I'm a bit squeamish, so I arranged myself so as to be seated basically next to my wife's head, facing the wall, and was laser focused on holding her hand and maintaining eye contact with her.

Meanwhile, the delivering doctor was narrating a play by play as our kid went from just barely crowning to head fully out in three contractions, and then she just had to maneuver his shoulder free and he popped out on the fourth push. Three random things I will never forget from that night:

• The doctor seeing the umbilical cord and announcing "That's a man that likes to eat!"
• The doctor further complimenting my wife that she "rocked that thing out like it was her job"
• One of the nurses looking into the hazmat bucket they'd packed the placenta into and muttering "Jesus Christ..."

Overall, 10/10, never doing it ever again.

I watched it on youtube once. "So cool" is about the last descriptor I would use. "Disgusting", and "fuckin nasty" are some of the words that came out of my mouth during that video.

I think you've got the glow of parenthood on that memory.

Like cutting rubber foam with dull scissors.

Don't bail out on watching it. It really is fascinating to see.

But for sure don't prioritize watching over helping your wife out. Pushing on her upper back while she's pushing helped my wife out a ton. There was a clear difference in the baby's movement through the birth canal when I helped out.

But have fun! It's such a wild, exhausting time. Your wife is going to struggle so be supportive!

Sorry for the unsolicited advice, we had our first kid a couple months ago, so it's still fresh in my mind.

My wife was super out of it on Epidural drugs during real labor, but I love telling her the sound of the blood hitting the floor after the baby came out.

It was baby then SPLOOSSHH. I'll never forget that noise.

It looks like blowing a hairy bubble

He never said the friend was normal :)