How to Give Birth, for Women and Men

I have generally avoided, if not shunned, the following phrase:

"We are pregnant!"

Pregnancy, as far as I am concerned, is an anatomical fact. Although there is now one documented case of a man being pregnant (no joke), there are no instances, to my knowledge, of two people being pregnant with the same child. If I ever did hear of such a thing, I would say, "Mazel tov!" and then proceed to get my brain thoroughly rinsed in hot water. As far as I am concerned, my partner is pregnant, and we are expecting.

Nonetheless, I am fully committed to being fully involved in every step of the pregnancy, and that means -- yes, Bill Cosby fans -- taking classes in Natural Child Birth.

The process is not exactly what sitcoms would lead you to think. Wisdom has shifted since the Cosby days, and no one tells you to breathe super-fast anymore. Nowadays, we call that. "hyperventilating." There are breathing exercises, but those are mostly to help the woman relax during labor. One of the midwives who teaches the class (yes, they're called midwives - I have nothing but good things to say about midwives) has a lot of great practical suggestions of what to do before and during labor, not to mention helping out with the whoel pregnancy discomfort thing. There's also some handy anatomical lecturing. Good thing, too: I was only good enough at biology to cram for the tests.

These classes also include some fuzzier stuff. "Stress can be harmful to the baby, so make sure you're living as stress-free as possible." In New York City? Good luck. "Your mood makes a big difference. Make sure you're in a good mood." So if I'm in a bad mood, I'm harming my baby? Shame on me! "Fix whatever you need to fix in your life, before the baby comes." Right, we'll get right on that.

The fact is, my partner and I are generally happy, well-adjusted people, so none of this really affects us... but if we weren't, I wonder how much of this advice would actually help. Telling people to feel better tends to only make them feel worse. That's why I never send Get Well cards: I always send cards that say, "You're sick! Sucks to be you. I feel great!" I'm a nice guy.

On the way back from the last class, my partner expressed her annoyance at the teacher. Why, I asked? She wondered why, despite that I had said early on that I couldn't see well, the teacher continually wrote and drew on an easel all the way across the room, where I could see nothing. This was true. The odd part was that I hadn't really thought about it.

If there's one thing I've picked up about being a not-not-blind father-to-be, it's that the second part trumps the first. I've been spending a lot less time thinking about my vision and how others perceive it, over the last several months. I spend a lot more time thinking about how my baby girl is going to see the world. ((Genetically speaking, she should be seeing through normal eyes for her entire life... I hope that's so.) My own vision has become delightfully secondary, for the moment.

Still, the vision does come up once in a while. And, now that I've been back to the experts, I have a lot more to talk about. But that's a story for another day.

Oh, Well

Poor Governor Paterson. I say that, not because he seems to be the victim of anything (other than the obvious bad timing), but rather because this job clearly isn't agreeing with him.

Of course, the Governor isn't very good at convincing anyone to do anything, and he may well be as incompetent at governing as everyone seems to be implying. But still, with every single political figure in New York basically cutting bait on him, you have to feel a little bad for the guy. Even his political enemies, in moments of candor, have to admit that he wouldn't cut school funding out of glee. The whole state's in trouble, and the political machine has found a very convenient fall guy. I'll pity the next governor too.

In the meantime, I wonder if the governor's shaky reign has had any effect on life for us blindish folks at large. It might be my imagination, but I've noticed less ignorance about the visually impaired. Fewer store clerks give me funny looks. I also haven't gone on any job interviews lately, so it's probably just a coincidence... but, hey, wouldn't it be nice to think that we got something out of an otherwise weak governorship?

Call me a victim of identity politics, but I still feel the urge to defend the guy once in a while. And say what you will about him, but he still can rattle off policy better than any New York politician with 20/20.