Fathers (or Father's -to-be) I need your help for a research study.

[fourgrtkidos]

My name is Michelle. I am a RN and a traditional Midwifery student. When I am finished I will be a Licensed Midwife but not a Certified Nurse Midwife, as I am not sure I want to continue to work within our country's "medical model".

I am a Child birth educator and a doula.

It is my opinion that men are "left out" by birth educators and birth attendents. I am trying to research and write about this problem and need input. The research might help us Midwives get a better perspective on how to serve an entire new family, not just focus on mom and baby.

I am asking for you to write birth stories from your point of view, not your partner's.

You can email them to me at Meurgatis@cfl.rr.com or pm them or post them here if you would like to share them with others.

It would be nice if I had an email or phone number to contact you if you do not mind doing so.

Some questiuons I need answered either in the birth story or seperately:
1. Did you attend Child Birth Classes? Did they help you prepare for the emotional upheaval of birth and post-partum events?

2. Did any Birth Attendant, either doula, nurse, midwife, doctor, anyone..... ask you about your needs during labor and delivery? ie, Did anyone ask "Are you ok? Do you need anything? Have you eaten? Do you need water? Do you understand what is happening?"

3. Did the way your were socialized to your gender and expectations around how men act and behave affect your ability to cope with the pain your partner feels in labor (you can't protect her from it or take it away) or unpredictable nature of birth (it can not be controlled although I understand we try to)?

4. If you gave birth in the hospital and had a male OB, did he try at all to allign with you against your partner/wife. Did he use your maleness to dominate your partner/wife or to get her to let interventions happen that she did not want?

5. If your partner/wife got pain meds or an epidural that she did not want according to her pre-birth birthplan, did she blame you later for allowing it to happen?

6. Did you feel conflicted between protecting your partner/wife and her desires for the birth ( natural or low intervention) and what the staff "pressured" you to do for your "partner/wife and baby's safety"?

7. Did you get a babymoon? Did your work provide you with maternity leave and/or adequate time to get to know your newborn?

8. Was it difficult to adjust to new family dynamics and your partner/wife's new focus. Were you prepared for the "lack" of attention you could expect from your spouse once the new baby was here? Or maybe nothing changed between you and your wife/partner and you could share that with me.

9. Please let me know your religious, ethnic background, marital status.... anything personal, etc. That may have biased any caregivers in your opinion.

Thanks,
Michelle Eurgatis
Meurgatis@cfl.rr.com

[sapphire_chan]

Actually, if anyone is willing to post an edited version of their emails here, that would be great. The answers to those questions could be a good resource for new dads, y'know?

[fourgrtkidos]

Yes, that is true.

I am pretty sure ChildBirth Educators need to taylor classes to Dads and their unique needs; However, national organizations and the medical community do not listen until there is "proof".
:innocent Michelle

[fourgrtkidos]

anyone else?

[Pete]

Hi Michelle,

I'm pressed for time right now, but I'll try to get through the questions with simple answers. My youngest is 12 - so my answers may be a bit dated. My first two children were with doctors, the third was attempted with a midwife but when it turned out to be a breech birth, we ended up rushing to the hospital and almost had my daughter in the car on the way (breech).


Some questiuons I need answered either in the birth story or seperately:
1. Did you attend Child Birth Classes?
Yes.
Did they help you prepare for the emotional upheaval of birth and post-partum events?

Yes and no.


2. Did any Birth Attendant, either doula, nurse, midwife, doctor, anyone..... ask you about your needs during labor and delivery? ie, Did anyone ask "Are you ok? Do you need anything? Have you eaten? Do you need water? Do you understand what is happening?"
No - never during all three births.


3. Did the way your were socialized to your gender and expectations around how men act and behave affect your ability to cope with the pain your partner feels in labor (you can't protect her from it or take it away) or unpredictable nature of birth (it can not be controlled although I understand we try to)?

I'm sure it did but I did my best not to let it.

4. If you gave birth in the hospital and had a male OB, did he try at all to allign with you against your partner/wife. Did he use your maleness to dominate your partner/wife or to get her to let interventions happen that she did not want?

