Birth is very different from the male perspective. I was speaking to my cousins partner, their baby was born yesterday, and he was saying how nearing the end of her very difficult labour, which involved vaccum extraction at the end, my cousin turned to him and his mum and said "Help me!" He said he felt tears in his eyes and was feeling so angry that there was nothing he could do to help her, he wanted to punch somebody, or make the doctor make it end. The doctor who delivered is my Dr and he is very good, and my cousins partner said later he did a great job, but he just needed to channel his helplessness some way. Of course he didn't hurt the doctor! LOL his mother told him to accept he was useless as tits on a bull, and this took a while to sink in, but unfortunately she was right! There wasn't anything he could do.

Cailin I can understand how you felt about the whipped away thing. Not that I had the same thing you did, but when my first was born, I had an episiotomy to be sewn up and I don't remember holding my baby Jordan first. Arron held her and then he took her to the door and showed her to everybody (the hospital was like a circus that night with the whole waiting room full of family, immediate and extended) and she was put in a crib, the video shows her in her crib, pre bath and his mum is holding her. Boy was I ****ed when I saw that, and even to this day it irks me. Arron said it didnt happen like that and that I held her first, but I don't remember holding her till after I was stitched up. The video shows, my MIL holding her and then she is wrapped up and I am holding her.

Arron spent the entire labour of our first child, going to the toilet, washing his hands and getting a drink, over and over again. He wanted to make sure his hands were clean so he could hold his child and he almost washed his fingerprints away. He was nervous so he needed to go to the toilet all the time.

Cheers Michelle