Stop making me like A-Rod.
I found the Pat Benatar thing endearing, too.
No fucking fair.
Plus, why does it fall to a bunch of Red Sox fans to point out that he is, in fact, a really good baseball player, no matter what the New York media might think?
Contrarians all end up like Christopher Hitchens, Sifu.
Unf Memorial Hospital actually does not allow fathers to stay in the room during the placement of an epidural catheter. Too many episodes of fathers passing out and hitting their heads.
I forget where I read birth described as, roughly: "Here's all you need to know. They're going to take a big needle, and leave it in your spine, and that's the good part."
Not to mention that they won't want to sex their wives anymore.
Since "toughness" has nothing to do with baseball, I think he'll be fine.
5: Don't fucking mention it or I break your blog.
Plus, why does it fall to a bunch of Red Sox fans to point out that he is, in fact, a really good baseball player, no matter what the New York media might think?
I think it falls to anyone who pays attention to do that. And while New York based tabloids are probably the worst offenders(see, e.g. "for 2007 Rodriguez made the front or back page of the NY Post and NY Daily News 137 separate times.")
This is a nice story about Mrs. Rodriguez. However, it does not lead me to believe she is someone who could have reached her mid-20s being unaware of the existence of professional athletes.
A month or two ago, someone far from the world of blogs told me earnestly that you shouldn't watch your wife give birth, because you won't want to have sex anymore. I think I said something like "that makes sense."
Not to mention that they won't want to sex their wives anymore.
This will generally have little impact on the sex life of a professional athlete.
I saw Alex Rodriguez at my gym a couple of times during the winter. His head is surprisingly small.
Contrarians all end up like Christopher Hitchens
So true. I thought "Letters to a Young Contrarian" was, at the level of concept, the stupidest thing I ever heard of in my life. The point isn't to strike some contrarian pose, but to reject the bad and accept the good. If you're in 1938 Germany, it's good to be contrarian. If you're Frederick Douglass' son, less so. Dogmatic contrarians end up listening to crap alt-punk bands and subscribing to Adbusters.
Not to mention that they won't want to sex their wives anymore.
Yeah, it sounds like that fucker all over again. Christ, where do they get these assholes?
So, I wasn't aware that you could have an entire livelihood off of a sport.
max
['49! Ack!']
Plus, why does it fall to a bunch of Red Sox fans to point out that he is, in fact, a really good baseball player, no matter what the New York media might think?
Because it's an implicit critique of the Most Playerrific Gamer Who Gets His Uniform Dirty Ever to Walk This Earth, Derek Jeter, and his thirteen-inch uncut intagibles?
. . . they're not the only offenders. And I wanted to cite Shaughnessy or someone else at the Globe here, but it turns out they're surprisingly good on A-Rod.
because you won't want to have sex anymore
Nothing does that to me.
17: Stick around. You might learn something.
15: don't call David Eckstein "Derek Jeter". It's insulting.
because you won't want to have sex anymore
My fiancee has declared that I must be in the delivery room when we have children, but has even more forcefully declared that I must not see her below the waist during delivery. The practicality of this seems really dubious to me. Any advice?
18: Note, though, this is apo we're talking about. He's searched the interweb high and low for such a thing. So it's pretty likely that if there is such a thing, it isn't visual, anyway.
20: stand at the head of the bed?
20: I think you can be in the delivery room without having to play catch, so to speak, but it's not like she can wear pants while having the kid.
stand at the head of the bed?
Seems like the obvious solution. I think it's what most people do. Hold her hand, don't faint. Like Unf.
20: I believe there will be a curtain that you can choose to stay on one side of.
She just said you need to be in the room? Wear a blindfold and headphones, gitmo-style.
23: I assume cackling "oh, who's wearing the pants now?!?" mid-delivery is deprecated?
26: Or they could give him an epidural.
RHC just passed out watching his wife give birth! Quick, boil some water!
25 - there's only a curtain with a c-section. They may be increasingly common, but so far they're not compulsory.
Before I had my first, C wanted my mum to be there too, to look after him. 2nd one, I was on all fours with my head in his lap, and his only thought was "please don't bite". 3rd one, I was kind of standing right in front of him - afterwards I said something about having a good view, but he told me he hadn't looked. He caught the 4th. None of this seems to have made him less horny.