Yes absolutely.

5. If your partner/wife got pain meds or an epidural that she did not want according to her pre-birth birthplan, did she blame you later for allowing it to happen?

I don't think so - but it's been a while.

6. Did you feel conflicted between protecting your partner/wife and her desires for the birth ( natural or low intervention) and what the staff "pressured" you to do for your "partner/wife and baby's safety"?
Yes. I also felt helpless while I watched the OB "coax" out the placenta which I believe lead to hemoraging.


7. Did you get a babymoon? Did your work provide you with maternity leave and/or adequate time to get to know your newborn?
I was self-employed so I gave myself maternity leave.


8. Was it difficult to adjust to new family dynamics and your partner/wife's new focus. Were you prepared for the "lack" of attention you could expect from your spouse once the new baby was here?
No, not at all.
Or maybe nothing changed between you and your wife/partner and you could share that with me.

Absolutely everything changed.

9. Please let me know your religious, ethnic background, marital status.... anything personal, etc. That may have biased any caregivers in your opinion.

Nothing to report here. I didn't feel any bias.

Hope that helped.

Pete

[fourgrtkidos]

Thanks

[wha2do]

My first post is in answer to this. yay!

My wife is an avid follower of MDC and many conversations stem from what she reads here so I thought I would look.

1. Did you attend Child Birth Classes? Did they help you prepare for the emotional upheaval of birth and post-partum events?

I have two girls, almost 3 and 2 months. We did go to Bradley classes before the first, but not for the second. My wife and I also went to a breastfeeding class given at the birth center. The Bradley classes were given by a husband wife team. I thank that helped it not be ONLY about the women. The info was tremendously helpful. Not that you can truely be prepared without going through it, but I felt that I knew what to expect and had a few ideas of what to do. I learn better in a presentation/discussion format than from reading books so that helped also. We kind of felt that we knew what we were doing for the second so we didn't see the need for classes for the our second.

2. Did any Birth Attendant, either doula, nurse, midwife, doctor, anyone..... ask you about your needs during labor and delivery? ie, Did anyone ask "Are you ok? Do you need anything? Have you eaten? Do you need water? Do you understand what is happening?"

We had a fairly long first labor (22hrs) and truthfully much of the fine details are a blur. I do know that at one point the apprentice or student midwife told me in no uncertain terms that I was to eat, which I did. The second birth was in our home, and shorter. It started around 11:00 pm and I slept until 6:00 or so and She was born at noonish, so I had some breakfast with the midwives (one is an apprentice but just finishing up). The apprentice was with our older DD and she was completely awesome. We had told her what was happening but at 2 3/4 she was still a little nervous.

3. Did the way your were socialized to your gender and expectations around how men act and behave affect your ability to cope with the pain your partner feels in labor (you can't protect her from it or take it away) or unpredictable nature of birth (it can not be controlled although I understand we try to)?

I don't think so. I accepted that I was an supportive part of the birth process and could only try to make it easier for my wife. We were lucky in that we chose to give birth out of the hospital and that there were no major complications, so pushing meds was not too much of an issue in our case.

4. If you gave birth in the hospital and had a male OB, did he try at all to allign with you against your partner/wife. Did he use your maleness to dominate your partner/wife or to get her to let interventions happen that she did not want?

not applicable

5. If your partner/wife got pain meds or an epidural that she did not want according to her pre-birth birthplan, did she blame you later for allowing it to happen?

not applicable

6. Did you feel conflicted between protecting your partner/wife and her desires for the birth ( natural or low intervention) and what the staff "pressured" you to do for your "partner/wife and baby's safety"?

not applicable

7. Did you get a babymoon? Did your work provide you with maternity leave and/or adequate time to get to know your newborn?


