Could your man handle the pain of childbirth?
TOM MITCHELSON thought so. Then he tried a machine that replicates the full agony
THIS pain in my stomach is so extreme it doesn’t seem right to call it pain. It’s far beyond anything that I’ve ever experienced. It’s all- consuming, searing and intense, I’m exhausted by the sheer effort of enduring it. It’s as though I’m no longer myself: my body’s sole purpose is to cope with wave after wave of agony as the contractions come thick and fast. It’s hard to take.
especially because I’m a man, and what I’m experiencing is the pain of giving birth.
at home one night with my partner, Jenny, and our six-month- old son, Leo, we had reminisced about Jenny’s labour.
‘The worst thing was having to stay in hospital for 24 hours after he was born,’ I said, remembering my sleepless night on a plastic chair. as the words left my lips, I realised my mistake. ‘you think that was the worst thing about the experience?’ Jenny asked.
Of course, I had seen Jenny barely able to hold herself up, her face contorted with pain. I’d seen her push with everything she had to get Leo into the world and I could see it was deeply painful.
How had she put up with it, I asked contritely. ‘Women are just better at enduring pain,’ she said. But are they? It seems to me women are always claiming this to be the case and going on about childbirth as the proof.
But it’s unfair. I mean it’s easy for them to say that because a man won’t ever get the chance to prove he can deal with it just as well as they do. Or so I thought.
When I said this to Jenny, her eyes lit up. She then spent several minutes searching