20: My solution to this problem one time. The Big East basketball tournament was on the TV in the room and Pitt was playing.
However, based on a short discussion at the time and periodic revisitations over the next 16 years, I'd have to say: Not recommended!
The point isn't to strike some contrarian pose, but to reject the bad and accept the good.
What an obvious and trite move that would be. No, accepting the bad and rejecting the good is better, especially when no one else is doing it. Of course, I don't expect someone as dumb as you to see that.
If you're in 1938 Germany, it's good to be contrarian.
Is it? Is it really?
If you're Frederick Douglass' son, less so.
Frederick Douglass, like Mother Theresa, had a lot wrong with him that nobody has the guts to talk about. Except me.
Midwives and menstrual huts are the way to go, boys. Let them keep their "mystery".
The practicality of this seems really dubious to me. Any advice?
yes, don't put up with this bullshit. If you're going to the auditorium, you're seeing the freaking show, mate. All these ideas of fastidiousness and Victorian dignity tend to go out the window pretty early on.
Also, as I believe I have mentioned before, wear trainers, because the whole process is murder on the feet and you get no sympathy. Christ my feet ached.
d^2 I would've thought a man like you'd remember to bring a hammock.
Real men watch C-sections without flinching.
Speaking of which, NCProsecutor became a daddy this weekend.
Well sure, C-sections. That's good old-fashioned surgery, like you'd see in a horror movie. Men shouldn't be afraid of that.
But vaginal childbirth, that is not normal, man.
If you're going to the auditorium, you're seeing the freaking show, mate.
That's pretty much what I suspected. Leave it to dsquared to cut to the chase.
20: My pregnant wife (due on Friday) has made the same suggestion; there is apparently an old wives' tale that seeing the business down there would frighten men away from sex. I don't think that's possible for most men.
(But perhaps not for A-Rod!)
Ogged's instinctive trust of old wive's tales? Unsurprising.
Sifu's complete and total apostrophe-placement failure? Also unsurprising.
Sifu's horrible "complete and total" solecism? Still not surprised over here.
Second 32. For our first we went to the hospital during 2004 ALCS game 2, I made the mistake of asking what the final score was a couple hours later. Also- I worried about being parked in the emergency lot too long and that the car was going to be towed. Apparently women don't think such things are important.
Our second was game 3 of the 2006 WS, fortunately I didn't care about the outcome thanks to NY choking vs. Detroit.
Incidentally, this means that the next time the Red Sox are still in contention after we have a child, they win the WS.
45: For our first we went to the hospital during 2004 ALCS game 2, I made the mistake of asking what the final score was a couple hours later
Dude your wife jinxed the Yankees? Thanks, Mrs. SP!
Forget trainers. Get the gardening clogs that the nurses wear. Saved my pitiful feet. Now I wear them about, like a true monster.
Ogged's instinctive trust of old wive's tales? Unsurprising.
Read the archives, noob.
A friend of mine figured out one solution to the problem of attending his child's birth: he went to a fight with his dad instead. Not surprisingly, the marriage didn't last.
On A-Rod: Pussy. I can't believe Sifu didn't link to the classic 2004 ALCS photo.
Dude your wife jinxed the Yankees
Had the exact same thought.
Ogged's instinctive trust of old wive's tales
If you don't trust old wives, you're sexist.
50: A-Rod was wearing a canary-yellow shirt when I saw him at the gym. Say no more, right, bros?
My husband is very not good about gore in general and had to leave the room during the epidural portion. But managed through the rest of it just fine, including cord cutting (by him).
Of course it is deeply misogynistic, of the Cronenberg The Brood variety, to suggest that a woman is unsexable after childbirth is witnessed.
I was fuckin' at that game!
I know I've said that before, but fuck yeah.
I was fuckin' at that game
Me too. Bill Mueller: hero.
vAnd I'm trying to decide whether I believe his wife.
Just wire all of your money directly to the first account in Nigeria that you can locate.
i had been present during the birth of all three of my nieces and a nephew, not their fathers
i suspect then it had some strong impact on me
truly, one never knows unless one's told
I read this story, but in my addled brain the ballplayer was Nomar, not A-Rod. So I'm thinking "Mia Hamm doesn't know from pro ball players?" Mr. and Mrs Garciapara are in a commercial currently, so their image must have been what momentarily confused me.
