The Breeder's Book Club

Learning how not to be a parent, one book at a time

Being a parent can be scary, difficult, and confusing. Luckily, there are thousands and thousands of awful books written by stupid people that will tell you exactly what you're doing wrong. But who has time to read them all?

We do. Every two weeks, our elite team of comedy moms and dads reads a different parenting book. Then, heroically, we mine nuggets of wisdom from the steaming piles of guidance. In podcast form.

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The Breeder's Book Club

Sympathy Labor

July 15, 2006  /  John

Heather's going to be having our baby naturally. I've trained for months to learn how to support her natural childbirth when the time comes. We've finally finished our classes, and I'm now prepared to apply both the techniques I learned:

  1. Rub her back
  2. Sob, give up

So, from a pure technique point of view, I'm golden. But I find myself feeling guilty about the fact that, no matter how many inane, sure-to-fail relaxation visualizations I attempt, in the end, Heather's the one who will be experiencing agonizing suffering for days on end. I'm of course referring to the upcoming finals of "America's Got Talent", but I'm sure the birth will be painful too.

In order to assuage this guilt, I find myself doing uncomfortable or painful things on purpose, thinking to myself, "If Heather can handle the pain of childbirth, I can handle this".

I never know when this tendency is going to rear its mentally-defective, hydrocephalic head. Most recently, it happened when I was ordering at Chipotle:

"What kind of salsa would you like?" asked Satan, cleverly disguised as a young, pleasantly plump, recent immigrant to these great United States.

"The flavorless, inoffensive Pico de Gallo for whitey, please!" is what I did not say.

"I'll take the hot one," I smugly announced. "I'm trying to prove that I'm stronger than my eight-months-pregnant wife!" "Oh! And I'd also like to pay extra for another cup of that salsa and some of your inedible, razor-sharp chips!"

So I got my salsa wads, and ate them with relish. I don't like hot food at all, but as I crammed it down I thought, "If Heather can push a baby out, I can eat a pint of searing hot, tomato-colored acid." And I did. And it wasn't that bad.

The next morning, my contractions started.

I was awakened with a start when I noticed a pain in my abdomen that, true to what I had been told to expect, felt like strong menstrual cramps. Of course, I have no firsthand experience of what strong menstrual cramps feel like, but if they feel like being struck in the intestines with a 500 pound wrecking ball made of shit, then yes, they felt like strong menstrual cramps.

My Bradley instructor will be disappointed to learn that I didn't have the presence of mind to time the contractions, but they were certainly getting closer together. I tried to ignore them and go about my business, because I knew that it would probably be hours before I'd need to be rushed to the hospital (although it did seem pretty clear that it would become necessary at some point). But then, quite suddenly, the contractions changed their character. They were suddenly accompanied by an almost uncontrollable need to push.

Rather than make a tasteless and unnecessary "water breaking" joke at this point, I'll cut to the chase. I spent the morning in the privacy of our hall bathroom, going through all the stages of labor, including a difficult period of transition where I became emotionally distraught and felt I wouldn't be able to do it. But eventually, things finally leveled out, and I delivered without the use of medication.

Ladies, you know the "ring of fire" women experience as the baby's crowning? Yeah. I had that. For hours.

Holy shit! Special bulletin!

Heather has been complaining that the baby is big enough that it's started to headbutt her cervix. She normally uses the euphemism "stabby pains", but this morning she said:

The baby
hiccuped in my twat
so damn low

Which is, of course, a haiku.

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