A Father's Guide to Accidental Home Births - A Three Step Plan

After the crazy events of the past weekend, I realized that it would have really helped me to have read a guide on a father’s perspective during an accidental homebirth.  So, knowing I would feel guilty if anyone else ended up in the same predicament without me passing along my new knowledge, below are my simple steps to a perfect home birth -

1)      Let the mother do 99.99999999% of it with you having a supporting role at best (Lis nailed this part obviously)

2)      CATCH THE BABY

Do This

Not This

3)      Hand the baby back to it’s mother and now RUN. Run around in a panic like a maniac.  Call 911 (or 112 depending on your locale). Run upstairs, run downstairs, offer the mother bandaids and stuffed animals.  Run outside to look for the ambulance.  Run back inside without finding it.  Run upstairs again.  Take the dog outside to a neighbor’s – get distracted because you think you hear an ambulance and run back with the dog.  Check on the baby and mother.  Run back outside to actually drop the dog off.  Lose your shoes on the run back into the house. Meet the EMT’s and jump into the ambulance and ride off with your baby!

Mr. Midwife over here cutting the cord (now that that EMT's arrived)

Lis did a FANTASTIC job for that 99.99999999%

Congratulations dads– you’ve nailed it and now you can also begin to bask in all the glory. 

It's official - I was the named midwife / doctor  who delivered Lucy!

(ps - also, feel free to start believing you are now a doctor / midwife and bragging incessantly.)