These new hospital regulations have me thinking that no matter how HV my future husband is....If I can only have one person to be there in the delivery room with me I’m choosing my mother.

If I can only have one person there to support me, the ideal person is someone who’s been through it before. I want someone who I love who also knows what I’m experiencing by my side. I want someone who will always be there for me because men may seem great but then change up after many years sometimes. (Theres no chance that when I am 40, my mom isn’t going to want to be my mom anymore and trade me in for a hotter 20 year old daughter lmao.)

I want someone who is going to be strong enough and have the guts and grit to support me during that experience and even a lot of HV men don’t have that. (My dad is a wonderful HV man, but he got woozy, passed out and hit his head on the floor when my mom was giving birth. He reappeared several hours later with a head bandage and push presents, which wasn’t so common 20 years ago. He’s done an amazing job supporting our family, my mom never had a traditional job and he always defended that to everyone by saying being a homemaker was a real job and a difficult one... but as much as he wanted to support my mom, he just couldn’t handle watching a birth).

And lastly, I think that being able to be there for the birth would mean more to my mother. She’s literally dedicated her life to raising me and my sisters. If I can only have one person and I chose my mom and if my husband fought me on it, I’d find that alarming. Making the birth experience more stressful in any way is putting mom and baby in greater danger. His number one priority should be that I deliver safely, and be willing to go along with whatever that entails. My mom would never complain if she wasn’t the one chosen.... But that’s part of what makes her the best one to be there. She really gets that it’s about my safety and comfort.

There’s more than enough “baby” to go around once you leave the hospital. New mothers are exhausted and need help. Babies are exceptionally needy. Everyone who wants to bond with the baby won’t have to fight over that once they arrive. Babies may eat like 6 times a day, they may need to be changed 10 times, they may cry to be picked up another 10 times, and you can hold them and talk/sing to them and cuddle them countless times. If bonding with the baby is reason you feel you need to be at the birth, then you better be running Sonic-style to that nursery when they baby cries so you can comfort them first and have that chance to bond. But, men often don’t do that? And that makes me think that their insistence on being the one to be there at the birth isn’t about the desire to bond, it’s around control. Or about the curiosity to see what birth is like. Or (God forbid) even about the desire to see that woman in pain.

Birth is serious, it’s dangerous and it’s traumatic. It is not a “show”. NO ONE is entitled to an “admission ticket.” And anyone who feels that way about it that is selfish and immature.

Wondering if anyone else feels this way too!