We all know pain is relative, like when your in-laws come to stay. You just need to find the right coping mechanisms. In my case I drink a lot and make myself as absent as possible. I know; I'm a trooper.
Back to the topic at hand.
I recently experienced the wonder of childbirth, again. I'm now a very proud father of two boys. Technically my wife has two as well; I'm just not sure if they're the same kids as mine. Hers are well behaved, angelic and cute. Mine, well let me put it this way...
Whenever my kids turn up they're accompanied by my wife's accusations: "Your child has broken another toy, a window and both his arms." Or, "He's your boy, you have to tell him off for painting the walls with spaghetti sauce", I guess you get the idea.
So how did I become the sheriff of this spaghetti western?
I should start at the very beginning, but since I'm a guy with a short attention span, I'll skip the boring romantic stuff and jump straight to the gory, bloody combat action of childbirth and what popped out the other end to change my life forever.
A screaming, crying, slimy mess that had no natural right fitting through such a narrow opening. I'm really not sure how it managed to fit inside my wife's belly, but how it got out is what really scarred me. If you haven't had the pleasure of experiencing the wonders of childbirth, then what follows might give you a better understanding of this delicate and miraculous process.
Step 1:
Extend your left hand and put your thumb and finger together to form a circle. Got it? Great, you're doing really well. Take some deep breaths and if you can, try and relax.
Step 2:
Raise a sledgehammer above your head and bring it crashing down on your hand. Painful? Perfect. Repeat multiple times as required. When your hand feels like you've dipped it in molten lava and yet you can still feel every single broken bone in each finger, move on to step 3.
Step 3:
Take the mangled, throbbing and bleeding remains of your left hand and while still making that tiny, delicate circle from step 1, try to squeeze an overgrown watermelon through what's left of the opening.
Hey, no cheating; you have to try and keep your finger and thumb together at all times to allow your previously beautiful skin to stretch far, far, far beyond its natural elasticity.
If you're doing it right, your hand should start turning inside out. This helps accommodate the adorable girth of the infant's melon just starting to peak through the gap. Remember to relax, it's just nature doing its thing.
Let it happen. Breath. Smile. Enjoy.
Step 4:
Return to Step 2 and repeat for eight to ten hours.
By now you're no doubt getting a tiny inkling of the tremendous pain I was in watching my wife give birth.
Of course the really unfair part about it all is that your wife gets to experience the wonder and joy of being pregnant, feeling a life move inside her belly, she gets to give birth and breast feed, something we men will never be able to do.
To rub salt into the wound, all of these things allow her to bond with the child in a way that you will never ever be able to replicate or experience. Sure she goes through a little pain to get there, but almost as soon as the birthing process ends, she has a seemingly complete cessation of pain and experiences a moment of euphoria.
As is typical with "mother" nature, the man gets the short end of the stick. His pain will grow and live on for a very long time.
The man must live with the vivid and mentally scaring images of childbirth for the rest of his life, hear the torturous screams replaying in his nightmares and be haunted by his complete inability and failure during childbirth to shut the annoying noise off.
Perhaps worst of all, he'll likely have to appear sympathetic to his wife's little aches and pains for weeks on end, all while surreptitiously icing his throbbing and incredibly bruised hand which she callously injured with her vicious and cruel vulture-like grip.
I think it's pretty clear who the real hero's of childbirth are.
Despite all the inequities, the ongoing pain and all the hardships that men endure, there are some upsides. You can smoke a cigar after the birth if you want, you get to send out a bragging text message to everyone about how brave you were during the ordeal and you get to be a dad.
That last part is actually pretty great.
Eventually the mental scars will start to heal, the pain will ease and you'll be left with a snotty nosed upstart that takes your comfy chair and snatches up the remote before your tired old bones can settle into the uncomfortable second choice that is the "mother's chair".
So, while I do freely admit that men are the real victims and heroes of the birthing process, I nonetheless urge other men to take my outstanding and remarkable example and suck it up!
Do your best to enjoy the miracle of birth.
Let's face it, there's no point complaining about how the doctors and nurses give all their attention to the woman, or the fact that we're now expected to be present for the birth, there's not even any point complaining about the terrible damage inflicted upon our hands by our so called loved ones.
When it boils down to it, women just aren't very sympathetic creatures. It's not the way they were made.
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