Well here is a difficult question to answer. My wife and I talked it over and we really wanted to not do daycare, and she made much more money than I. To make a long story short I am an at home dad. I talked to my boss at one point about six months we still hadn't decided, but were leaning to my staying home. He informed me of FMLA (which I knew applied) and suggested that I used all that I wanted (by the way I got very good performace reviews so he wasn't trying to get rid of me) and would not allow me less than 3 weeks off immediately (after the birth) unless my wife talked to him personally. However, another man's wife (in another department) had a baby a couple of weeks before we did and he was taking three weeks off, people thought he was crazy, what is he going to do, what are we going to do, etc. So even within my company it depends on manager.

8. Was it difficult to adjust to new family dynamics and your partner/wife's new focus. Were you prepared for the "lack" of attention you could expect from your spouse once the new baby was here? Or maybe nothing changed between you and your wife/partner and you could share that with me.

Well there really wasn't much difference in that regard. There was a new thing to worry about. It seemed like everything was a big deal to my wife, who is much more of a worryer than I, but it was all first-time-parents-of-a-newborn stuff. She poops 18 time a day the book say 10-12, to she is spitting up all the time, does she get any of it? The biggest difference was a pronounced decrease in libido, in both of us I might add.
So if the question was change between my wife and I, we spend more time together (she works from the home)

9. Please let me know your religious, ethnic background, marital status.... anything personal, etc. That may have biased any caregivers in your opinion.

30's Middle class professional white married couple without strong religious convictions. Both my wife and I have medical knowledge in our background. I don't think there was any bias in the birth room. Peditricians tend to talk to us like we are completely ignorant of everything, but that is rant for another thread.


Hope this helped.

[SirPentor]

1. Did you attend Child Birth Classes? Did they help you prepare for the emotional upheaval of birth and post-partum events?

For number 1 I attended Child Birth Classes. They weren't all that helpful, but were better than nothing. For number two we didn't do classes, but I read Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way by Susan McCutcheon which was far better than the class we had taken before. Also the prenatal care was generall better and prepared us more.


2. Did any Birth Attendant, either doula, nurse, midwife, doctor, anyone..... ask you about your needs during labor and delivery? ie, Did anyone ask "Are you ok? Do you need anything? Have you eaten? Do you need water? Do you understand what is happening?"

For number 1 not so much, but a little. Food is one I remember--we ended up at the hospital (due largely to poor medical advice) and they wouldn't feed me. I had my parents go get me food. For number two they were very attentive to my needs.


3. Did the way your were socialized to your gender and expectations around how men act and behave affect your ability to cope with the pain your partner feels in labor (you can't protect her from it or take it away) or unpredictable nature of birth (it can not be controlled although I understand we try to)?

That's a hard one to answer. I presume it did. The lack of control was certainly an issue for me--I felt very helpless (especially for number 1).


4. If you gave birth in the hospital and had a male OB, did he try at all to allign with you against your partner/wife. Did he use your maleness to dominate your partner/wife or to get her to let interventions happen that she did not want?

N/A


5. If your partner/wife got pain meds or an epidural that she did not want according to her pre-birth birthplan, did she blame you later for allowing it to happen?

I think she did, though not overtly. She mainly blaims the poor medical advice we recieved.


6. Did you feel conflicted between protecting your partner/wife and her desires for the birth ( natural or low intervention) and what the staff "pressured" you to do for your "partner/wife and baby's safety"?

With number 1 absolutely.


7. Did you get a babymoon? Did your work provide you with maternity leave and/or adequate time to get to know your newborn?

For number 1 no (I was in school at the time). For number 2 I took a couple weeks off and then a couple weeks at half time. My work gives up to a month and we used some of that later.


8. Was it difficult to adjust to new family dynamics and your partner/wife's new focus. Were you prepared for the "lack" of attention you could expect from your spouse once the new baby was here? Or maybe nothing changed between you and your wife/partner and you could share that with me.

Yeah I was a little surprised. With number 1 neither of us had any idea what we were doing and it was pretty shocking. With number two it was way more under control.


9. Please let me know your religious, ethnic background, marital status.... anything personal, etc. That may have biased any caregivers in your opinion.