My father was an MD and delivered me when I was born. I was his first child and and he let other doctors do the next six. I think that his objectivity and professionalism were challenged by the event.
55, 56: Yes, but were you fucking each other at that game.
Interviewer: I hear Don Zimmer once rented your house in New Jersey. Was that when he first came here?
Bucky Fucking Dent: Yeah, it was when Zimmer came to New York as a coach for the Yankees in 1983 and needed a place to stay. I was playing for Texas at the time, so I rented him my home. I left all of the pictures and newspapers on the wall showing the Yankees beating the Red Sox when he was their manager.
I remember my parents saying once that apparently when I was born it was not usual for the dad to be in the delivery room, but my mom wanted my dad there and my dad believed he should be, so that was that.
I think it amuses them how much 'what's done' with babies and such changed just over the ten years they were having them.
Watching an epidural get placed is nothing, guys. Watching the doctor sew back up an episiotomy with the giant metal hook, on the other hand...
this thread is making me regret having sex.
62: How old are you, w/d? Do you remember the ads Bucky Dent and his wife did for some fur salon? They sort of struck poses in these horrifying coats, then he said something dumb, and his wife whined, "Russell!"
When I was a child it was sufficiently controversial to have the father present that my dad was featured on a TV talk show episode: Fathers in the Delivery Room. Quelle horreur!
Oh, and to a Cubs fan Bill Mueller=Dude Who Ran into a Wall.
I think that his objectivity and professionalism were challenged by the event.
Well, if you'd delivered a kid by candlelight in a sod house, you'd probably let someone handle the next few too.
Oh, and to a Cubs fan Bill Mueller=Dude Who Ran into a Wall.
Whereas to a Giants fan, Bill Mueller = one in a long procession of 3B after Matt Williams.
Who's Alex Rodriguez?
I was the labor coach for a friend several years ago. I mean that I stood in place for the father of her baby. Yeah, a long time at the hospital, pretty exhausting. It did not make me want to stop having sex. I did spontaneously cry when the baby (finally) emerged; I wouldn't pass that up. Yes, I stood at the head of the bed during delivery, else I'd have been in the way, but in the lead-up while we were waiting for her to fully dilate, of course I saw it all. It's pretty clinical, folks: she's hurting, you're there to hold her hand and soothe.
I used to know a French-Canadian doctor who delivered a baby somewhere in Nova Scotia that she had to get to be dogsled. She did not regard it as having been a fun experience.
IIRC my father did a home delivery where he found out afterwards that there was a chicken under the bed.
65 no, no, nothing to worry about, K
it's all very natural process, the birth
when you are close to giving birth just should walk a lot, my coworker's friend, who is Chinese and has Japanese wife, he made her go up and down stairs and the birth was very easy coz walking facilitates opening of the birth canal
so my coworker, he said he was surprised coz it was different from their practice they tend to have the laboring mothers in bed
walking upstairs is maybe too much, but just walk around until the very birth is good and easy way to have an easy birth
Watching an epidural get placed is nothing, guys. Watching the doctor sew back up an episiotomy with the giant metal hook, on the other hand....
I could imagine a rich set of adult kinks stemming from this incident, but will refrain for fear of going insane, Lovecraft-style, seeming ungallant.
i mean be afraid, coz everybody worries of course
Not like anyone here in DR needed that to hate his guts. Playing for the US in the World Championship was enough.
just walk around until the very birth is good and easy way to have an easy birth
I've read two accounts by anthropologists that described exactly this method in traditional hunter-gatherer tribes.
Chinese are hunters-gatherers? weren't they the first settlers something as opposed to us, barbarians
How old are you, w/d?
I just spent much too long searching for and failing to find an old comment which says I'm some number of months less than 12 older than w-lfs-n. Alas, neither I nor, as far as I can tell, youtube remember that ad.
But in my searches I did find the old thread that has the stats for how many comments various people have left and the date of their first comment, so not a total loss.
No, it was an Amazon tribe (the Yanomamo or something like that), and one other tribe in I believe New Guinea but I can't remember. Isolated groups recently contacted.
I've read two accounts by anthropologists that described exactly this method in traditional hunter-gatherer tribes
I've read it in the University College Hospital NHS Trust guidebook, so I guess Pinker was right about cultural universals.
73: Doulas also recommend walking around as a means of allowing gravity to do its thing. Apparently, it drives the nurses crazy -- not surprised at that, really.
