Birth from the male perspective

I’m feeling large and not very comfortable. I’m definitely in that in-between stage of not being obviously pregnant, yet not being not pregnant either. I’ve gained six pounds so far and four of them have been within the past two weeks. I guess it makes a difference to eat in the evenings.

Last night Mark gave me the description of what birth looked like from his perspective. “Your vagina was like a large, stretchy plastic bag being pierced by a basketball. I saw you poop on the table and there was enough blood pouring out of you to look like an abattoir (slaughterhouse, in case you, like me, don’t know that word).”

How romantic. Really, how gross. And how amazing he can still be attracted to me after seeing that. While I suppose viewing it is easier than experiencing it, it can’t be a very fun thing to go through. I have to be grateful to him for holding up as well as he did and providing support when I needed it.

In one Central Asian country I visited, I was told that men don’t enter the maternity wards until after the birth because otherwise, they wouldn’t be attracted to their wives anymore. Clearly, the many men who support their wives around the world prove this to be untrue. And I think it’s more important to support your spouse in their time of greatest pain and suffering than to be thinking of future sexual pleasure. But still, it’s a painful, dirty and ugly process and I’m kind of shocked we are going to go through it again.