Joke's on you : my father was so involved that he fainted in the delivery room, hit his head on the chair he had been waiting on and was evacuated by a nurse directly to neurology while my mom had her baby.
So... he wasn't really that supportive at that point, but he stayed the night at the hospital, at least.
Dad fainting in the delivery room is apparently very common. When my wife was getting prepped for her emergency c-section for our first, multiple nurses kept checking with me to see if I was ok and needed anything. I was like, no, how about focusing your attention on the person who's screaming in pain and frustration and about to have another human being ripped forcibly from her giblets (I said it nicer than that). When all was said and done they explained that they were just making sure I didn't become a liability in there.
My husband was remarkably cool about the fact that he saw my torso cut open, my organs removed, and our daughter pulled out blue because she had the cord wrapped around her neck and leg. (She was fine as soon as they unwrapped her.) I lost a ton of blood with her and my other two, both of whom were also c-sections because apparently after that my uterus couldn’t be trusted not to rupture in a natural birth because I had bad fibroids. Whenever I would talk about anything that I thought could be gross or off-putting about my body to him, he would remind me that he’s seen my insides pulled out and it really didn’t phase him. Now me? I couldn’t handle looking at my own incision without getting woozy, let alone handling the kids hurting themselves when blood was involved. Luckily, there have only been maybe two or three incidents in the 21 years since we had our oldest that he’s had to handle, and he’s been home for all of them. I would have understood if he had been a fainter, but I am super grateful that he isn’t.
Haha yeah, I definitely saw parts of my wife I never expected to. I distinctly recall handing my son to the nurse after holding him the first time, turning around, and seeing the doctor gently scrubbing some organ with the same vigor and care you'd use to polish, say, a brass doorknob. We managed to avoid the blue baby part though.
147
u/Djaaf Apr 24 '26
Joke's on you : my father was so involved that he fainted in the delivery room, hit his head on the chair he had been waiting on and was evacuated by a nurse directly to neurology while my mom had her baby.
So... he wasn't really that supportive at that point, but he stayed the night at the hospital, at least.