By David Yoo
The moment my wife started getting her first contraction, we were safely in the hospital. But the journey thus far had been far from smooth. I only had two simple responsibilities prior to the start of labor: prepare the suitcase and drive her to the hospital. In my defense, I’d already gone so far as to bring the musty suitcase up from the basement, but I hadn’t actually packed anything. Twenty minutes later I loaded up the car and we were off. Of course we hit stop-and-go traffic en route, and despite my wife’s protestations, I aggressively passed cars to expedite the trip. “Don’t worry, once we have the kid I’ll drive safely,” I assured her. “Consider this my last hurrah.”
“You just missed the exit,” she moaned.
The next 12 hours were spent listening to my wife groan and occasionally scream in agony. But all I wanted to know was why I wasn’t wearing blue hospital scrubs like everyone else! So after badgering our midwife for my own pair, I changed into them and the role-playing began. I started using the word “stat” at the end of each sentence: “I need to take a quick bathroom break between contractions, stat!” “Do you want another sip of water, stat?”
During the pushing, I held my wife’s left leg the entire time; my neck ached and at one point my arm cramped up. When I put my hand on the mattress for support, I planted it squarely in a pool of blood. Gross. I pursed my lips at the midwife. “See, there was a reason for the scrubs,” I said, wiping the blood off across my chest.
Our first child, Griffin Young Yoo, was born healthy and mewling at 8:14 a.m. on Friday, May 14, 2010. I went into the waiting room to deliver the news. Both sets of parents were waiting anxiously for an update. I decided to milk the moment a bit by staring gravely at them, repressing my urge to chuckle. “Well, there is some news,” I said softly, staring at my feet.
“Oh my God, what happened?” my wife’s mom wailed. It suddenly occurred to me that stalling the good news wasn’t the wisest decision, given the aforementioned blood splashed all over my scrubs.
Everyone came in to meet the baby. We hugged and laughed, and I emailed friends and family a picture of my wife holding our newborn. Within 10 minutes my inbox was flooded with replies. My wife asked me to bring over the laptop so we could read the messages together. I opened up the first reply, from my buddy Joe, and it read, “Do you realize you just sent a pic of your wife’s breasts to fifty people?” I scrolled down and, sure enough, there was my wife, her jugs fully exposed in hyper-vivid 10 megapixels. I was expecting her to rip my head off, but thankfully by this point I’d hardened her to my incompetence, and instead she just sweetly sighed and said, “Well, I guess I’m not going to be embarrassed about breast-feeding in public, anymore.”
