Things You Never Thought Your Partner Would See
Erin Burt
Pregnancy comes with a whole bunch of surprises that changes your body in ways that you never thought possible. Labor & Delivery, even more so. Going into it, I had of course heard of the possibility that I may poop on the table. The thought of that was mortifying, but I had no clue that it wouldn’t even be top of charts of things that I never thought my husband would see.
My water broke as my husband was helping me wheel my IV in the restroom so I could pee. Just as we were getting through the door, and I as I turned to around to let him know I was ok, my water broke. It wasn’t a trickle or even a gentle stream. It was a flood of what looked like water with other white strange bodily fluids, that I can’t identify, that ended up all over his shoes; the only pair that he had with him. Seeing the look on his face while he was trying to clean them off was both humorous and embarrassing…mostly the latter.
Right after our daughter was born, my husband was over with the nurse getting her weighed and swaddled. He looked over just in time to see my doctor reach his forearms up into my uterus and pull out the placenta. He immediately looked down and the look on his face told a story that, in that very moment, he was questioning everything he thought he knew about life.
Shuffling to the bathroom after delivery is also another moment that I would like to erase from his memories. Something about having the nurse help me roll over so my mesh panty butt was up in the air, all the while my body was still expelling God knows what from my uterus. Those panties are see-through, and there are no pads on this earth that are big enough to absorb everything that keeps coming out. The sheets looked like a crime scene as I walked away.
At home, the freezer was stocked with 30 percent frozen food items and 70 percent frozen pads. They towered over everything. Watching him trying to fit everything in while tackling a mountain of giant falling maxi pads is the stuff that love stories are made of.
It goes without saying all of these things are a natural part of the process of childbirth. And in the end, it’s amazing what our bodies can do. Going through the experience with your partner takes away a lot of the mystery, but it can also bring a closeness like no other.
Lisa is a babywearing, breastfeeding, cloth-diapering mama who enjoys exploring all things natural parenting.
