My wife was pregnant for 40 weeks.  For 40 weeks we watched and waited and dreamed and prayed and worried and obsessed and planned and prepared for the birth of our first child.  It was  40 weeks filled with uncertainty, elation, dread, excitement, anxiety, and hope.  At times, we worried that the worst would happen and we wouldn’t make it to the finish line.  At other times, we worried that we would.  And, time kept ticking by.

 

My wife was a great pregnant woman.  You hear stories about how pregnancy debilitates women.  It causes swelling, hemorrhoids, back pain, leg pain, nausea, sleeplessness, and overall discomfort.  Not to mention the weight gain it causes.  And, yet, through it all, my wife held up well.  Very well, in fact.  So well, that despite her ever-growing stomach, I sometimes wondered whether she was really pregnant.

 

As the weeks wore on, we (okay, mostly my wife) went to great pains to prepare.  There were the  books, the movies, and the classes.  My favorite book was The Birth Partner. Thing is, I thought “partners” were supposed to be “equals.” But in pregnancy, the man and woman aren’t exactly “equals.”  In fact, the last time I was a “partner” in such an unbalanced relationship, my “partner” fired me from my law firm. I don’t want to be a partner. I want to be a grossly overpaid, contract employee — like Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez. At least that way, when I get cut, I’ll have money to live off.

 

The movies were uneventful.  However, the classes were eye-opening — particularly the cost of the classes!  This is especially so when they tell you that you “already know what we’re teaching you.  It’s basic human nature.  It doesn’t need to be taught.”

 

After seeing one movie, The Business of Being Born, we decided to go with natural childbirth.  For the uninitiated, apparently “natural” means pain.  Paradoxically, while natural childbirth supposedly is natural, we humans apparently are so divorced from what comes naturally that we have to take classes.  Accordingly, not only does “natural” mean pain, it also means financial bloodletting.  Also, as the natural childbirth movement tends to be dominated by people with a very strong feminist outlook, natural childbirth involves the ritualistic beating and emasculation of the father.  In addition, don’t forget that “natural” in natural childbirth means “creating tension and conflict between Western medical practitioners and midwives, doulas, shaman and their animist gods.”  For if there is one thing certain about medical doctors trained in the West, it is this — they all think anything “natural” is nonsense and that the only way to do things is to pump you full of chemicals and drugs.  But, just in case all of this would turn you off from “natural childbirth” do not forget that no matter how your child is born, it doesn’t really matter.  College will bankrupt you anyhow.

 

As we prepared for the birth, it became incumbent upon me, as the birthing partner — the birthing coach — to take the lead on certain items.  For one, we were told that a mother in labor needs certain creature comforts.  It was suggested, therefore, that I create a music playlist for my wife to listen to her on her iPod.  So now not only was I the coach, I was also a DJ.  And, just in case you had forgotten (or didn’t know in the first place), I’m White, and my wife is Black.  Having a White person program music for a Black person is almost assuredly a recipe for disaster.

 

But, I was undaunted.  I went ahead and made the playlist.  My wife listened.  Her response:  “What are you gay?  Why is there Madonna on there?”

 

I responded that I am a man of a certain age, a man who came of age watching Vision Quest and Desperately Seeking Susan.  A man who appreciates a good Madonna song.

 

But she was the one going through pregnancy, the one who was going to be going through labor, so this wasn’t about me.  It was about her.  I had to redo the playlist.  Thing is, my wife, it turns out, is fanatical about music that is streamed live by some clothing store in France.  So now, forget preparing for labor and learning how to time contractions.  Now I had to find this store, so I could download music from Les Pants.

 

Thing is, I know little about music from France.  About the only things I know of French music are Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, and the French national anthem — a song I know because they play it in that scene in Casablanca when the Nazis are in Rick’s Cabaret and they’re singing Deutschland Uber Alles.  And, Victor Lazlo gets up and says “Play it: La Marseillaise.”  And Rick nods, and the band starts playing, and everyone stands up and starts singing and crying and the Nazis slink back into their seats and hang their heads in defeat.

 

Which makes you think, by the way, if only the French had realized that their song was so much more powerful than their army, WWII would’ve gone so much differently.

 

So that’s what I did.  I put the French national anthem — La Marseillaise — on the playlist because the last thing we wanted in the delivery room was a bunch of arrogant Nazis.

 

Once that was out of the way, and the books were read and the classes were completed, there was just one thing left to do — wait for the baby to come.

 

So we waited.  And, we waited.  And, we waited.  After awhile, we got tired of waiting.  Because we were both pretty much done with her being pregnant. She was ready to be done, and I was ready for her to walk faster. Oh, and yeah, I guess we wanted to see the baby, too. But, mostly she wanted to see her feet, and I wanted her to walk faster. They never tell you that part — that a pregnant woman moves so slowly you could time her with a sun-dial.

 

As the due date came and went, my wife got frustrated.  She was with my mother, and she expressed her frustration, saying “I just want the baby to hurry up and be born already.”  To which mother replied, “This kid is just like its father. It just does what it wants when it wants.”  My response to that — “Well, the good news is, at least we know it’s my child.”

