5 Things I Hated About Childbirth

By Matt | January 17, 2018

I know.

As a man, I’m not supposed to complain about childbirth. But there were several things that I found to be absolutely miserable the three times my wife gave birth.

For everyone’s benefit, I have narrowed that list down to the top 5 things that I hated about childbirth.

1. Having to look behind the curtain. Or in the mirror. Let’s just say that there are images in my head that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Am I grateful that my wife birthed three great kids?Absolutely.

Does that mean that I had to actually WATCH it happen? Not at all.

2. Total sleep deprivation. My daughter was born sometime around 7 pm, and that was the best birth experience I had. The boys were both born in the early morning hours after an entire night of agony.

It should actually be against the law for kids to be born first thing in the morning unless they’re going to just pop right out without hours of labor.  For me, I had to stay up all night long without actually having anything to do other than talk to the nurses and watch my wife have contractions. It was miserable.

3. Cutting the cord. See #1. This was an experience that I didn’t necessarily need to have during my lifetime.

4. Hospital television. My kids were born before the days of Netflix or Hulu or even real smartphones. Which left me stuck watching soap operas or middle-of-the-night infomercials. My daughter was actually born while Seinfeld was playing, but other than that, the hospital TV left a lot to be desired.You try staying up all night with nothing to do and not have a single decent channel to watch.

5. Hospital food. It really is the worst, and apparently it’s poor form to eat a full meal while my wife is limited to ice chips. Luckily my wife is nice about that kind of thing so I was able to leave the hospital to get some decent takeout during all three births. (Don’t worry, I made it back in time for all of them to be born. See #1 and #3.)

My wife wrote a little more about her childbirth experience here if you want to read more.