We always said the baby photo of DS#1 looked like a cross between ET and a chicken.
@shellfell - Oh, I didn’t have any real problem with it, just suddenly understood the new order of things! It actually turned out well for me too, because after the nurses had gotten me settled in my room, someone came to take my dinner order and asked if I’d like coffee. After 8 caffeine-free months, I said YES! and I had just enough time to enjoy it in peace before Daddy/newly-bathed Baby/visiting relatives all descended on me. To this day, that’s the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.
The nursery had stuck a tiny white bow on Baby’s perfectly bald head, which of course I still have, as well as the little pink t-shirt she was wearing which read: “I got my first hug at ______ Hospital.” 
There was a story about the time S1 was born about a hospital where newborns were being switched. W (a hospital nurse) wanted to make sure I stayed with the baby so he wouldn’t be swapped out for an inferior product.
It would have been obvious, given he looked exactly like me and we had just taken a bunch of pictures of him.
I know guys, my age, who never changed a diaper.
Inferior product, lol.
“. I didn’t want to see blood, the agony, the pain, the possibility that it would go tragically wrong and I think part of it was because I always hold my emotions in check and I knew I would completely and utterly break down at this event.”
LOL, I was a mom, not a dad, and the doctor was getting ready to set up a mirror and I was like NO WAY. I did NOT want to see THAT!
Also slugged my husband during one of the births, you dodged that possibility.
And I do not get “all the visiting relatives” especially having mom, let alone sis and MIL etc. in the delivery room. HOW GROSS! Just my humble opinion. After my later kids were born, we brought them to see their new sibling in the hospital. No extended family in the hospital.
We not only had to change first poopy diapers, but we gave the first baths with the nurse’s help. The hospital asked if you wanted your baby to go to the nursery or not, and if you said “no”, they pretty much left you on your own. No mandatory nursery, you’d think two adults (one somewhat incapacitated perhaps) could handle an itty bitty baby.
Back to the topic: It’s sort of a shame, but yes, it is a bloody and gory experience and should be 100% voluntary to attend for even dad (except for mom, and she should have full access to all the meds she needs if she wants to be as near out cold as possible). They even didn’t mop up the blood from my first child, and we didn’t notice for a bit (it had dried on the floor). Kind of macabre even with a fresh new baby present showing that the blood was not shed in vain.
Rhandco, if you mean me, I wasn’t clear. All the visiting relatives were NOT in the delivery room; that was just DH. But they were called soon after D was born and high-tailed it the hospital in time to see her first bath when she was an hour and half old. I was just trying to add a little lightness to the thread, for which I apologize to you.
I’m with Music on this topic. I am so happy I chose Brigham and Women’s to deliver. I expected problems. I was right, cord wrapped around neck. Within minutes, I was rushed to a medical delivery room, and a team of doctors were in the room. Forceps Delivery, which my hospital, down the street, would not have allowed. My OB was old-school, and residents watching this fast cut and pull delivery. I didn’t care less than sons dad focussed on the baby. I never Felt the stitches going into me. All I wanted was a healthy babe.
Funny, but I can visualize that 10 minutes as though it just happened. A miracle.
This would not fly with me.
He got me into this situation. He gets to go through as much of it as he can.
If I don’t have a choice, neither does he 
(Of course, to each her own.)
In my world, it is a joint decision to have children, conceive them, and we should each take as much a role in their lives as possible, including being present at their birth if possible. Others have made other choices – singly or jointly.
@Dstark, ditto. When they handed my daughter to me after my c-section (back in my luxury “birthing room,”), she wasn’t crying, but she kind of made a little face, and those dimples appeared, just for a moment. I said out loud “Oh my God, I think she’s got dimples!” And boy, does she ever!
D2’s boyfriend told me he saw her from across a room at a party and thought she was very pretty. Then she smiled, and he thought, “Oh my God, that girl has the most beautiful dimples! I’m going to meet that girl.”
