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A pregnant woman has revealed why she doesn't want her doctor husband to help her give birth.
In a post shared on Reddit forum Am I the A**hole, a 35-year-old pregnant woman explained that she and her husband, a family doctor, have an ongoing disagreement over her birth plan. Her husband, 35, wants to deliver the baby, but she wants him to leave things up to his doctors and hold her hand throughout the delivery.
“My husband is very keen to be at the birth, which I can understand,” she wrote. “It is not uncommon for doctors to deliver their own child. There is a gynaecologist who oversees everything and the father who is the doctor steps in at the last minute, while the mother is pregnant, to be able to deliver the child.”
“I guess my husband has always dreamed of being the one to push the baby out, while I imagined it differently,” she continued. “I thought he would be by my side, holding my hand and helping me out.”
She told him that while she had planned to hold his hand, she would not need to do so at the end when he took the baby out. She added that his mother could step in and hold his hand.
“I’ve been alone since I was a little girl and I lived in my car, so I don’t want anyone else with me except him,” she explained. “I don’t even want his mom with me. She’s great, but he’s my person. I know it would be great to have him help us deliver, but I really feel like I need him there.”
She added that since her doctors found out he is a doctor, they speak “exclusively” to him during prenatal appointments. She said: “I don’t even want him to go to prenatal appointments anymore because no one talks to me. Everyone talks to him and I can’t ask my questions to anyone other than my husband at home.
Despite their disagreement over the birth plan, he told everyone he knows that he will be the one delivering the baby.
“I don’t want this because I wanted him to be there as a husband and father, and not as a doctor,” she explained. “I see him as a doctor 95 percent of the time and I wanted to experience this with my husband and not with my husband as a doctor. I wanted him to be there for me, as this is my first birth and I’m terrified.”
“I really wanted him to hold my hand through the whole process and be able to share this experience as parents and as people,” she added. “I was hoping that we could see the baby at the same time and be equals in this.”
As they continued to disagree, he claimed that he had talked about it with some of his family and friends, saying that they agreed with him and that he should have this since she “has the honor of being pregnant.” However, she later learned that he never discussed the issue with some of their mutual friends. She wrote, “They were very surprised to learn that we have been having this disagreement and were actually quite supportive of an expectant mother controlling her birth plan.”
In the comments section, people agreed with the pregnant woman and said she had every right to want to be in control of her birth plan. They also added that it seemed like she didn't have the support system she needed at home.
“You are not wrong in wanting your husband to support you during labor and not ‘Dr. Husband’ to be present at the birth,” one person wrote. “However, he doesn’t seem to care too much about what you want.”
“Childbirth is a process where a person risks their life to bring a child into the world,” added another. “Your husband’s ONLY job during YOUR birth is to do exactly what you want him to do.”
