VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS GENERATED USING AN AUTOMATED SERVICE SO WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY TYPOS AND SPELLING ERRORS.

For men: a word on how to support

[00:00:00] All right. I know I look like I'm like hiding out. I'm in the parking lot at Target, by the way. Um, where I'm probably gonna drop about $200 on crap. I don't need. I know y'all know what it's like. So I wanna talk about daddies today. I'd say husbands, but it doesn't matter. Dads of anyone, fathers of the baby, whether they're your husband or your partner, or just like your sperm donor as they call them. 

It's so fascinating to deliver babies daily, weekly for 21, almost 22 years, and to see the variety of dads and how they behave. So let's start with the good, right? I love when I see dads who are engaged and excited. Sometimes they're a little overly zealous. I gotta be honest cuz I joke like it's not exactly happening to you, but I get it. 

Um, and a lot of them are really, like, several of them this week have just been so emotionally supportive. It's really wonderful. And might I say they're supportive in very, um, feminine ways without being a feminine. I mean, it has nothing to do with [00:01:00] sexuality or. Gender roles. Exactly. It has to do with men and women can be very in touch with their feminine side. 

And that is a beautiful thing. And as I've maintained, and I'll continue to spew about when we engage deeply with our feminine qualities, whether we are men or women, and I don't mean flowery pink feminine. I mean the qualities that make us uniquely feminine in how we, um, discuss and rationalize and engage with. 

That is not an aggressive, it's my way or the highway kind of way. Ironically, I have that way too. I'm sure it's no surprise. I think the more men can do that, the better our world would be on so many levels. I mean, politically, everything war. School medicine, less dogma. So these men this week have been amazing, but it's also funny. 

So one little nugget that was hilarious that happened to a patient and she told me I could say it even though I'm not using any names, she came out of the bathroom and said something [00:02:00] that her husband misinterpreted, . What he thought she said was, I'm so proud of you. Which is so cute because truly he's a. 

If you are watching, you know who you are. He was really actually so appropriately supportive. Um, and I, I, I loved seeing it. Um, but what she said, instead of saying, I'm so proud of you, which is what he, she, he thought, she said, I'm so proud to poop. Which is hilarious because any of you who have birthed. 

Humans from your body, any which way would know the victory of the poop. That first poop, you're like fucking hurrah, right? Because you're, you've either like had a c-section where your, like your abdomen hurts and you're constipated. Or you've had a vaginal delivery where you're like, holy shit, anything else coming outta my body there is just freaking me out. 

So once you get that first poop under your belt, you are literally so proud. But how funny he said he thought, she said, I'm so proud of you. Which cracks me up because. These are some of the isms I say about dads men [00:03:00] would never birth babies more than once. In fact, they would hear one man did it once, they'd hear what happened, and they'd be like, hell no. 

As I joke, if men had to do this, they would be growing babies in jars. By now, they would have formula exactly mimic breast milk, and if they had to have a C-section, they would be safely under general anesthesia instead of being wide awake where they're expected to like, Ooh, ah, bond and all that stuff. 

Epidurals would not be a question. The whole notion of like natural deliveries where you're expected to feel. Would not, it wouldn't occur. Let's face it, ladies, women do this. Women, you know, women do amazing things outside of birthing. I say it all the time. We are not defined by birth. We are not even defined by being anatomically a mother. 

I think we are defined by our strength and the way we mother, even when we're not anatomically mothering, but let us face acts men in all of their like macho. Would never do it and could never do it. Which leads me to the other funny nuggets, which is like [00:04:00] so many times men, including my own delightful husband, one of my surgeries, I don't even remember which one, the nurse comes in, she's like, Hey, how are you? 

How do you feel? And just in an effort to I think be gracious and kind. She kind of looked at me, but also looked at him, to which he responded because he thought she really. How are you, Charlie, partner of someone who just had major surgery and he responded with, actually, I have a lot of back pain. Could I get a Tylenol? 

I was like, are you kidding? She's talking to me. I just had surgery. . She doesn't actually care how you're feeling right now, but that's so male and I actually hear that and see that so often with the husbands, and it's funny because again, we've encouraged them to have this whole, like you're really part of this and you're amazing, but in reality, Let's face it guys. 

I love that you're part of it. You're very necessary sometimes, um, and you're very helpful and supportive sometimes, but it's really the women going through it. So it's just an interesting, funny dynamic when we see all these little things at play. The [00:05:00] other funny thing that happened several weeks ago is another patient's husband who I. 

Adore a wonderful guy, very supportive husband. Um, a very typically supportive husband in that . After her fourth baby had been bor birthed fourth baby. She grew and birthed four humans, and we were talking about birth control literally right after, like minutes after the delivery. And he said, she said something about a VAs. 

I know. You know what? A vasectomy, I'll repeat. A vasectomy is when a urologist, not an obgyn, a urologist under local anesthesia in the doctor's office. As I say, don't even call it surgery. Just call it a procedure so you don't freak those men out. They make a little incision on the testicles and they block off the tubes that allow the sperm to come out. 

That's like the easiest way to describe it. There are apparently single incision techniques. There might even be a non incision technique that I don't understand. But anyway, a vasectomy for birth control and this lovely, delightful man who had literally just witnessed his [00:06:00] wife birth a fourth human through her body 

He was like, oh, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I, you know what? I heard this one time where this. This other guy, he had like a, you know, he was in a lot of pain afterwards. He literally said those words, . And I looked at him and I laughed and I said, I think you think that I am sympathetic or empathetic right now. 