Sorry, I’ve got to learn to copy text.
post # 268 said "This would not fly with me.
He got me into this situation. He gets to go through as much of it as he can.
If I don’t have a choice, neither does he
(Of course, to each her own.)"
How is it that he had a choice to get you into this situation, but you had none?
To be honest, childbirth was probably the most selfish time of my life. I was very focused on ME. (Of course, my child, but you know what I mean). This wasn’t a time for tit for tat. It wasn’t about blame. I was having a baby because we chose to have a baby…OUR choice.
My dad died 2 weeks before the birth of my youngest, so I had lots of mixed emotions going in to the hospital. Then, in the maternity wing, of course they had the TVs on. The ONLY story on any channel that day was the funeral for the astronauts on the Space Shuttle Columbia, as if I weren’t melancholy enough. I cried and cried and cried. There was nothing my husband, or anyone in that hospital could do for me. He asked, they asked, but it was all inside my own head. I didn’t want him to hold my hand or offer comfort, I wanted to have a good cry.
Had he wanted to leave because he was having difficulty, it would have been fine. I was focused on ME-- my body, and what I had to do to have this baby. Realistically, there is nothing he could do that made a difference in my comfort or state of mind. I was more than happy to have him there, so he could share in the birth of our child, but that was totally his call.
Punishing him by making him miserable is not how we work things in my marriage.
So now we are going into my marriage is better than yours?
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Not in this thread!! Don’t give people ideas.
H was by my head while we had the first by section.
He had gotten to go to the NICU while they were preparing the OR, and came back to tell me about the babies. It was a little frightening hearing about Jacob, who only weighed a lb & was only 12" long, but it was reassuring for H.
Then when she was born, they held her up quickly and took het to an alcove to be stabilized. H stayed with me till they took me to recovery, then he went to see D.
She had surgery when she was a day or so old, and since she was so critical, they moved me into a single room, and gave me an extra cot so H could sleep there.
I was discharged after the weekend, but D stayed for 8 more weeks.
I wasn’t able to drive after the section for a while(I had a stick shift), so H would drop me off at the hospital every morning about 7am, before he went to work, and a friend would get me at lunch time to take me to her house to rest,( she was very close to hospital), and H would pick me up at 3pm and we would stay at the hospital until 9 or 10pm.
With our youngest, he was with me the entire time, through three trips to the hospital( first one was middle of night, so we brought D1 also).
Except when he went out to have a cigarette, which made me a little irritable.
But when she was born, he was right there, and alrhough she also had to go to the NICU, we got to hold & see her for a minute first.
Since the table was angled, I felt like I was going to slide off, so his primary job was hanging on to me!
I think I understand what bjk in #270 is saying.
There is the “third wheel” aspect of being in the room when the childis born for the H (or father). And people support one another in different ways just like people grieve and see humor and fell compassion and get angry in different ways. Especially if the mother is really lashing out, it can be less than ideal for some guys to hang around. As if the mother is getting back at him for getting her in that situation when it is a mutual thing. But, ideally, it is nice when the guy toughs it out and supports by being there. I really enjoyed the dad stories and the mom stories too.
As I mentioned before, I am left really in awe of nature’s grand design for everything. I’ve read, for example, that playing music for the child even before he or she is born, helps their little brains develop. The science of it has to do with blood flow. Even without the science it makes perfect sense.
Oh good grief, really? That’s what you got out of my post, bjk?
What part of “to each her own” is not clear? What works for me would NOT work for everyone else. What my expectations are for MY relationship are just that- MY expectations for US. I truly could not give two craps about what anyone else does.
Btw, I’m not forcing anyone to do anything. It would never even cross his mind to NOT be there. But that’s just who he is. He is WAY more maternal than I am.
