Guest blogger - a man's perspective

Ok, so we've had a kind of full week of pregnancy related outings. Hugh got inspired to write. Here's his version....

"Monday night is our birth class. As it is a "natural" birth class (women who want to have their kids without drugs, suction, tools used to stretch or cut the vagina to speed up the birth, no cesareans, etc.), we sit on the floor. I guess sitting cross-legged for two hours is preparation for the pain of childbirth. In "nature" there are no chairs, only pillows and sore backs.

Raquel, the motherly, graying, 60 something "advisory" midwife (she's only instructing us, not participating in the birth) who teaches the class, gets the only chair. I frequently tune her out and think about how comfortable she looks. Sometimes, maybe 45 minutes into the class, I scan, spy, study the faces of the men to see whose eyes are glossed over, who is nodding off; then, when I spot a perp, I look to see if his wife's face is conversely attentive and full of the glee that only a woman can feel when she knows her man is participating in an intimate conversation with witnesses. There's this theory I have about men being forced into doing things by their wives all over the world and this seems like a good opportunity to test my theory.

Usually the men say nothing. But this Monday night was different. After one mother revealed that she has been breastfeeding her son for 3.5 years, a blast of consciousness spread across the husbands' faces as if a bucket of cold water had been poured on their laps (she shared with us that her biggest problem is social pressure, of course, like the time recently when her nearly four year old boy ate a chocolate bar at the beach and followed it up with some tit milk in front of horrified onlookers). The men suddenly had lots of questions and things to say. So did I. When we were leaving, in fact, I told Amber, "There is no way in hell we're breastfeeding for more than a year. Period."

Birth classes bring couples closer through communications like this, I guess.

So it was only natural on Tuesday morning that when Amber told me we had yet another, different birth meeting scheduled for Tuesday night with our "practicing" midwives -- yes, Birth Team Alexander is now up to 10 people and one dog: 1 advisory midwife; 2 practicing midwives; an OBGYN; neonatal doctor; lactating/breastfeeding specialist (gotta have one of those!); Amber's sister who is anurse; the maid; us -- that I would politely ask, "Why on FUCKING earth are we having another birth meeting? Please tell me there's a reason for this."

I admit that Amber never satisfied me that this meeting was necessary or helpful, but she insisted it was required, and that the two midwives want to drink tea with us, discuss the birth, talk about things they would need in the house, etc.

Fine. I went.

We sat on the floor (surpirse), drinking tea and eating high-fiber cookies, and about 90 minutes into what was nothing more than an emotionally charged bullshit session on how wonderful natural childbirth is, we started in on war stories, complete with graphic pelvic photos, videos, and the typed story of Valeria and Juan's birth experience, which one of the midwives started to read.

I followed along as best I could in Spanish. While some of the more subtle details escaped me, the role of the husband in the birth did not. I was all ears, asking the midwife to repeat the parts I missed. For example, did the mother really say that Juan while was massaging her sacrum she could feel another round of red-tinted mucous sliding down her leg? Did Juan really massage, hold, clean, caress for 5 consecutive hours?

These parts had to be repeated.

Unfortunately, while I asked for them to be repeated so that I could get a clearer picture of what I might need to skillfully escape during the birth process, the midwives misinterpreted my questioning, and at the conclusion of the birth story began asked me how I visualized my role in the natural birth and then stared at me, judging, waiting, eager to know if I was prepared to go as far or further than Juan. When I stalled, they figured I was needing help with my Spanish, and produced photos of Juan cutting the umbilical cord himself, wife exposed, covered in birth gook.

"How beautiful!" They exclaimed. "Do you see yourself being like Juan??"

Three pair of eyes were trained on me, watching, judging.

I was sitting on the floor for my fourth hour in the last 24. I spaced out and wondered if the vibrating text message I just received on my mobile phone was from DirecTV, who had been calling all day to schedule installation of my NFL Sunday Ticket package, which provides all NFL games for all 32 teams, all season. I turned my attention back to the women watching me and thought maybe the midwives would fire us and not work with us if I somehow messed up my answer.

"Si!" I exclaimed, and a chorus of "que lindos" (how beautiful!) poured out of the midwives and one of them clutched her heart with both hands (not making that up), and I was safe.

That is, until the midwives explained we would be having these 2-hour meetings once a week for the next 8 weeks until the birth."