You don't know your audience, . I looked at her, the wife, and I said, wait, I'm just wondering, like, have you ever heard of a woman? Have a baby? And have pain or difficulty or anything . Right? And yet we still do it. He literally thought with all genuine, kind, intention that his wife and I would be like, friendly fire here. 

Like, we totally get it. Yeah, you're worried cuz you heard that one time, one guy had one pain afterwards I was like, I'm sorry I'm not your, I am not your friendly audience here. I love you. Go get yourself a VAs. Anyway, so that's just the funny parts about men and when the men are involved in the birthing and everything. 

And I will say [00:07:00] that some of my favorite deliveries not to be against the men. Some of my favorite deliveries are when it's all women in the room, either because, um, a woman birthing does not have a partner or she has a female partner, or she has her mother or her sister, or her best friend as her birth support person. 

So when it's like all women in the room, the energy is just completely different. And it's frankly, I think how we were meant to birth, right? If we're really talking about nature, men were not doing skin to skin. Men were not attending births, women were attending women in births. I'm not saying we should go back to that. 

Maybe I am saying it, but I'm not really saying it. Cuz men, you are welcome and when you guys really deeply, again espouse your feminine qualities that make you amazing, support people, it's great. That's it. Those are my thoughts. I'm gonna go into Target and blow some cash, but I don't need to be spending, but I do need like cashews, , right? 

So that's why I'm going in. Okay. Addendum. I came outta Target and I had a lot of thinking to. After I blew money, I didn't need to [00:08:00] spend men, and you guys may be watching up, been told some of the daddy's watch. Feel free to share and follow me yourself and not just watch on your mother's feed. Mother of the baby's feed or woman that you're supporting through her HPV or herpes or whatever it is, like you can follow me yourselves cuz that would be the wise thing to do, to learn. 

But it made me realize just again, some of the things you guys should know as fathers or support people. We're just husbands. It's really appropriate for you to feel like this is also happening to you because it is, but you also should kind of appropriately realize that it's not exactly happening to you anywhere close to the same way. 

Growing a human is like crazy hard work, and then birthing that human, and typically you're. Baby's mother is doing all that while she's still working or while she is literally working, raising your other children. So just remember that like when you [00:09:00] come home at the end of your long day or you sign off on your like 20 zooms for the day and you're so tired, just remember that she. 

Has done all that and done it while she was growing humans, like that's just monumentous and any way you cut it. I'm not saying she's always gonna be more tired than you, but like maybe during this 40 week period, she is so just a little gentle. Like, honey, you're amazing. You're a, an amazing vessel. 

Growing someone while you're actually doing everything that I'm doing as. That goes a long way. That's one. Two, don't be shocked if during the labor process you've like prepared and you're ready and you've maybe even taken your class and like you're gonna be the support doula and rubber back. And then the minute you try to touch her in labor, she's like, get the fuck away from me. 

Because that's what happens sometimes just because she's not piss at you, she's not hating you. She just like can't deal with someone trying to like, do things that doesn't feel right sometimes. So just know that and don't take it person. and afterwards [00:10:00] when she's kind of feeling sad sometimes, or weepy for no apparent reason, just remind her it's okay. 

It's gonna pass. It's normal. And if it doesn't pass, and if it seems like it becomes a bigger deal, we're gonna take care of it and we're gonna handle it, and we're gonna find help and talk to each other and talk to the doctor and do whatever we need to do to get. Like be supportive. Be supportive outside of your comfort zone. 

Be supportive in ways that you didn't think you needed to do. Like you didn't think you needed to say, wow honey, you must be exhausted. But guess what? She's exhausted. And sometimes it's nice to acknowledge it and I know it's not what you're used to and I know it's not what you thought you needed to do cuz you thought she just knew that you knew that she must be tired. 

But again, it goes a long way to say it. So just say it or give her like that. Knowing love and hug or that knowing look. You're doing amazing because you know what? We can all sit here and be like, we don't need that accolade. We don't need that kind of affirmation. We just know it ourselves. But that's bullshit. 

We all [00:11:00] really do well and thrive when we've been recognized. Yes, it's great to be able to say, well, the only thing that matters is how you feel about yourself, and that's the kind of psychobabble 1 0 1. That really pisses me off, by the way, because I just don't think it's always true. I think we are not soul beings. 

We're all connected, energetic. If you believe in that, which I do, we are all connected. And so feeling and hearing emotional support from other people is incredibly validating in a way that, I'm sorry to the psych gurus who maybe say people shouldn't need it. And of course you like anything else, should not be so reliant on it that you can't be happy without it. 

But it's nice. So spouses, partners, whether you're male or female, if you were not the one who went through the birthing process, Support your person who did because it's nice and she needs it. Also, another little thing, I'll just say this, until you have grown breasts that lactate or created a vagina and ovaries that can, um, [00:12:00] foster a human and then potentially push out a human, I just don't think you actually have as much right to talk. 

the stuff like should the mother of the baby birth vaginally have an epidural nurse her baby with breast milk? I think you can weigh in. I think you can express some, you know, discussion about it. But I think that this notion that the male. Partner has the right to, I don't wanna say dictate, but even kind of really get in on the discussion as to whether or not someone should, I don't know, kind of feel like it doesn't seem right. 

You know, it's not, it's not your body. You're not going through it, so you don't know what it's like. You don't know how challenging it could be. I think being supportive of it and kind of mulling over like the benefits versus not to your partner is absolutely appropriate. But if she doesn't want to, I kind of feel like you gotta back. 

Okay. All right. Those are my nuggets. Those are my thoughts. [00:13:00] Bye again.