I would have been very disappointed ( and frankly, angry) if my H had chosen to not be there for the birth of our children. I needed support and I did need him there. Issues outside of a guy’s control are one thing (deployment, baby comes quickly and dad doesn’t get there,etc)… But most dads , if they are committed and wanted the baby, seem willing to be there and to help. The anecdotes from the dads seem to support that. I don’t think I would be
" punishing him " for leaving but I would definitely have been confused about why a husband would leave in the middle of things. I am definitely not that evolved to have been okay with my husband leaving , especially with no family around to step in. But, each marriage does work differently- that’s for sure. I do think most guys, even in the 50’s when I was born, did help their wives. They may have been pacing outside but a lot of them were there, supporting the process at the time. At least, I know my dad was there for my birth and the birth of my sister. My husband’s dad was there for the birth of his children as well. They weren’t there in the room but they were where they needed to be to support their wives.
My husband was and is just a regular guy. A blue collar dude. A motorcycle dude, if you must know. I didn’t have to “force” him to be there for me, but I wouldn’t have married someone who would skip the birth of his children because he couldn’t “handle” it. In our 35 years of marriage we’ve both handled a lot of scary situations for each other. IMHO, marriage isn’t for the faint of heart. As we age, there will undoubtedly be medical issues ahead, and it’s good to know that neither of us will bail.
For my first, we went to Lamaze classes, which were kind of fun, because we knew another couple in the class. On the night of The Movie, we all walked out a little dazed. The nearly naked mom in the film gave birth to a full grown adult, I swear. It sobered us all up, that’s for sure.
I didn’t really require a “coach”. I asked my husband to hold my hand, if I needed it, and NOT to ask “Are you all right?” Because, I told him, I probably would NOT be all right, and wouldn’t want to answer that question. Other than those two things, I was good.
We joked around during both deliveries, and they both wound up the same way, with forceps deliveries and “stargazer” babies who got stuck on my pelvis. First doctor was a cranky jerk, and my episiotomy could’ve accommodated a Buick. He made a joke, as he stitched me up, about “sewing up the Thanksgiving Turkey.” I was doing sitzbaths and sitting on that donut for over a month. Thought it was a first baby thing, until I compared notes with a friend who used that doc for her SECOND baby, and said that she never had such pain. She had 4 babies in all. It doesn’t change anything, and everything eventually worked out ok, but it was just wonderful that my husband had the same opinion of the the doctor. Doc for baby #2 was wonderful, and I followed him around until he finally moved his practice out of my area.
First baby was taken away from me,because they were afraid I might have an infection. My husband followed her around, worried dad, and had a funny exchange with the “tough nurse with a heart of gold”.
H: she looks ok, doesn’t she?
Nurse: Of course she looks ok! She’s a beautiful baby! Don’t be silly! Are you going to feed her? ( I wound up breastfeeding, but with a struggle)
H: I don’t know, is that ok?
Nurse: Of course it’s ok! Nobody’s held her all day!
I know that those moments are precious to my husband, and my daughter just loves hearing about that.
With the birth of my son, the doctor asked if my husband would like to cut the cord, and they all sat around admiring the placenta, which I wasn’t in a position to see. “It’s a nice one, as they go” said the doctor. It reminded me of the “Placenta Helper” routine from Saturday Night Live.
These are the stories that become part of family history, and my kids like hearing them. And they both like knowing that Dad was there.
All I can say is that I can’t even imagine a father not wanting to be present at the birth of his children. (Being squeamish is not a valid reason, in my opinion.) And every man I knew who became a father around the time my son was born treated being there as a given. And this was 25 years ago. I am astonished that there are still fathers who would rather not be there.
In retrospect it is funny what we worry about.
Oldest was ten weeks early, had surgery when she was a day old, suspecting necrotizing entrocolitis & she went down to 1lb 9oz, she had multiple transfusions ( before they tested blood for HIV), but what was I fixated on?
The fact that her forehead was not perfectly shaped.
( it looks fine )
Also- since oldest was premature, and she was my first, its probably to be expected that I would sterilize everything she came in contact with for a while.
But when I had her sister eight years later?
She would drop a pacifier, and I would just rinse it off or even blow on it!
Here honey!