Yes it is, Drivenfromdistraction, and Simba is an apt name.
The wife (and possibly his experience of seeing how people respond to her throughout pregnancy) has made it clear that this childbirth experience will not be all about him. On one level his wonderment about what it will entail illustrates his struggle not just over his wife's impending ordeal but also what it will mean for him -- there are a few elements of childbirth and the aftermath that give him great anxiety: his wife will not be paying attention to him during labour, she will be doing something that no matter how painful and no matter how undignified will give her an incredible feeling of empowerment, and above all she will bring into the world a being that will require her constant attention from then on. The wonderment and distancing of himself from all that is about to happen 'as a man...' , pretending it is impossible for a man to understand what a woman goes through during labour and afterwards, and the ignorance of many details is itself a choice against feeling responsibility for her and supporting her. How can he support someone whose upcoming experience is so inconceivable to him, and about which so many details are such a surprise? The factual ignorance and emotional distancing are evidence of great difficulty playing a supporting role (hence to the Simba element).
The fact that his wife (and his life) are about to cease being all about him is something he is actively fighting. The way to keep it all about himself is to establish control over the baby and over details such as her decision about visiting, and to afterwards establish his right to overrule his wife on every issue that comes up under the guise of 'equality' which means for him making sure he gets his way against someone who is being 'unreasonable' (despite his initial question, he is pretty sure the unreasonable person is not him the wife is guaranteed to lose the battle he frames in terms of reasonable vs unreasonable because she is always unreasonable his friends agree, and she can't just drop the grudge she holds against him mother and therefore not fair to him). He may want to cut the umbilical cord, and had an idea that he had rights over aspects of what happens in the hospital, including who is going to be with her during labour. He expressed the hope that he would get doctors to do his bidding when it came to deciding if she was ready for visitors. The idea that the hospital may have regulations about taking the baby places or no accommodation for visitors has not occurred to him up to now. He is envisioning a scenario where he takes control of the experience of delivery from his wife, where he takes control of the baby she delivers, and where the hospital conspires with him to put her in her place and restore him to his (atop Pride Rock, above everyone else).
He is not mature enough to see the baby as an individual with needs of his or her own. He will co-opt and use the baby in order to maintain his position. The baby is an extension of his own being whom he will risk hurting in order to get his own way. (I hope that stress caused by her actions for both of us can be nipped in the bud, as that stress will undoubtedly be felt by the baby which is cruel, unnecessary and what I want to.avoid at all.cost. if I simply agree to everything she says, the feeling of resentment will surely just fester without a channel to express it ...and that can only be a bad thing for the longevity of our relationship.) His says his stress will be echoed by the baby. His musings here express his narcissism and immaturity very well. He is helpless in the face of his own allegedly perfectly reasonable feelings of resentment and his grudges, but his wife's response to his mother's tactlessness is unreasonable and her position on visiting is also unreasonable.
He wants mummy there to hold his hand as his bubble bursts and his life changes beyond recognition because he has never grown up. He has never grown up because he got very used to being the centre of the universe while being nursed through illness. Now a threat appears on the horizon that causes him immense fear the fear that he will no longer be able to play the role of the one being cared for when he is displaced by the baby, who will command his wife's attention. He has already made the fatal step of getting married and leaving mummy to some extent, but has tried to keep a foot in both camps throughout the relationship with his wife it has been a frustrating experience trying to keep both wife and mum happy and their focus on him, but he feels he must keep both of them on Team Simba.
Marriage has been difficult because while he wants sex he can't have it with dear old mum, but his wife doesn't quite fit her shoes and furthermore, it turns out that when the two women are together they are distracted from basking in the light that shines forth from his rear end by the shadow each casts over the other. It's difficult to be in the presence of the two people you think should live as satellites around you only to find when they are under the same roof they are paying more attention to each other than to you as they pass each other on their assigned orbits. He assumes mum always has her eyes fixed on him (hence she always gets the benefit of the doubt) but has misgivings about his wife's focus.
His assumption that a wife would fill essentially the same role as mum (but with benefits) was as wrong as could be. There has always been tension because his wife won't get with the programme as he thinks she should. Her expectation that his primary relationship should be with her is a completely normal and reasonable and even rational expectation on her part. But he can't do that because he needs a mummy.
Matters have come to a head because of the crisis childbirth will bring. Now that his wife is going to be someone else's mummy he needs to get his former mummy back at his side. With the baby's arrival imminent, the re-establishment of the family dynamic that he feels must occur takes on real urgency. That reshuffling will retain him as centre of the universe, with control established over the baby, and the wife put in her place through deliberate acts of disrespect -- overruling her on matters that are important to her, pressuring her to agree to his demands (even now, and to the point of immense frustration on her part), being ignorant of what she is about to go through and expressing alienation from the process as if she were a member of a different species doing something incomprehensible like building a nest in a tree for the baby, and being pig headed about firmness, fairness and 'equality' before and during labour, and afterwards.
He sees he has only two choices in making sure he will still have a mummy after the dust settles get 'firmer' with her and assert control over both her and his competition, the baby, in the immediate post partum period (followed by taking over her role of primary carer for the baby even though his own need for care may have a detrimental effect on the quality of care available for the baby he says he hopes his own health will benefit from leaving his employment. Most parents would make a decision based on how the health of the baby would benefit...) or revert to manifestations of immaturity such as tantrum throwing and sulking and having mummy hold his hand, in response to his wife's post partum symptoms.
- I anticipate being flamed for expressing the idea of caring for a baby as an at home parent as asserting control over the baby. But in this specific set of circumstances I think that characterisation fits.