To the dads: What was your experience with the birth of your child

Parent Cafe
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My husband is not on this forum, but I can tell you from his point of view (since I’ve heard it). First birth was at a military hospital. No drugs allowed, no epidurals, as they said all the anesthesiologists were deployed. Sounds like a lie to me, as I’m sure they did C-sections when needed! They told my husband goodbye, and to call us, “When you see the head”. What??? We’re on our own? Well, I guess that’s what you get for free! Fortunately my husband did see the head fairly quickly, though it took a lot of persuading on his part to get them in there, as they had deemed it too soon. I guess it was too much effort to just take a look.

Then afterwards, I heard him telling people that it wasn’t bad at all, and I must have not been in much pain, because I was really quiet. Uh…I guess he hadn’t realized that you can be in too much pain to yell. But if he hadn’t been there, I think I would have been SOL, on my own, begging for doctors to help. I was truly grateful he was there, both times.

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“Five years later our second c-section with a different doctor went smoothly, and all I remember this doctor saying to me was, “Big baby!” I assume he meant my son, but he could have been talking about me now that I think about it.”

Okay, now that’s hilarious!!

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@busdriver11: that’s just crazy.

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@dstark - one of my daughter’s has a dimple on her left cheek that was there at birth, although I didn’t see it until the next day. She was born 6+ weeks early. So, I wonder, when did that dimple first show up?

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"busdriver11: that’s just crazy.

Yep, @HotCanary, it is crazy. However, since it was our first, we didn’t know any better. Kind of used to how you were treated in the military, at that point! But the only thing we had to pay was $8 for my box lunch in the hospital, so it ended up to be a pretty good deal. All the toes and fingers, and he turned out just fine.

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@greenwitch, that’s a mystery to me.

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That’s so interesting, bd. All three of my mom’s older brothers were born in military hospitals. If that’s what it’s like now, I wonder what that was like in the 50s! I do know that she gave birth to one of my uncles on a bathroom floor in the hospital because he decided that he was coming right then and there (she had just walked to go pee…). I wish I knew more about that story.

My mom was the only one not born in a military hospital. Instead, she was born in a Spanish hospital while they were stationed in Spain. Neither my grandmother nor my grandfather spoke Spanish exceptionally well but my mom’s older brothers were fluent having been raised there. My oldest uncle claims he remembers his parents getting into a fight after my mom was born over what to name her. After 3 boys, apparently my grandfather didn’t really believe he was going to get a daughter. He didn’t like the original name picked out (a Spanish name) so they settled on an English name with a non-traditional spelling. Apparently he didn’t really like that either since he called her something completely different for the rest of her life.

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We only paid $10 or so for H’s tyvek jumpsuit for S; insurance covered everything else. For D we were charged nothing, as insurance covered it all. 2 years later, we got a bill for D’s birth. I asked for them to itemize the charges because we never used the jumpsuit when S was born so brought it for H to wear when D was born. Hospital said they couldn’t itemize as charges were too old. I said I wouldn’t pay without itemization, so hospital said to just ignore bill and never sent another. Very weird!

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I’m not long gone. I’m enjoying reading. I don’t have anything of value to add. In answer to a long ago question, both of my kids are with the same woman/wife. She doesn’t carry anger. Yes, I am very lucky.

This thread is eye opening for me. Half the acronyms are over my head. I’m glad people shared here whatever the title of the thread is. The dads that watched it happen, I love your stories. I would imagine you never felt closer to your wife and kids then at those amazing moments when it all happened Hollywood movie style.

As far as the risks and dangers. That is nature. The circle of life. Thank God for doctors, nurses and ana … okay no way I can spell that and don’t have time to Google it … heading to work. Thank God for them. They do God’s work. I remember my second son was born on 12-17-1997. 17 years ago. It was a crystal clear day in El Paso, Texas. I stopped for gas on the way home after the hospital. The mountains were just over the horizon near the hospital. My oldest son was 3 and a half in the car seat in the backseat. I knew he’d have a brother or sisters in a few hours. I had a feeling it was “out of my hands.” It was God’s will whatever that means.

For those that shared about all the things that went wrong, I think that makes life, so fragile and susceptible at that point, mother and child, even more precious. What else can you say? My younger son’s case, for example. He was premature. He apparently wasn’t breathing on his own. They literally pulled him out by his head and rushed him off somewhere so that they could get his lungs to work. That is amazing to me. That breaks down all my walls in life. I didn’t know anything about that until much later or else I would have found those people and shook their hands.

