry for me in that moment though. I figured since we were going to the hospital anyway I could have it looked at. All doctors are the same, right?

So we get to the hospital, get checked in, and Janey’s being hooked up to all these beeping, blinking machines. It was kind of like Star Trek with all the monitors and screens and tubes and I don’t know what all. I kept expecting McCoy to walk in. The nurse asked if she had plans to get an epidural and she said no; she wanted a natural birth. That’s my warrior princess! Sounds awesome, right?

Dude. Contractions hurt. I don’t know how they felt for her, but the vice grip she had on my hand as she moaned and groaned through them… well, again, I was glad we were in a hospital. I was pretty sure now my toe and fingers were broken.

She was up to 7cm now and things were getting real. I could tell she was in a lot of pain so I asked her what she wanted me to do. I’m here for her, ya know? She said to press onto the small of her back when the next contraction came on. Counter pressure. I can do that!

The contraction came on and she said, “Now!” so I pressed and pressed and pressed with all my strength. She kept screaming and saying, “Harder!” so I pushed as hard as I could against her back and…

‘); // ]]>

Guys, I’m not joking. Pretty sure I sprained my wrist. I didn’t tell her, though. I was beginning to wonder which of us was going to have the bigger hospital bill.

Finally, after hours of all the screaming and checking and pain, she asked for the epidural. I wish I had a home version of that thing because in minutes she was smiling and laughing and joking around. I had my wife back!

The nurses told us to try and get some rest and I was out before my head hit the “I wanna be a bed” couch.

I was having some weird dream about work when she woke me up. “Babe? We’re gonna have a baby soon. You may wanna get up.”

There’s a chance I fell back asleep.

“Babe!”

I was up and got ready to catch the baby. I looked under her blanket and… I can’t even describe it, guys. Her lady parts were huge. HUGE. It was crazy. I kind of wanted to take a picture because I couldn’t believe it. I was then told that the doctor catches the baby so I moved to the side and held my wife’s hand, praying she wouldn’t break any fingers that were still in tact.

After that there was a lot of yelling and people running around and my wife was grunting and moaning and pushing as hard as she could. She really was my warrior princess. In a flash, the doctor pulled out this gooey, sticky mess. It was like an alien; all red and screaming and flailing its little arms and legs.

My son. My alien son was here. And judging from his man parts, he was going to take after me if you know what I mean.

They let me cut the cord and I was like, “Finally! Something I can do!” Then I got to hold him while they stitched up Janey. I guess she had tore. I can’t even talk about that.

He’s here, guys. My son, my future linebacker, is here.

But, man, there was a lot of blood.”

Related post: Men Can Experience What It’s Like To Have a Baby