Here is the system that was used for having babies during the Eisenhower Administration: At the first sign of pregnancy, the husband would rush the wife to the hospital, where she would be given modern medical drugs that would keep her from feeling contractions or anything else, including a volcanic eruption in the delivery room. This way the woman felt very little pain. Often she didn’t regain consciousness until her child was entering the fourth grade.
One big problem with this system was that drugs can have adverse effects on the baby, as is evidenced by the fact that every single person born during the 40s, 50s, or 60s is really screwed up. Another problem was that the father had very little to do with the birth. His job was to sit in the waiting room with the other fathers and smoke cigarettes and read old copies of Field and Stream and wonder what the hell was taking so long. When the baby was born, the nurses would clean it up as best as they could and show it to the father, then he’d go home to bumble around and have humorous kitchen episodes until his wife got back on her feet and could resume cooking. This system deprived the husband of the chance to witness the glorious moment when his child came into the world, not to mention all the other various solids and fluids that come into the world with the child.
So today we have a much better childbirth system. Federal law now requires the man to watch the woman have the baby, and the woman is not allowed to have any drugs unless she agrees, in writing, to feel guilty. In some ways, we’re back to the old prairie method of baby-having, only we do it in modern hospitals, so the husband doesn’t have to boil water. All the water-boiling is now done by trained health-care professionals for about $65 a gallon.
Choosing a Hospital
The most important thing to remember in choosing a hospital is that there must be no Dairy Queen between it and you. Medical science has been unable to develop a way to get a pregnant woman, even in the throes of labor, past a Dairy Queen without stopping for a chocolate milk shake. This could waste precious time on the way to the hospital. Even worse, the woman could start having the baby right there in the Dairy Queen, with nobody to help her except her husband and various teenage Dairy Queen employees all smeared with butterscotch and wearing those idiot hats.
Also, you should pick a hospital you feel comfortable in. Most people feel uneasy about hospitals, possibly because the instant you walk through the door medical personnel grab you and remove your blood and stick tubes up your nose. But in deciding where you’re going to have your baby, you must overcome these fears. You must barge right into the hospital and ask questions. If you have no questions, use these:
1. How much does this hospital weigh?
2. What’s that funny smell?
Don’t leave until you get the answers!
Childbirth Classes: Learning to Breathe
Before you can have your baby, you have to attend childbirth classes wherein you openly discuss the sexual organs with people you barely know. You get used to it. You’ll get so that when your instructor passes around a life-size plastic replica of the cervix, you’ll all hold it up and make admiring comments, as if it were a prize floral arrangement. You’ll get to know the uterus so well that you’d recognize one anywhere. Also, you’ll see actual color movies of babies being born, so that you’ll be prepared for the fact that they come out looking like Mister Potato Head.
But the main thing you’ll do in childbirth classes is learn the amazing new modern natural technique for getting through contractions, namely deep breathing. Now I will admit that when our instructor first talked about getting through labor with nothing but deep breathing, my immediate impulse was to rush out and buy three or four quarts of morphine, just in case. But after several weeks of practicing the breathing techniques, my wife and I became convinced that, by golly, they really worked! Obviously we were hyperventilating.
The key to the technique is to breathe in a different way for each stage of labor.
The Magic Word
One last thing. In childbirth classes, you will be taught, with much ceremony, a Secret Magical Anti- Contraction Word that the woman is supposed to say when things get really awful, when the professional football players in her uterus are wearing skis and carrying sharpened poles. Technically, this word is supposed to be revealed only in childbirth classes, but I have decided to print it below for use in case of emergency.
WARNING: THE NEXT PARAGRAPH CONTAINS THE SECRET MAGICAL ANTI-CONTRACTION WORD. DO NOT READ THIS PARAGRAPH UNLESS YOU ARE SINCERELY IN THE PROCESS OF HAVING A BABY.
The word is “hout.” Rhymes with “trout.” It may not look like much, but it has been scientifically shown to be over twice as effective against contractions as the next leading word, “Ohmigod.” You may hear another secret word in your childbirth classes, but “hout” did it for us. Our instructor had us practice it for hours in class—you have to get the tip of your tongue right on the edge of your front teeth—and it really helped my wife get through those first few contractions. After that, she switched over to “AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGUUUNNNNH,” which is not an officially approved word, but seemed to work well for her.
Chapter 5
THE ACTUAL BLESSED EVENT
Childbirth is like vampires: it never strikes before sundown. If you feel something that seems like contractions during the day, you’re actually having what is called “false labor.” Sometimes false labor can be very realistic, in which case you may have to go to the hospital, where you will be examined by a false doctor, who may even deliver an anatomically correct doll.
But real labor always begins at 3:15 A.M. eastern standard time, because that is when every obstetrician in the country is in deepest sleep. As soon as the contractions start, you should call your obstetrician, who will answer the phone and, without even waking up, say: “How far apart are the contractions?” You can give any answer you want (“About two feet,” for example), and then the obstetrician will say, “You’d better come on in to the hospital.” Then he’ll roll over onto his side, still completely unconscious, and resume snoring.
At this time, you should gather up the things you’ll need in the hospital (don’t forget your passport!) and set off. Husbands, here is how you should drive: Sit on the edge of the driver’s seat with your face one inch from the windshield and grip the steering wheel so firmly that little pieces of it keep breaking off in your hands. Every eight or nine seconds, jerk your head down violently to look at the gas gauge, then give your wife’s knee a firm clench for one-tenth of a second and grimace at her and say, “Everything’s going to be fine.” But despite this reassuring exterior, husbands, you must be alert and prepared for any problem that could prevent you from getting to the hospital in time.
What to Do If You Can’t Get to the Hospital