When we got him home, I knew he was small and would maybe have to work a little harder in life. That was a long time ago and now that I’ve seen him grow up and enter young adulthood … I don’t know. I’m glad that we were lucky enough to have healthy children. Not everyone is so lucky and yet they make it work with whatever challenges they face.

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@GoNoles85 … what a lovely post!!

And it pretty much summarizes why women choose to go through this incredible pain time after time. It’s something wonderful and awe inspiring. There simply aren’t words to describe the miracle of becoming a parent, it’s something you have to do to understand it.

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“That’s so interesting, bd. All three of my mom’s older brothers were born in military hospitals. If that’s what it’s like now, I wonder what that was like in the 50s! I do know that she gave birth to one of my uncles on a bathroom floor in the hospital because he decided that he was coming right then and there (she had just walked to go pee…). I wish I knew more about that story.”

I don’t know if the lack of empathy is exclusive to military hospitals, but as a member of the military, I think people are resigned to the fact that they can’t do anything about the care. I hope that other people had better experiences, and that my experience was a rarity. However, we really didn’t know any better. And for our second child, at a civilian hospital, we paid $3K for care that wasn’t much better. The doctor was a jerk, refused to give me an epidural until it was too late, and told me to quiet down. He was a cranky guy.

I think the moral is, find a doctor that you like and get to know, not just some random on duty doctor who shows up at the point of delivery.

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W had all 3 kids without any medications. She did get an epidural after S1 was born and before her surgery. All our kids were slightly overdue, decent sized and very strong.

We had a tv in the birthing room. For our D’s birth, we went in late on a Wednesday night, the contractions had calmed down a bit, so we turned it on. When the nurse-midwife walked in we were both sitting on the bed watching “Beavis and Butthead.” D was born 90 minutes later (no, we did not name her Daria).

W did scream, once, during our D’s birth. Her water never broke spontaneously, so the midwife would put a couple of bed chucks under her and do it with what looked like a crochet hook. Contractions triple in frequency and amplitude immediately. When she screamed, the midwife calmly told her, “that’s not helping.” W replied, “I thought it would.”

Before S1 was born, not knowing any better, we bought a car seat appropriate for about a 3-year-old, The salesman told us it was good for newborns. He came home in the car sitting up, facing forward, the top of his head even with the lap bar. We got a smaller one shortly thereafter.

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I haven’t read all the posts, but in the limited sample I did read I noticed not many men chiming in, so here’s my 2 cents. I was there for the births of both of our daughters. DW had made it clear this was not optional, but I wanted to be there, and I’ll be forever grateful I was. Both times it was magical. Everything went smoothly, no complications, beautiful, healthy babies and DW came through it fine, but she can curse like a sailor when she’s of a mind to, and childbirth was one of those times. As is apparently common, the first labor was longer–not terrible, about 5 hours in the hospital, though DW had started having contractions much earlier in the day and they wouldn’t admit her because she wasn’t dilated enough so they sent her home for a few hours; she wasn’t too happy with that, just wanted to get it over with. When they finally did admit her after the contractions had become stronger and more frequent, we put on some mellow jazz to try to relax her–not sure it helped–and worked on our breathing exercises which did seem to help somewhat. She also wanted to hold my hand, a lovely touch, but I made the mistake of giving her my left hand which she squeezed so tight that my wedding ring was gouging into the neighboring fingers quite painfully, and I said, “Oh, that hurts!” at which point she literally screamed “You think THAT hurts, you *!#&@%, you don’t know what hurt is!” That humored me but I didn’t dare laugh or even smile because she was really in pain and really upset. The whole process seemed longer than it really was; it’s difficult to see your loved one in that much pain. But when it was all over, out came this beautiful, precious little baby girl, with what seemed like the biggest, widest blue eyes I had ever seen, looking around as if trying to drink it all in. And I remember thinking this truly is a miracle, this new life who comes into the world knowing nothing of it beyond what she’s genetically pre-programmed to know, and who knows how much that is; and she seems so eager to get started on this amazing project of learning and growing and mastering her world. And she’s never stopped.

