by Charles Gillis

Created on: April 28, 2008

Going into it, I thought I had the whole father routine down. I did everything a pre-dad was supposed to do before the birth of our first child. I went to each and every doctor appointment my wife had scheduled, even when she told me it wasn't necessary. I attended the birthing classes, changed nappies on plastic dolls, learned infant CPR, watched videos and amassed a small library of books on the topic of childbirth and parenting. I labored under the false confidence that I somehow had a grasp of the whole birthing process. I was wrong. I had a lot to learn.

Stubbornness must be genetic because my son was in no hurry to join us. Two weeks after his due date we decided to smoke him out. We checked into the hospital and my wife was given drugs to help induce the labor. The overnight attempt did nothing. The second medication must have come from the medicine cabinet of David Banner, for in no time after the drug was administered my wife became a different person. Writhing in discomfort, she told her mother to leave the room is a less than diplomatic way. She was ready for that baby to come out and it was time to get down to business. Up to this point, I felt like I was prepared for anything. The baby was locked and loaded and I was moments away from becoming a father.

Then came the episiotomy. They had told me about this procedure. They just didn't give me a lot of details on the subject. "You might want to look away," is what the doctor said as the overhead lights reflected on the scissors in his hand. I turned my head to avoid watching the actual cut. A moment later I was making a mental note to remind our doctor to modify that warning for future dads. He should have said "look away and cover your ears." I say this because the snipping noise that I heard behind me was dreadful, like a tight bungee cable being snapped, which was especially disturbing considering where he had to cut. Of course I looked back immediately and saw the blood.

No one told me about meconium aspiration either. Our son had been in utero so long the well had run dry. In spite of earlier attempts to supplement my wife's fluids our son was born with meconium aspiration, a condition that occurs when the newborn inhales the meconium, a tarry concation of materials that include the baby's first bowel movement. I must have missed that as a possibility in class. Moments before the final push a team of medical worked entered the room like a NASCAR pit crew. They turned on lights and machines and

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