didn't i say i'd do this on mother's day?

ok. so i just barely intimate that there's a modicum of possibility that i might -- just might! -- be weirded out by promises of excessive blood at my wife's labor. what happens? i get a million comments from moms telling me all about their gory births.

fine.

i see how eager you all are to share with me. so i encourage you to send me "your gory, your bloody, your gushy, your disgusting birthing stories." what happens next? not a fucking thing! what is it with you people? you can't wait to share your filthy gore with me until i ASK FOR IT. then it's all silence and you leave me hangin', flopping in the wind. like a tiny little penis.

anyway. fine. whatever. i can handle rejection ... it's all i knew for the first 27 years of my life.

here are the scant few comments i did get, for old time's sake:

sarah: i took a pillow and a bathrobe home in a bright red "biohazard" bag. the hospital pillowcases, towels and sheets that were ALSO soaked with my blood went to the incinerator. so sorry to be the bearer of bad news: labor is BLOODY.
[you bring home a stylish new biohazard bag and you're complaining? hey, free baby AND free bag is how i look at it. -- ed.]

anonymous wrote: I went commando in the delivery room so I didn't get any stains or anything. They just tucked a blanket around me and off I went. I would suggest a chew toy since I bit through the blanket but I don't want to scare you.
[maybe i am ignorant, but even if you don't go commando to the delivery room, you pretty much end up commando, right? hell, i certainly plan on going in there without any pants on. i know that much is true. -- ed.]

gerah says: Well, after I gave birth, the delivery room looked like someone had beheaded a chicken in there. That was before I attempted to use the restroom which was about 2 square feet around. You should have seen the place. No. You shouldn't have ... I remember trying to clean the bathroom 2 hours after ejecting a 9 lb. baby from my vagina cause it was so gross. I could barely move, but was on the floor with a piece of toilet paper trying to wipe up all the bodily fluids.
[much ... too ... awesome. can't .... breathe. -- ed.]

and a different anonymous, of whom i am in awe and who mrs nice guy hates just a little: I just had my first on Sunday morning, and there was very little blood. Of course, the whole thing took only 6 hours from start to finish, and things progressed so quickly at the hospital that the doctor almost missed it -- he basically walked into the room, caught the baby, and we were done.
[actually, mrs nice guy doesn't hate you a little. she hates you a lot. sorry. i think you're nice. -- ed.]

but the grand prize goes to candace, whose husband writes, horrifyingly: The first blood incident occurred when C's IV was inserted. The nurse pushed in the needle and blood spurted about a foot across the room. I felt a little woozy then. Oh the innocence of first blood spilled. After that, nothing blood-worthy occurred for 24 + hours. Oh, sure the anesthesiologist inserted a total of 4 epidurals during that time, her water broke, and there were copious amounts of cervical checks and lots of pushing, but not much in the way of blood and gore and gushy stuff. C pushed for four hours and that baby wasn't getting any closer to the light. Just before 11 pm, during a push, the baby's heart stopped. When she stopped pushing, his heart came back strong as ever; the decision was made to deliver via c-section. They wheeled her off to the OR while I got suited up in scrubs. I made it in time for the first incision. It really wasn't that bloody (but she said she could feel it; say hello to morphine!) but it was pretty gross. Think slicing through layers of gelatinous goo that are dipped in blood. Kinda like that. The doctor dug around for a minute and finally pulled out the baby. He was whisked off to the NICU team (remember his heart had stopped *and* there was meconium in the amniotic fluid) so I got to see the rest of the procedure. The doctor flipped C's uterus onto her stomach and started cleaning it out. It reminded me of a small, purply-red, bloody purse. By this point I was so exhausted and worried that I was just fascinated. Not grossed out, just fascinated. The nurse put a stainless steel bowl (more like a bed pan, but smaller) underneath C's nether regions and blood started pouring out. It was quite odd to see such a sterile instrument just fill with blood. Anyway, so the doc is cleaning out her uterus and asks if I want to see her fallopian tubes. Who wouldn't! I have the distinct pleasure of saying I know my wife inside and out. And I really do! C was knocked out during this whole thing, so she doesn't remember anything. It's really too bad, because how many women can say they saw their own uterus? The whole thing really wasn't too bloody (not like horror-film bloody, anyway), just very medical. But seeing her uterus and fallopian tubes was pretty cool. I wish I had pictures.
[so do i, candace's husband, so do i. -- ed.]