 

But, yes, we got to the delivery date, and the baby showed no signs of showing up, so people suggested all sorts of “home” remedies to hurry things along like: (a) sex; (b) walking; (c) prune juice; and, my favorite, (d) give the child a direct order not to be born because kids always do the exact opposite of what you tell them.

 

But, it was extremely frustrating that the baby wasn’t born on the delivery date.  We had hoped and expected it would.  And, when it wasn’t we were sorely disappointed.  When I told my friend, he said: “This is your first lesson in parenting – there are just some things you cannot control”

 

Then, we went beyond D-Day.   We got to two days after the delivery day, when the baby had been in the womb for 40 weeks and 2 days (2 days beyond D-Day). The pregnancy had by then become like the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979, only, here, the hostage was running the show, and the captors were the hostages. But, America, rest easy, my wife and I would not negotiate with terrorists. We would not be bowed. We would not be broken.  We determined then and there that the baby would just have to give itself up and be brought to account for its actions at the International Crib of Justice!

 

On day 283, it felt like the baby was refusing to be born as part of an elaborate negotiating strategy.  It seemed that the baby was now threatening to continue the holdout unless: (1) we provided him/her its own room (with cable & wireless internet; (2) we got him/her its own iPhone with unlimited talk/text minutes; and (3) we renegotiated its contract to the tune of $20 mil a year. Our response: no room, no phone, and no $20M. You get a crib, a Fisher-Price plastic phone, and in 2021, you might get an “allowance.” Take it or leave it. We do not negotiate with terrorists!

 

Meanwhile, we continued to get nervous and anxious about the baby’s due date.  At this point, a friend of mine said, “you have to be patient.  Everything will happen when it’s supposed to.”  I wished I could be patient. But, it’s so not my strong suit. And, my wife was literally on her last nerve. I saw it. I actually saw the “last nerve.” It was red, and inflamed, and pulled really tight.  Like rope that was about to break or a guitar string.  And, let me tell you something.  You do not want to see a woman’s “last nerve.”  Because you will not like what you see next.  It’s like if you have a bad accident and the next thing you see is a “White Light.”  You know you’ve got troubles.

 

Finally, it got to the point where I was so exasperated that the baby wasn’t arriving, I thought: “You know what? Two can play that game. Now, baby, you can just stay there. Just spend your entire life in the womb. See how you like that. Talk about still living with your parents. See if you can meet girls when you’re 30, and you still live in your mother’s womb! And, by the way, if you’re not out of there by the time you’re 18, you are paying rent, mister! And, no parties or loud music!”

 

Finally, the day arrived.  Four days after my wife was supposed to give birth, she began having serious contractions.  And, when I say “serious” I mean SERIOUS!  These things were coming every 3 to 4 minutes, were lasting for a minute and were doubling her over.  So, we rushed to the hospital only to learn that her cervix was nowhere near dilated enough to give birth.

 

Fast forward 11 hours, and my wife looked like she had played rugby with big, angry men who decided to take their frustrations out on her.  She was battered, bedraggled and exhausted.  So, we opted to move away from natural childbirth and get her some drugs.  It was not an easy decision, but she couldn’t bear the pain, and I couldn’t bear having to watch the pain.

 

She got the epidural, and it worked great. She felt better.  She looked better.  She was able to smile and finish her sentences.  Only problem was the drugs slowed everything down.  So, now they had to give her some Pitocin, which stimulates contractions.  And, the next thing you know, the contractions started banging away, and her cervix started dilating so fast we thought she might give birth to a Shetland Pony.  In fact, the contractions came so fast and furious, they started to cause the baby’s heart rate to slow down in reaction to the contractions.  At this point, the delivery room was flooded with personnel who took various actions to raise the baby’s heart rate.  (It was only later that we learned that at this point, most doctors would’ve ordered a C-section).

 

Once the baby’s heart-rate was under control, it was just a matter of time of letting the contractions continue till my wife was dilated to 10 centimeters.  Although things were progressing, they weren’t progressing quickly enough.  Labor continued.  And, it continued for awhile.  Another 9 hours to be exact.

 

Finally, though, the moment of truth arrived.  The baby was born.  He was a he.  We named him Ivan. He was healthy and fine and so was my wife.  It was a remarkable moment.  After an entire life spent thinking of only myself, an entire life thinking that people who had kids were silly and ridiculous and boring, I had a son, and I was ecstatic.  What’s more, just days after he was born, I know what people meant in the past when they would say to me, “just wait.  You’ll see.  When you have a kid, you’ll do anything for it.  You’ll put it above you every time.”

 

It’s true.  What’s also true is that even with all the waiting and the cost and the pain . . . we’re talking about having another.

 

In the meantime, we wish you the best.  If you have children, my wife and I wish them happy, healthy lives and hope that you have many, many years to enjoy their company.  And, if you don’t but are planning to, we wish that you have an experience as fulfilling and rewarding as ours.