Grew up Lutheran. Shortly aftr number 1 was born I became the Catholic. Now I'm not really anything. I'm a whitey. Married.

[Baelzharon]

My birth story is posted here, and you are welcome to use it.

You can email me at kronos_69@hotmail.com if you want to discuss anything in private.

I'll try and answer your questions here:

1. Did you attend Child Birth Classes? Did they help you prepare for the emotional upheaval of birth and post-partum events?

No I didn't attend any classes at all. We did not feel comfortable with hospital provided classes.


2. Did any Birth Attendant, either doula, nurse, midwife, doctor, anyone..... ask you about your needs during labor and delivery? ie, Did anyone ask "Are you ok? Do you need anything? Have you eaten? Do you need water? Do you understand what is happening?"

The midwife who came over after the birth brought us food, and did ask if I was ok as well.

3. Did the way your were socialized to your gender and expectations around how men act and behave affect your ability to cope with the pain your partner feels in labor (you can't protect her from it or take it away) or unpredictable nature of birth (it can not be controlled although I understand we try to)?

Not at all, but I am not a typical male stereotype either.

4. If you gave birth in the hospital and had a male OB, did he try at all to allign with you against your partner/wife. Did he use your maleness to dominate your partner/wife or to get her to let interventions happen that she did not want?

We were a home birth, and all our Prenatal OB/GYN doctors and midwives were women.

5. If your partner/wife got pain meds or an epidural that she did not want according to her pre-birth birthplan, did she blame you later for allowing it to happen?

In the event we did go to the hospital I fully understood the birthplan and would have faught off anyone trying to go against it.

6. Did you feel conflicted between protecting your partner/wife and her desires for the birth ( natural or low intervention) and what the staff "pressured" you to do for your "partner/wife and baby's safety"?

I was 100% supportive of my wife's choice to have a homebirth. I researched the same data she did and came to the same conclusions she did regarding how horrible the US Medical system is. I would trust my next door neighber to deliver my baby more then an OB/GYN in this country who needs to bow down to their insurance company.

7. Did you get a babymoon? Did your work provide you with maternity leave and/or adequate time to get to know your newborn?

My work allows up to 6 weeks of Praternal leave.

8. Was it difficult to adjust to new family dynamics and your partner/wife's new focus. Were you prepared for the "lack" of attention you could expect from your spouse once the new baby was here? Or maybe nothing changed between you and your wife/partner and you could share that with me.

The birth of dd has strengthened our family bond more then ever. We spend more time together now, and I have my wife back.

9. Please let me know your religious, ethnic background, marital status.... anything personal, etc. That may have biased any caregivers in your opinion.

We're both white, and athiests.

[changa]

1. Did you attend Child Birth Classes? Did they help you prepare for the emotional upheaval of birth and post-partum events?
Yes. I was not prepared for an Emergency c-section after 26 hours of labor, but I don't feel anyone could be in any situation.

2. Did any Birth Attendant, either doula, nurse, midwife, doctor, anyone..... ask you about your needs during labor and delivery? ie, Did anyone ask "Are you ok? Do you need anything? Have you eaten? Do you need water? Do you understand what is happening?"

Our doula's husband got food for her and I, but mainly we stayed focused on my wife.

3. Did the way your were socialized to your gender and expectations around how men act and behave affect your ability to cope with the pain your partner feels in labor (you can't protect her from it or take it away) or unpredictable nature of birth (it can not be controlled although I understand we try to)?
My parents were basically hippies, so I don't need to be in charge of things. That's not a part of my maleness.
I do strongly want to protect my wife, but I saw labor as something she should work through for herself. The emergency cesarean was different, because they took her away and would not allow me to go with her. That made me feel very upset and helpless, and frankly I don't understand why it was necesary.

6. Did you feel conflicted between protecting your partner/wife and her desires for the birth ( natural or low intervention) and what the staff "pressured" you to do for your "partner/wife and baby's safety"?
Just a little bit, they wanted us to keep the monitors on continuously, but their short wires would've confined her to the bed. I trusted my wife over the monitors.
After birth the put my DS in the NICU, and we had to fight to breastfeed. If I had not slept the first night it would've been an easier battle, because I could have had them take him to my wife to breastfeed i would've prevented them from tying him down with an IV and I feel guilty for that.

