^{Originally posted on BabyCenter.com October 20, 2016}

Men have it easy during labor, because we’re not the ones with a human being forcing its way through our innards and out our nether regions. Of course, we still have to watch our loved one go through that process, and if we’re not careful we sometimes get smacked in the head.

The morning of my wife’s labor is a story I like telling because nobody got injured and there was no property damage, so all the mishaps become funny in hindsight. Had a couple of things gone wrong, I’d probably flinch a little whenever the subject came up.

My wife’s contractions started in the early morning, and she took a calm approach. She timed her contractions and let me sleep for an extra hour before deciding that, yeah, she might be going into labor. Because the contractions weren’t close enough together yet, we watched American Dad, because that show used to be funny.

We got to her OB/GYN’s office, but by then the contractions were getting painful. Before she even entered the exam room, her doctor saw her leaning against the door frame in pain and made an instant diagnosis. Then it was off to the hospital and into the portion of the story that has comedic violence.

It turns out I’m an effective partner to have around during labor – I can listen to instructions and don’t take it personally when people scream at me. Within minutes, we found that if I pushed hard on a certain spot on her back while she was sitting upright, it served as effective pain relief.

My weakness, unfortunately, is that I don’t have any rhythm. I tried to coach my wife through her breathing, but you might as well have asked a basset hound to sing an aria. Dealing with more pain than patience, my wife kindly smacked me upside the head with a terse, “You’re doing it wrong.”

I don’t normally condone physical violence, but I appreciated the hit because it affirmed that sitcoms hadn’t completely lied to me. My wife had been too calm, so getting smacked at that moment was the closest thing to a “You did this to me, you bastard!” moment that I ever got.

We were lucky enough to have a normal, natural birth that went about as smoothly as you could possibly hope. The only other slight freak-out was when I saw my son’s head emerge, at which point it looked so purple and alien that a small part of me wanted to yell, “Push it back in!”

Aside from that one moment, nothing really grossed me out during the process. Yet somehow, I still almost wound up fainting. After cutting the umbilical cord, the sheer rush of emotion left me light-headed, and I had to put my head between my knees. Turns out too much of a good thing may cause blackouts.

I had been in charge of taking pictures after the birth, but when the doctor offered me a chance to hold my son, I immediately shrugged the camera off and set it aside. I was maybe a little too immediate with it, because a second later, this very expensive camera fell right onto the floor.

I work very hard on my budgets, and I know what I can and can’t afford. A new son meant that a new camera was definitely not a possibility. My wife tested the potentially damaged camera by taking this incredibly awkward first photo of me and my son:

Great news – the camera came through unscathed. And, as it has done many times before and since, it caught me looking like a total moron and preserved that split-second for all time. Not one to prove that moment wrong, I have now posted my moron face on the Internet for all to see.

Even a smooth, no-drama birth has its moments that become stories later on. The awkwardness and unpreparedness that I felt the first time through stands out in stark contrast to the second time, which I hope to go over in another blog post in the future.