Hullo. I wanted some advice please. I'm due to give birth any time now and the more I think about it the more I feel that I don't want my partner in the delivery room. This will be our third child, and things are fairly good between us in general (well, the usual stresses your average clichèd thirty-something couple juggling children and work and mortgage goes through). But he has been, and is, so incredibly vocal about how "disgusting" he finds the whole giving-birth thing.
With our first child he was with me the entire time, and quite frankly was pretty useless (either asleep or playing with his phone). When it came to the actual birth - which admittedly was fairly bloody due to an episiotomy - he was downright in the way. He clearly found the gore upsetting and to this day, whenever our daughter's birth comes up the one word word he will always use is "disgusting".
With our second he missed the actual birth due to baby-sitter problems, but showed up about half hour after delivery, during the "clean-up" work, as it were. One of the first things he did was standing himself down the business end (I was still naked from waist down, legs akimbo etc, as they were treating a small tear) and then make gagging motions and just shaking his head. Not fun to see after a fairly traumatic and excruciatingly painful birth (placental abruption). I do remember thinking it felt so much easier not to have him there at the actual birth, though.
In the interim, last year we also had a medical abortion at 18 weeks (trisomy 18) which obviously was incredibly traumatic for both of us. He happened to be out of the room when I actually delivered the baby, and I remember being so conscious of his intolerance for gore that I asked the nurses to keep him outside until I was cleaned up.
Now, with the third birth imminent, he is again talking about how disgusting it is to witness, and when we had a false alarm last week one of the first things he said as we settled in the delivery room was how disgusting this would all be. Since then, all I've been thinking is that I don't want him there when it's actually time. I'd rather it was just me and the professionals, with him joining in when its all said and done.
Am I being unreasonable? I just feel that giving birth is already such an incredibly painful, exposing and vulnerable thing to go through, and I just don't need him there being obviously disgusted. I don't need the distraction and the upset. On the other hand he sometimes talks about how he regrets not bring there for our son's birth, as he feels that it contributed to them taking longer to bond. With that in mind, am I being cruel to exclude him, by having him wait outside (or at home. Wherever he is the most comfortable)? In my situation, what would you do?
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Third child, don't want my partner in the delivery room.
24 replies
Mallory1980 · 29/12/2015 16:54
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