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Male Bonding
Harry Pearson swaps childbirth stories with his male friends ...
When I told male friends that my partner, Catherine, was pregnant the response was almost universal. "You must be at the birth", they gushed, "it's wonderful, fantastic! The deepest, most overwhelming joy!" Several had to blow their noses by the time they'd finished. I must say, I found it very unsettling.
Then I talked to my pal Liam. When I asked what the birth of his son had been like, he thought for a minute. "Wey, Harry," he said eventually, "have you seen "Reservoir Dogs"?
I learned to fear any gathering of women. Knowing that to pass time in their company would mean gritting my teeth, breathing deeply and desperately trying not to remember what an episiotomy was.
Just how bad are the childbirth stories? Well, one afternoon during Catherine's third trimester a mother regaled us with a yarn so gruesome that, as it reached it's grizzly denouement, I suffered a dizzy spell, stumbled and chipped a tooth on the mantlepiece.
When I told Liam this he gave an unimpressed shrug. "One evening I fainted totally and cracked three ribs on the corner of the coffee table", he said. A bloke sitting at the bar next to us grunted derisively and growled, "Me? They had to send for the air ambulance".
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