Ramblings of an Expectant Dad: Seventh (Inning Stretch) Edition

Soooo… fetal extraction is a thing.

 

(I'm sorry, what now?)

 

Fetal Extraction. It's a thing. We learned about it at baby school on Saturday. All day baby school. Where we learned about the stages of labor and slow dancing and fetal extraction. On a Saturday. All. DAY.

 

(Okay, you went to the all-day birthing class, we get it, but… slow dancing and fetal extraction???)

 

Seriously, it's a thing, and if you're like me, it's not what you think. I mean, I hear the word "extraction" and my mind goes places, such as: a) teeth; and 2) military operations. In that my child won't have teeth when she's born, my mind of course went straight to military ops, and I envisioned black-clad commandos wearing night vision goggles crashing through the drop-ceiling in the delivery room on zip lines, screaming and yelling and throwing flash grenades and taking my newborn infant daughter to a secure, covert location.

 

(*blink blink*)

 

What?

 

(I… am neither mentally nor emotionally prepared for your brain on Monday.)

 

Try going to all day birthing class on a Saturday running on one cup of watered-down hospital coffee. Anywhoos… One thing I can say is that our hospital delivery ward is going to be awfully busy in January. Nearly every couple in the room was somewhere in the 30-34 week range. Couple that with the fact that not one but two people I know in my office alone are also due within twenty-four hours of our due date, and, well… Apparently love was seriously in the air around the end of April, or thereabouts. Perhaps something was in the water, too, or it was just an unseasonably warm day, windows were open, breezes were blowing… the dulcet tones of Barry White played softly….

 

(I seriously worry about you.)

 

I know. It's all good. It is funny though… All of us in the room clearly had been having sex this past spring. And lots of it, because pregnancy takes time, and practice. I'd say I'm envious of those whose swimmers went eggistential on the first try, but I'm not, because, I mean, the whole lots-of-sex part.

 

(There are so many things as about that last sentence that make me cringe.)

 

Oh grow up. Sex is natural and wonderful and beautiful and only sometimes painful if you do the thing. You know what I'm talking about.

 

*nods knowingly*

 

(Please get help.)

 

You people are no fun sometimes. Those of us in baby school, however… Well let's just say my beloved and I weren't the only sarcastic and cynical ones giggling our way through class. The couple next us were snickering right along with us, especially when the instructor handed out illustrated cards and directed us to practice the "relaxation techniques" so illustrated. Like squatting down in front of your partner. I don't think there was one "birthing partner" in there who was thinking anything differently than I was. Perverts, the lot of us. And before you go all "lynch Matt Lauer" on me, I'd like to point out that 'twasn't yours truly, but yours truly's betrothed who cracked the joke first. So, there.

 

Some of the other illustrations depicted scenarios that included decidedly unladylike positions of spread legs, and one in which we were instructed to slow dance to calm our partner during contractions. Herein lies the issue with this one: the illustration showed a couple embracing and dancing, with the woman's head on the man's shoulder, and no space in between them. Think about that for a second.

 

No. Space.

 

Figure it out yet? Yes, dear readers, the couple in the illustration were most decidedly not thirty-two weeks pregnant… nor even pregnant at all. It was like two stick figures waltzing.

 

Have you have tried to slow dance with a woman that's over seven month's pregnant? Put it this way – Remember in middle school when you weren't allowed to dance unless you "made room for the holy spirit" in between you? I.e. hands on each other's shoulders with about a foot of space to prevent your adolescent bodies from touching and, you know, igniting that pubescent flame inside you? Yeah, well, let's just say at this stage of pregnancy you pretty much still dance like that except there ain't no room for no holy spirit. I think every couple in the room burst out laughing each time we rotated tasks and had to slow dance. Now, add in the fact that I'm just shy of six feet tall, my love is barely five-feet-four, and there's a growing human in her midsections, well… Just picture us trying to get her head on my shoulder… Yeah no.  Instead, I was bent over and arch-backed and more so had to put my head on her shoulder… mostly to wipe the hysterical tears that seeped from my eyes as I laughed on her sweatshirt. Sorry, honey.

