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Home › Articles › Fatherhood › An Easy Labor?

An Easy Labor?

A Dad's Eye View of Labor and the Birthing Process

By Mark Stackpole

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More Than You Need to Know?

Let Walker, your new delivery room teacher, fill you in on the details. "[You'll see] body fluids of all varieties, possibly blood, amniotic fluid, and sometimes even poo," she says. "The umbilical cord is kind of slimy looking and the placenta is a bloody mass. These are momentary, but can make even a strong, level-headed man weak in the knees. Mostly, the adrenaline rush gets you through the gross stuff at the end. This is not the type of thing that you want to keep as a memory forever, so turn off the video camera after the baby comes out. Also, do not watch the epidural; the needle is huge, and of all that goes on, this part can bring out the smelling salts before we ever get started – and I mean for Dads."

"Easy labor" is an oxymoron and "hard labor" is redundant. All labor is hard, and there is certainly no "easy labor" in the delivery room. So unbuckle your tool belt and buckle in that car seat. Use your blowtorch to light a scented candle. Put down the hammer and pick up the baby bag, packed and ready to go. Turn off the generator and turn on a CD player with soothing music. Stop running cable and start running for ice chips. Take off the hard hat and the gloves and take on the biggest, most wonderful challenge of your life.

This is unlike anything you have faced before, and you need to be a man about it. Wait, check that. You need to be stronger than that. You need to be a woman about it.

When to Censor the Chatter

Jennifer Walker, registered nurse, has seen a lot during her time as a pediatric nurse. She has seen lots of dads come in and do it right – or not.

"Once, in a delivery, the dad just apologized about a hundred times over. 'I am so sorry that I did this to you. I am so sorry, Honey, I just didn't know.' On and on," she says. "It was sweet. Also, there is the jokester that oversteps his bounds here and there; entertaining banter is fine in the early stages, but at the last hour or two – the hard labor – that's when joking is typically not tolerated well by the mom. Yelling, 'He looks like the Pizza Guy!' when your child makes his big debut in the world is something you want to save for your buddies. They are not the words your wife was hoping to hear."


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