Surprise! Not. Scheduled birth steals dad’s big moment

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

March 4, 2010

My little sister is having a baby today. Probably as you read this over your Corn Flakes and coffee, she’s having an epidural catheter inserted into her back to administer anesthesia into her spine.

Sorry.

This is actually her second baby, the first a girl almost three years ago. She knows she’s having the baby today because, in the new tradition of the time, it’s all planned out.

The appointment, whether inducement, C-section or natural, takes some of the guesswork out of the process, and that’s fine because I’ve come to learn that everything after “It’s a boy!” is guesswork. But it also removes that element of surprise, the midnight wake-up call that something is happening, something very exciting.

Get up! This is it! We have to go! … (read more)