So why all the male Obstetricians? I assume the daily grind of staring up lady parts is the price you pay for getting to cut someone open, like, every other day, but I don’t know. All I know is I’ve given birth twice now, which obviously entitles me to make sweeping generalizations about the birth experience for everyone, and I say men suck at delivering babies.

With the Madness, the doc-on-duty was a guy who came into my room for about thirty seconds. Just long enough to roll his eyes at my natural birth-plan and remind me that there was only so much time to sneak in that epidural or “a little something to take the edge off.” A couple hours later I was pushing out the Madness into the waiting hands of a midwife who was in the right place at the right time, since Doctor Douchebagel* was busy elsewhere and I refused to NOT push. Really. Who holds in a baby? If a taxi-driver can catch a baby, a nurse can catch a baby. “Don’t push.” Please.

Enter Jo-Jo Bean. Birth #2. This time the doc shuffles in, pulls up a stool, and starts chatting at me about running marathons. F*ing marathons. I’m trying to be all Zen and hypno-breathe nine pounds of person out of me and this guy is talking about his hobbies? This is not a first date! I haul myself up on my elbows and snap “Yeah? You ever give birth?” I didn’t think so. Honestly. He’s lucky my knees were in my armpits or I might’ve kicked him in the teeth.

And then, when it’s all over, he tries to sew me up. Without anesthetic. “Oh, I forgot you didn’t have an epidural!” You know who doesn’t forget that kind of thing?

A woman.

*Names have been changed to satisfy the author’s inner child.