As writer Rich Cohen tells how he and his wife came up with their son's name, he goes through just slightly over half the frightening/funny/weighty/ stress-inducing/exasperating thoughts and experiences an expectant father has to deal with:
In the seventh month of pregnancy, Jessica and I attended one of those classes where they teach you how to have a baby, how to count and how to breathe. We had to go around the room and in the manner of Alcoholics Anonymous each give our name and say something about ourselves. I said, "Hello, my name is Richard, and my wife, Jessica, is having a baby." This was on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so a whole crowd of pregnant women jumped all over me and in voices that sang of Westchester and Long Island shouted, "You're both having the baby!"How My Son Got His Name [NYT]
The essay is published in the just-released Committed : Men Tell Stories of Love, Commitment, and Marriage, available on Amazon
Hi, I read that article this morning and hoped you would have a link to it. Wasn't it awesome?
My wife read it this weekend and passed it over to me. She thought it was a tear-jerker, I gave it a shrug. I kept waiting for this great payoff about how the kid got his name which never materialized.
I read this article and could just once more deduce that the people who write these articles for NYT are prude little buggers. I have no idea why each article should mention birthing videos with snarky comments and claim they are "lewd".
In the end I think the article was not very good and a waste of the 10 min's it took me to read it. Could have been spent with the little one instead and been much more productive.