Apparently, it drives the nurses crazy -- not surprised at that, really.
Much better to stay at home and not have people moaning at you for doing something perfectly normal.
And I'm jealous, read: I'd love to be at a birth (that I wasn't involved in).
My wife walked several rather steep miles before her relatively easy home delivery. After 28 hours of labor (not as bad as it sounds) she slept five hours and then got up and started chopping wood.
With backup and without known risk factors, home delivery is very nice.
84: That's the plan, I think. I do sympathize with the RNs; it's gotta be tough/concerning to have one of your charges out wandering. GPS/RFID as a solution?
It's just that tricky "when do we go to the hospital" thing that's got me concerned. I guess that's what the doula (and the MD) are for.
85: I'd love to be at a birth (that I wasn't involved in).
Hmmm, never really considered that with current standard practices, most mothers only are present at the births of their own children.
No, we were living out in the woods. Hippy era.
I was born at home--though it was in Manhattan, not the woods.
Nice! Always good to know your wife's a team player.
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The Amish are apparently swinging for Hillary. Gas prices. Not a joke.
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McCain has defeated Huckabee in Indiana.
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i was present b/c i'm MD back home and asked my sisters' docs to be there and they allowed me, though it's not that accepted practice, coz if someone from outside, except family, is present doctors feel may be nervous, but everything was OK
my nieces, yeah, they love me, coz i'm the first person they saw
i read somewhere chickens follow the first animated object they see :), so they (my nieces and a nephew) i think feel some kind of special connection with me, i guess, my youngest niece for example she recognizes me through skype, she is only 1.5 yr old and the last time she saw me she was 5 mo, i thought that the babies do not recognise anyone except mom until they are may be at least 8-9 mo, but she does
if to average no of my comments 3 per day 3x30x5=450 comments, i'm pretty productive
though i'm kinda self-conscious, always asking myself ''am i adding value or is it relevant'' something
i'm afraid Ogged will scold me like stop writing irrelevant personal asides etc, sorry, i won't from now on, i promise
And I'd call this one a directly relevant personal aside.
irrelevant personal asides
still new, here.
Wasn't it common knowledge that A-job was cheating on his wife like a year ago? Sad that the only link I can find is the NY Post.
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Huh. NPR called NC for Obama right after the polls closed, based on early returns. Primary thread!
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boy, that's a relief. Let's rack up some delegates in NC.
It is totally possible that she hadn't heard of him (or that the name "Alex Rodriguez" didn't register with her as "famous baseball player," even if she had heard it in that context before, what with its not being a particularly unusual name), and that she thought "he plays ball" said by someone *at the gym* was not a comment about his profession, yes. I heart her.
That's not what she said. From the post/article:
I wasn't aware that you could have an entire livelihood off of a sport
In 1986, it was universally assumed that I'd be present, and helpful, for my daughter's birth. And that I'd come back to the hospital the next day to watch the World Cup final. "We" (Germany) lost to Argentina. I was surprised at the changes in custom between then and my son's birth in late 1994: more ultrasound, better drugs.
Re. walking around, all I have to say is that my plans to walk around or stand up or blah blah whatever to "help the deliver" went right out the fucking window once the contractions started and I insisted on sitting in the goddamn rocking chair and NOT MOVING. The nurse actually had to bully me into standing up and walking a bit. Which totally didn't help, btw.
Watching an epidural get placed is nothing, guys. Watching the doctor sew back up an episiotomy with the giant metal hook, on the other hand...
...is a major step in the right direction after watching the epiosotomy get cut with one snip of a pair of giant fucking scissors.
thanks, all
with your permission i'll continue to proliferate that, asides
103: Sometimes people speak in generalizations which, when challenged, prove to be somewhat inaccurate, Ogged.
108: I'd like to see your data on that.
102: It's possible she's a space alien, and that they don't have sports on her planet. But I wouldn't bet on it. A-Rod is, by reputation, the most publicity conscious player in MLB. I'd bet that his wife is similarly inclined, and knows what makes for a good story.
I bet he wasn't even in the hospital when she gave birth. If she gave birth.
I worked with a black woman in 1984 or so who didn't know who Michael Jordan was. Very churchy and family-oriented. She had been raised by her father to be anti-sports for religious reasons of a sort of Amish type.
I have heard that Ms. Rodriguez herself skipped the birthing and was out partying that night.
