Beer & Bubs
By John Krüger
(First published by SA Kids Magazine in 2010)
I was originally thinking that I had a good grasp of the whole childbirth concept. I get my wife pregnant, and a certain amount of time later, the exact amount I wasn’t too sure, she has a brief stay in the hospital and calls me to inform me the sex of our new child and when she needs a lift home. It wasn’t until a cousin in law started asking questions that I realised that I was in deep trouble; “When’s she due?”
“Err July”
“July when?”
“I dunno”
“Oh… Which hospital is she having the baby in?”
“Umm, I dunno. I guess I’d better find out before I have to drop her off.”
My wife Monique is a very organised person, which I’ve found to be invaluable as well as intriguing. I’m extremely disorganised so I always think we compliment each other remarkably well. Monique has done weeks worth of research, reading articles on the internet and a bucket load of pamphlets she seems to have acquired from the health department. After realising that my knowledge of gestation and childbirth was pretty well equal to that of a primary school child, I decided that brushing up on the basics would be a pretty good idea before the big day.
Luckily, my managing editor phoned me and asked if I’d be interested in going to a class held in a pub, designed specifically for men called “Beer and Bubs”. To be honest, I probably said yes after the word “beer”. It could have been “Beer and payroll tax” and I still would have put my hand up. This was the perfect chance to slake my insatiable thirst for Coopers beer and fill-in what would end up being chasms, rather than gaps in my knowledge.
I arrived at a beautiful back street pub about half an hour early and decided to get a beer or two in before the session started. Before long, there was a small group of young men all wandering aimlessly about like stunned mullets, each with a beer in hand. We were introduced briefly and were seated, taking turns to say how far pregnant our partners were and where we were having the baby. It was then that everyone realised that I had completely no idea. A young Turkish lecturer to my left who’d only moved to Adelaide a few weeks before, had a better grasp of the array of hospitals in our vicinity. The younger looking man to my right had seemed to have already done every natal course known to man, and it did make me wonder what he was doing there in the first place. Over the next few hours we ate schnitzels and watched on as the two women in front of us tag teamed through the evening with a massive amount of information. Sometimes hinting that epidurals and pethidine weren’t their favourite options, and leaning towards more natural alternatives. The main speaker Helen had informed us that she’d already popped out 7 children, so as far as I was concerned, whatever she said had to be pretty solid information. The night definitely wasn’t leaning too far towards “hippy radicals” as a friend of mine had pre warned me about. My new Turkish friend and I slowly worked our ways through 2 jugs of beer while franticly scribbling notes. The amount of choices we would have to make before even entering a maternity ward were beginning to be overwhelming. I kept thinking “Thank God Monique probably knows about all of this stuff already.”
As I have a horrible disposition of turning green and verging on vomiting in almost any hospital environment, I hadn’t even decided whether I’d even attend the birth of our first child. Monique seemed to be OK with either option, and commented that there was a favourite pub of mine only 5 minutes walk from the hospital. I asked the group of men before me if they’d all be at the birth and was met with a stone cold silence before one replied “Is it even an option?” I guess they’d already decided or been informed that they wouldn’t be reading a book and having a few quiet ones while they waited for the call.
Nearing the end of the session, a recently new dad of 6 weeks stood up to give a rather well organised power-point presentation. He used that many sporting references as to his wife’s performance during birth that I still wonder if he dragged her up onto a podium to present a medal or yellow jersey before the first feed.
Topping the night off was a video on the big screen of an actual birth. The first glimpses of a naked woman subconsciously got our attention, and I’m sure what followed will be painfully etched in our minds no matter how many beers preceded. The amount we learned was gargantuan and directly proportionate to the panic being kept at bay in the backs of our minds. It was amazing, scary and new, and we realised that this was only a glimpse of what was to come.
I’d still recommend Beer and Bubs, apart from a brain crushing deluge of information, meeting other fathers-to-be made us all realise that we’re not the only ones dealing with this amazing imminent arrival, but deep down, we’re all shitting ourselves to the same degree.