With D2 the labor was faster and easier. Contractions started at home in the morning. After just a couple of hours, DW said it was time to go to the hospital. She was in such a good mood that I was skeptical this was really it, based on how things had gone with D1. We laughed, joked, and chatted pleasantly in the car on the way to the hospital, to the point I was convinced we were going to be sent home again. Then a few blocks before the hospital I hit a pothole that jolted the car and DW started cursing like a sailor again, and I thought, “Oh, I guess this really is it!” At the hospital they gave her one quick look, put her in a wheelchair and whisked her to the birthing center, and D2 was born about 20 minutes later. Whew, close call! If we had dilly-dallied any longer I might have had to pull the car over the the curb and deliver that baby myself–more than I had bargained for. DW said the pain was as intense as the first time, just shorter; pain so intense that you really can’t even fully remember or imagine it until you’re in childbirth a second time, and then the memories of the first one come rushing back. I remembered to put my wedding ring in my pocket before holding her hand the second time. It was as joyous and magical an occasion meeting D2 for the first time as it had been to meet D1.

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15 Ha Ha. My wife was scheduled to have an epidural. She was about 3 cm dilated and the nurse said it would be a few hours and they'd be back in about half an hour to check her again. The nurses then got called to an emergency and about an hour and a half later the baby was ready to be born. No epidural for her :(. I was there for both. The first a C section (I stayed behind the curtain), the second as I've indicated was natural. I was there for her not for the experience. Seeing your spouse suffer is not fun. I probably would have been one of those dads who would have been happy nervously pacing in the waiting room and then getting to see his new baby all cleaned up. That's the way they look on TV! The good news is that Mom was fine both times and the kids grew up to be great kids.

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I think we have to remember that when a poster here talks about her experiences, it can be at least 15 years ago, for many. Practices can have changed.

I also believe midwife rules an regs can vary by area. Here, many are quite savvy to risk and realistic about when a doc or hospital are either required or the wise choice for better monitoring and decision-making.

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I was there for the birth of my son, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I wasn’t squeamish about being there, I have training in delivering babies and have assisted with childbirth. I have to tell you, when my son was born made me appreciate a kid being born in a hospital, sometimes you never know.

My wife was a week late when our son was born, she had gone to the doctor, who decided to induce because my wife was showing signs of pre-eclampsia. We lived in a boro of NYC at the time, so I went home from work, got the car, and drove back to Manhattan (my son was born at New York Hospital). They induced, and we were in a birthing room. At the time NY Hospital’s maternity area was pretty ancient looking (they have a very modern, state of the art facility these day), but the woman doing our lamaze training told us don’t let it fool you…and she was right. Things went into the early hours of the morning, and it got a bit scary, because my son’s heart rate kept dropping…my wife would push, it would drop, she would rest, it would go up, etc…

They finally moved her to a delivery room. I had kidded her OB/Gyn about delivering the kid (she told me she didn’t share fees lol), but it was amazing how they handled it, they got her into the delivery room so fast that I barely had time to change into scrubs. Once there, I was kidding around with a third year med student (it was when ER was a big show on tv), asking him if our OB/Gyn was rough on him like Benton was on Carter…

Anyway, it turned dramatic. Turned out the cord was wrapped, and they had to make a decision when he was partly down whether to do a c section or do low forceps, they ended up doing low forceps (maybe that is why he ended up a musician lol). . When he was born, it was scary, he had an apgar score of 1, but they had a team of I swear 10 pediatricians working on him, and by apgar number 2 he was totally fine. The way they handled it, I was so glad to be at that hospital, might look medieval, but holy cow. In many ways, I didn’t have time to be scared, plus having the training I do helped a bit…and when they brought him over and he gave me his imperious look, I knew everything was going to be okay. I wouldn’t have missed that for the world, being up the way I was (roughly 2 days), seeing him, and when my wife got hungry, going out at 3am to get her a cheese sandwich, thank god for NYC all night delis:).

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Great post, @TonyK .

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Anyone else have this experience? Baby arrives safely, Mommy and Daddy and Baby spend an hour getting acquainted in the delivery room, nurse announces that Baby will now be taken to the nursery for a bath while Mommy is taken to her room to recover and who would Daddy like to go with, and of course Daddy chooses Baby and nursery, as do ALL of the visiting relatives. That’s when I knew I was no longer the star attraction. :slight_smile:

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Yes, LasMa. DH went with S1 and S2 to the nursery and left me in the birthing room. No other family were there, and I don’t remember having a problem with him doing so. I think I wanted to be sure that my baby was taken good care of.

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Great posts Music and bclin #252 and #255.

I am amazed anyone’s child looked human, with blue eyes and all that, and not basically like ET (alien) at first.