I have heard that Ms. Rodriguez herself skipped the birthing and was out partying that night.
Probably didn't pay FICA tax for her surrogate, either.
I was once in a class with a Mi\chael Jorda\n and on break one day innocently asked him if he played any sports. Turned out he was the best-known athlete on a campus of 20,000 people.
What can I say? I was a commuter student.
He was charmingly modest about it all, and I only realized the depth of my error when I saw his picture splashed all over the college paper.
113: Probably he was kind of relieved.
in 1984 or so
That was Jordan's first year in the league; not so strange not to know him. 1994, then you'd have something.
113: So, you went to Penn?
111: Michael Jordan started his rookie season in 1984. From today's perspective that would be like someone being unfamiliar with Greg Oden or Joakin Noah or Kevin Durant, or maybe Chris Paul. Hardly even worthy of mention.
innocently asked him if he played any sports
Racist.
105 - *I* think women should be left alone to do whatever the fuck they want to during labour. If you want to sit in a rocking chair, it's probably the right thing for you to do. When not told to do X, Y and Z, women will hopefully naturally find the most comfortable position, or whatever. Although knowing that lying on your back is just about the most unhelpful position going, might be a good thing to know beforehand.
Bah. I've barely thought about birth stuff since having #4 (and knowing I didn't want any more), but there's an awful lot of strong feeling about it tucked away. If I were to somehow get pregnant again, it would take a true emergency to get me into hospital.
Racist.
Dude, you have no idea.
having #4
Goggle. I can't even imagine. Wow, you're kind of my hero for just being able to write coherent sentences. Unless you sold two to medical science.
For both deliveries, I helped hold Mrs. Chopper's legs open while the baby crowned and came out. There's something truly incredible about seeing a new child's face as it enters the world. I've seen an episiotomy being performed (ohmygod!), but haven't seen the stitches--I was off with the baby while she was getting cleaned on the other side of the room both times.
ALso, have we seen percentages start to come through for NC?
When my son's head came out he was completely expressionless. The first thing he did was lift his eyebrows.
See the "hate" thread for links to exit polls, and an argument about what they mean.
120 - I'll take coherent as a compliment (hmmm, SCMTim is being nice to me. Very suspicious behaviour) - I can only think in whole sentences because it's 1.40am and everyone else is asleep.
Parenting is easy sometimes. Today I set up a water slide in the garden, and was instantly the best mother in the world.
My dad's an obgyn. He wasn't allowed in the room when we were born. Now it is a party in there.
I thought it was very cool, but I've been around it all my life so it seemed relatively normal to me.
Despite being crazy in many ways, my ex was fabulous and tough in difficult circumstances with both kids
My dad's an obgyn. He wasn't allowed in the room when we were born. Now it is a party in there.
I thought it was very cool, but I've been around it all my life so it seemed relatively normal to me.
Despite being crazy in many ways, my ex was fabulous and tough in difficult circumstances with both kids
118: Meh, I ended up with a C-section, and they induced and all. (PK was two weeks and one day late, and the doc correctly suspected hugeness.) I felt kind of bad about it for a while, but I've gotten over it. But yeah, the rocking chair was awesome.
The volokhs had a long thread about people being weirded out by seeing the birth of a child. I remember reading it and being amazed that it could phase anyone. How do these people deal with having small children? I mean am I the only one who remembers catching yellow baby shit in my bare hands to keep it off the upholstery.
I do wonder about them over there...
ukko:
after you have kids, catching baby poop or getting snot with your hand is just what you do. I assume all parents do stuff like that.
I totally agree, but read the comments over there. there is a strong strain of some sort of female-bit-are-magical-but-icky so don't shatter my illusions. I am sure there is a proper literary term that someone will pipe up with in a moment.
I am sure there is a proper literary term that someone will pipe up with in a moment.
"Assholes"?
If you insert all the letters I left out of 132 it makes more sense. Honest.
On preview I see that "assholes" was a suggestion. I like it direct and to the point.
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Who would have thought Celtics-Cavs would turn into a tense defensive battle?
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Woop let's see LeBron turn it on for four in 8 seconds with a Celtics foul to give! Craziness.
