Signal to Noise

I want to share the funniest thing I have ever heard while in the presence of my wife giving birth. There are many dangers in repeating said funny thing. The number of women who use the word “funny” in relation to childbirth (without an impressive stream of surrounding negatives) is very small indeed. The amount of breathing exercises, birthing classes, coaches, and pain-numbing drugs are a testament to the decidedly non-funny nature of giving birth … at least for women.

The great gift about being a sensitive supporting husband is being able to find the humour in any situation. I use this great power to rewrite history (and childbirth comes with some built-in amnesia; that is why women have more than one child, I am told) and turn any event I please into a rollicking laugh festival. Actually, maybe my great gift is my wife’s tolerance for that trait.

Here is the situation: the contractions are coming fast and furious; there is no time for an epidural; pain relief comes only from a cocktail of inhaled happy gas; and the doctor is standing in the room wearing black and red rubber boots. There is pushing. There is breathing. There are nurses looking impotent and hopeful. There is my hand with rapidly bluing fingers locked in my wife’s right hand. Her left hand holds the gas mask with a passion I could only envy. And the air is filled with the most impressively creative and horrifyingly obscene swearing I have ever heard–ever.

I may be overstating the hopefulness in the nurses but their impotence can not be overstated. Two of them just stood look at each other wondering what form of assistance they could offer. It is a tricky balance because (apparently, according to them, and I believed their sincerity or desperation) while the gas relieves pain it discourages pushing and the pushing bit is quite important. The benefit of the gas was a respite from the increasingly more profane swearing. They were torn; I could tell.

They finally accepted that they would have to reduce the gas to get the kid and (after attempting to remove the mask from an impressive left-handed grip) they reduced the gas and encouraged pushing. The implication that my wife was not doing enough was dangerous for them to make at this point but, fortunately for them, she was otherwise occupied. My hand was long numb. The swearing was now bridging multiple religions and sexual practises with surprisingly little repetition and some wonderfully inventive juxtapositions.

Then one of the nurses said something that pretty much halted everything: “you know, you can’t push when you are yelling and swearing.” I burst out laughing and even Jan took a break from agony to look over at me (I had been little more than a human stress ball to this point) with an expression that made me laugh harder and fear for the lives of both the nurse and myself.

I am reminded of this because it turns out that the nurse was wrong. It turns out that cursing can help cut pain. I now understand how a relatively calm, quiet, and non-swearing expectant mother was able to channel the entire stage show of the longshoreman’s amateur comedy and insult night with free beer provided. It was all pain relief. The deep-rooted, evolutionary response to pain is swearing loudly. I am now planning a program of birthing lessons (for a very reasonable fee) to take advantage of this newfound knowledge. And the best part is that I am pretty sure that fathers can join right in to help ease the pain.