 

(*gigglesnort*)

 

We were also taught how to breathe. Apparently she's supposed to "hoo" and "hout". Yup - that's a thing, too. There are a lot of things that come with this whole creating life scenario. And hand signals. I've been instructed to give her hand signals when she's supposed to hoo and hout.

 

Public Service Announcement: Apparently "jazz hands" are not an appropriate hand signal for hooing.

 

(I… *sigh*)

 

Most of the interactive portions of the program were like that, so at least we could laugh our way through it. And thank Dog our proctor wasn't one of those perky exercise class instructor-types, like "good morning parents-to-be!! Who's ready to learn about labor?? YOU ARE!!!!!"

 

(I woulda cut a bitch.)

 

This is what I'm saying. She was actually pretty cool. She tried to garner class participation, but didn't force the issue when people didn't volunteer, and she actually had a pretty dry sense of humor. That helped. And she was honest. She didn't sugar coat. The parts that are going to be gross? She flat out told us "this part is going to be gross." You need this, not this, Make sure you have that, and oh by the way, this is what happens with an epidural.

 

That part made me cringe a little bit. I mean, they're going to take a needle the size of Arya's sword in Game of Thrones and stick it in my child's mother's spine within millimeters of the center of her spinal cord. *gulp* And then there was the cartoon graphics of a C-section, and then…

 

… that video.

 

(But childbirth is natural and beautiful and –)

 

The f*ck it is. The. F*CK. IT IS.

 

Now, thankfully I have watched a birthing video previously in anticipation of my child's pending emergence from her mother's nether regions, so I was prepared. Looking around the room, at some of the other dads-to-be? Them, not so much. Let's be honest; it's not a pretty sight. A human being is literally thrust through someplace through which humans generally shouldn't be squeezed.

 

(Actually, humans are supposed to be squeezed through vagin –)

 

You know what I mean!!! Purposely or not, the actual act of childbirth is a little, well, gross. Okay a lot gross. My child is going to come into this world as a bloody, gooey, purple little mess.

 

*smiles*

 

And she's going to be the most beautiful bloody, gooey, purple little mess I'll ever see. I focused on that notion for a moment and grinned. The moment my daughter comes into the world to greet us; how perfect it will be in all its gory goodness. That moment when we can see, and hold our daughter. That moment when we –

 

"… and the doctor may ask you if you want to see the placenta."

 

Happy thoughts shatter as visions of placentas fill my head, and I'm brought back down from my emotional high, crashing to reality.

 

No, I do not want to see the placenta. No I don't want to eat the placenta. I will not see it in a pan, I will not hold it in my hand. I will not eat it with some ham, take that thing away, dear man!!!!!

 

(Did… did you… Did you just go all Seussical on placentas?)

 

Maybe. It's a touchy subject.

 

(*facepalm*)

 

Have you ever seen a placenta?

 

(Get over it. Seriously.)

 

Whatever. In any event… seven hours, with a short lunch break, and thus concludethed the crash course in labor, delivery and becoming a parent. It ended with a tour of the maternity ward and the facilities, so now we know how to count contractions, how to breath, how to calm, how to work through labor, and where to go at the hospital. I feel a little less nervous now.

 

(Somehow I doubt that.)

 

You be quiet. I got this. I am at home with the me. I am rooted in the me who is on this adventure. This is me breathing.

 

(Good, now keep doing that for about twenty minutes…. Keep it up.  Don't kill anybody.)

 

I'm not going to kill anybody! But kudos for picking up on the Grosse Pointe Blank reference.

 

*breathes*

 

Fifty-three days. Or more. Or less. 7.571428571 weeks and counting.

 

Did I mention I'm gonna be a dad?

 

 

© 2017 J.J. Goodman. All rights reserved.