135: Well, Cleveland cannot really score in any traditional sense against a team like Boston. I think it is either Boston blowouts or close "defensive" games. maybe the Cavs steal one.
ogged, I respect your manliness, really, I do. And I say this as a life-long Mets fan who still sorta kinda believes the Wilpon's 24 + 1 story:
I laugh at your childish imprecations against the single greatest hitter (Non-Steroidal Division) of the past 50 years. He holds tight when 95 mph fastballs brush his neck. I ducked out when a 75 mph meatball came within five feet of my knees.
In short, the manly high ground, it is not yours.
Were it not for Fleur's insistence, I never would have set foot in the birthing room. Because of her firm insistence, I was there, and saw about as much as one could see (both the unsuccessful attempt at vaginal delivery and the emergency c-section), and managed not to pass out, much to my surprise.
It's not that I think girl parts are icky per se, but I have a lot of negative psychological associations with childbirth that trace back to my father making me help him pull calves from cows in distressed labor at an age when I was unprepared for the associated gore (Prolapsed uterus? Seen that. Stillborn calf that came out in two pieces? Check.). To this day, the sight of obstetric chains and the smell of the veterinary disinfectant we used triggers nausea in me.
Stillborn calf that came out in two pieces?
Mmm, veal cutlets.
Mmm, veal cutlets.
Only if you enjoy the aroma of gangrene.
Who would have thought Celtics-Cavs would turn into a tense defensive battle?
I think they're both acknowledged to be defensive-minded teams.
142: so everybody but me, is what you're saying?
I was just surprised lebron was shut down so thoroughly.
143: I'm not sure everyone expected it to be a bruising series. The Cavs are semi-bruisers, but, for some reason, I still think of the Celts as soft if effective. (Probably because KG is rail thin.)
lebron was shut down so thoroughly.
Despite the double-teams, he missed a lot of shots. I expect he'll get his the rest of the series, but not to have a series-changing game unless Doc decides to cover him one-on-one with a sub par defender a la the Joe Johnson Fiasco in game 4. If it's close late, he can be a huge factor (he did, after all, get to the rim on the Cav's key possession). But it should not be close late four more times...
146: how much do you think the closeness was due to the increased rest the Cavs got?
That's a good question. I didn't think Pierce or Allen looked gassed, but Allen's inability to get open was striking. (He torched Cleveland in the regular seasons). It would be more cheering to attribute Allen's performance to fatigue than to whatever it was that rendered Allen ineffective late in the Hawks series.
That said, my expectation is a comfortable Cs win in game 2.
a comfortable Cs win in game 2
That's some judicious bet-hedging in a Cavs-Celtics matchup.
A small forward is going to have a good game.
When they offered to hand me the gooey just-born baby, I held up my camera to ward them off and took the best picture I've ever taken in my life. At my mother-in-law's insistence, we framed it and put it in my son's room - which struck me as appalling at the time, but I've since gotten used to it, and I don't think my son has ever commented on it, or has nightmares about it or anything.
(With baby No. 2, I took about five pictures, one of which was almost as good.)
Both were Caesarian, and I stayed on the safe side of that little curtain.
Knecht,
I only spent a limited time on the farm and never had to help with the calving, but I have docked sheep and I could say that a close association with that would weird me out. Instead of cutting the cord you could get to chop your kid's tail off. Yep, that could leave psychological scars.
there's an awful lot of strong feeling about it tucked away. If I were to somehow get pregnant again, it would take a true emergency to get me into hospital.
I feel much the same way. I hated the hospital. The resident who delivered Rory yelled at me, and then performed an episiotomy despite the 47 birthing plans I'd provided to the doc, the hospital, and really anyone who would listen insisting I didn't want one. Then, when I passed out in the bathroom a few hours after the birth, the nursing staff got pissy and interrogated me about whether I had finished my dinner, I needed to get the blood sugar back up, etc. -- except, of course, that nobody had brought me the stupid dinner. Hospital rules (which, duh, we broke) would have required UNG to leave at 10 p.m. and not come back until 8 a.m.
Despite that, it was a relatively easy labor and delivery. Went for a walk around the neighborhood that morning after the contractions started until we ran into the postman who, bless his heart, pleaded with us not to be so far from home, "What if something happened?" Got to the hospital maybe 8 or 9 hours after the first contractions, and walked circles around the floor until I reached the point that it hurt too much to stand. Four hours after we got to the hospital, we had a perfect little baby girl.
