Free Babyhood (9780062098788) by Paul Reiser

a time as any to try. But I didn’t like being dropped down to the Number Two position on the Support Team.
    â€œDoesn’t your wife look beautiful?” she said for my wife’s ears but into my face. I’m thinking, “What does she think? I don’t know how to say nice things myself? I know how to say nice things myself . . .”
    Of course, what I said was, “Oh, wow, does she ever.” I leaned over her to address my actual wife. “You really do, honey.”
    A fter a while, our most thoughtful of friends stepped out into the hall to give us some time together.
    Alone again, with very little time to go, my bride and I looked at each other, and between her contractions and my feeble reminders to “Just breathe,” we ran a last-minute search for girls’ names.
    â€œSarah?”
    â€œNah . . . Stella?”
    â€œIt’s a nice name if you’re Brando’s daughter . . . You sure I can’t talk you into Aretha?”
    â€œOww owww owww . . .”
    â€œOkay, just breathe . . .”
    She breathed a few quick, sharp breaths and then I remembered something else.
    â€œOh, geez.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWe forgot to get values. ”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œOur child’s going to be here any minute and we have no values.”
    At this point my wife contorted in pain, and then everything became a blur. There was a chunk of time—for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you how long it lasted—where doctors came in, nurses scurried about, machines were wheeled around, mirrors were brought in . . . everybody was talking and moving and coaching and touching and prodding and sponging and gloving and crying and pulling and crowding—and through a haze of surreal commotion that veiled us somewhere entirely outside of place and time, I heard someone say, “Come here—you want to see?”
    I actually said, “See what ?”
    â€œYour baby.”
    Oh. Right. I forgot that was happening today. I mean, I knew that’s why we were there and everything, but . . .
    I looked, and sure enough, something babylike was making its way into the world. No matter how many books you read, no matter how many tapes you watch, you still can’t believe that this can happen. I looked up at my wife and was even more floored by what I saw next: the most radiant, beautiful woman I had ever imagined. In that moment—her hair curling with sweat across her forehead, crying and wincing in pain—in the midst of all that, was this exquisite and inescapably feminine being, doing exactly what she had to do, instinctively and splendidly. She was like an ad for Woman. Powerful and stunning. That I do remember.
    It’s a phenomenon beyond comprehension that women know how to do this. In order to give birth, it seems that God gives women a thousand times more stamina, resources, know-how, and smarts than they would have ordinarily. Ironically, for those very same hours, men get less. They get a little less intelligent, less resourceful, and less capable. And I don’t think it’s just coincidence. I choose to believe we become less of whatever we are specifically so that women can become more of whatever they are. It’s a transfer. A gift of love. A shifting of the scales that helps perpetuate the cycle of Life, and then, later, when you get home, you can sort it all out and settle up.
    T he next thing I remember was the doctor looking up from his rolling front-row seat and gleefully pronouncing, “It’s a boy!”
    My heart took another in a now dizzying flurry of ecstatic jolts.
    A boy! Yes!! I was thrilled not only because the mystery was over, but also because I could now openly confess to myself and to the world that, “Okay, I wasn’t going to say anything, but I really wanted a boy!”
    You’re never allowed to admit that. Throughout pregnancy, you’re only