7. Did you get a babymoon? Did your work provide you with maternity leave and/or adequate time to get to know your newborn?
The birth occurred during Christmas break (I teach High School) I used one week of personal leave, and didn't take any paternity leave because we didn't feel we needed it. My wife doesn't work outside the home.

8. Was it difficult to adjust to new family dynamics and your partner/wife's new focus. Were you prepared for the "lack" of attention you could expect from your spouse once the new baby was here? Or maybe nothing changed between you and your wife/partner and you could share that with me.
Well, sex would be nice. But I think that's probably overly personal, and her body needs time to recover. emotionally, we have never been so close. I do feel resentful that I don't get enough sleep, but it's an irrational, sleep deprived feeling and not something attached to my DW or DS.
9. Please let me know your religious, ethnic background, marital status.... anything personal, etc. That may have biased any caregivers in your opinion.

I'm white, Christian, married, I didn't feel any bias.

[rozzie'sma]

My name is Michelle. I am a RN and a traditional Midwifery student. When I am finished I will be a Licensed Midwife but not a Certified Nurse Midwife, as I am not sure I want to continue to work within our country's "medical model".

I am a Child birth educator and a doula.

It is my opinion that men are "left out" by birth educators and birth attendents. I am trying to research and write about this problem and need input. The research might help us Midwives get a better perspective on how to serve an entire new family, not just focus on mom and baby.

I am asking for you to write birth stories from your point of view, not your partner's.

You can email them to me at Meurgatis@cfl.rr.com or pm them or post them here if you would like to share them with others.

It would be nice if I had an email or phone number to contact you if you do not mind doing so.

Some questiuons I need answered either in the birth story or seperately:
1. Did you attend Child Birth Classes? Did they help you prepare for the emotional upheaval of birth and post-partum events?

bradley class, no I had to go to basic training and missed the last four classes

2. Did any Birth Attendant, either doula, nurse, midwife, doctor, anyone..... ask you about your needs during labor and delivery? ie, Did anyone ask "Are you ok? Do you need anything? Have you eaten? Do you need water? Do you understand what is happening?"

no one asked what I wanted

3. Did the way your were socialized to your gender and expectations around how men act and behave affect your ability to cope with the pain your partner feels in labor (you can't protect her from it or take it away) or unpredictable nature of birth (it can not be controlled although I understand we try to)?

yes i lived in a very gender based family which effected me,(not being able to take the pain away)

4. If you gave birth in the hospital and had a male OB, did he try at all to allign with you against your partner/wife. Did he use your maleness to dominate your partner/wife or to get her to let interventions happen that she did not want?

He was neutral

5. If your partner/wife got pain meds or an epidural that she did not want according to her pre-birth birthplan, did she blame you later for allowing it to happen?

no she balmes herself

6. Did you feel conflicted between protecting your partner/wife and her desires for the birth ( natural or low intervention) and what the staff "pressured" you to do for your "partner/wife and baby's safety"?

I was conflicted but kept it in

7. Did you get a babymoon? Did your work provide you with maternity leave and/or adequate time to get to know your newborn?

It was hard at the time I was in tech school and was lucky not to have classes for a few days and thats all I got



8. Was it difficult to adjust to new family dynamics and your partner/wife's new focus. Were you prepared for the "lack" of attention you could expect from your spouse once the new baby was here? Or maybe nothing changed between you and your wife/partner and you could share that with me.

I felt that the baby needed this and was more upset about the baby spending more attention to my wife instead of me.

9. Please let me know your religious, ethnic background, marital status.... anything personal, etc. That may have biased any caregivers in your opinion.

I believe in a higher power, white, married, was an airman in tech school and had almost no control over my life.

Thanks,
Michelle Eurgatis
Meurgatis@cfl.rr.com



i'm using my wife's screen-name