That any dad would consider not being there for the birth astounds me. I mean, (1), miracle and all. But also, (2), if you think it's gory and disturbing for you, try being the one squooshing an entire person out of you private parts -- you don't leave mom alone for that!
I stayed on the safe side of that little curtain.
I was too fascinated by the entire process to do that. People's insides are kinda smelly, though.
153 reminds me of watching Polly Harvey on some pop show talking to an audience of teeny boppers about castrating bullocks. One of the best pieces of television I've ever seen.
154: Man, I've got nothing but good feelings about all three hospital birthing experiences. The only negative thing I can point to is that the post-operative painkiller schedule is spaced too far apart, so that the last hour of waiting for the next round was a bit unpleasant (for her, that is).
157: didn't your wife have a c-section, though? I think those usually do go better in a hospital than when you try to do them yourself at home.
One vaginal delivery, one emergency C-section, and one scheduled C-section.
The thing mentioned in 156 is on YouTube. I think it was Letterman.
138 shows SEK's descent into madness ever since he took over the Valve. There is only one true test of manliness, and A-Rod failed.
This thread's topics are merging uncomfortably in my head: LeBron got totally stuffed in the vaginal post last night, but it remains to be seen if his superior obstetric skills will allow him to be a game changer when given more opportunities for Caesarians.
One vaginal delivery, one emergency C-section, and one scheduled C-section.
Gawd, I'm so glad I'm not a woman. I honestly think I would feel allowed to kill one of the kids on a whim if I'd had to go through all that.
The birth bit was ok, but being in hospital wasn't. I far preferred being able to go back to my own bed, and eat whatever I wanted, and have my other kids around whenever I wanted. And with #4, sitting there in my own chair with a baby in my arms (and a placenta in a bowl at my feet) when the midwives arrived was just great.
That's why they make them with that "new baby smell." All homicidal instincts are immediately quelled.
163 - well, I beat them regularly. That helps.
166, given 165, implies that babies give off new baby smell in little puffs when you hit them. Adorable!
One vaginal delivery, one emergency C-section, and one scheduled C-section.
Mothers of twins often go through hours of labor to deliver the first, only to undergo an emergency C-section for the second. Cruel.
if I'd had to go through all that.
The three kids were spread over two wives, if that helps.
Spread all over them like jam.
Reminds me of another childhood barnyard trauma. Beef cattle have trouble producing adequate milk to nourish twins, so often farmers will try to "adopt" one of the twins to another cow that has lost her calf. The procedure for this is to skin the stillborn calf, and tie its still slimy skin to the supernumerary calf so that scent will trick the bereaved mother cow into letting the adopted calf suckle. I feel faint just thinking about this. Lord, thank you for letting me go to college!
167 - you have to do it properly, with an old-fashioned carpet beater. AWB clearly used something too heavy, like a sledgehammer, to get that jam effect.
172: delicious jam makes A-Rod fainty.
I'll leave it to history to sort out which image killed the thread: skinned newborn calves, or babies beaten to a pulp with a sledgehammer.
But, it's not dead yet...
The thread is feeling better...
Mothers of twins often go through hours of labor to deliver the first, only to undergo an emergency C-section for the second. Cruel.
You're not reading this, are you honey?
Honey?
My mother-in-law is a remarkable person who had triplets which were 8, 7 , and 6 pounds (yes, that is true, and she carried them to term). At the time they didn't know how many were in there, just that it was "more than one." After she had the second one she thought she was done but no, the nurse said "Keep pushing ma'am, there is one more in there."
She had pounds of baby in her belly?!? I'm not een sure how that's possible. I bet it was uncomfortable.
She had pounds of baby in her belly?!? I'm not een sure how that's possible.
You have to chew them very thoroughly.
Not sure what happened to the "21" in 178. Still... 21!
Yep. Our second was 10 lbs 7 oz and my wife got no sympathy. I still cannot imagine how large she must have been. This was before fertility treatments were invented so triplets were really rare and they even did a couple of articles in national magazines on them.
That said she was a local ski champion and my wife was a national level heptathlete, so there are some good genes in there as well.
On a totally different note, there is enough information in there to totally destroy any hopes I might have of anonymity if there was a way to do a semantic google query. Will the semantic web eliminate google proofing? Or will we come up with semantic s/l/a/s/h/i/e/s of some sort or another?
God only knows what I said back in 1991 on Usenet
