Never Let a Comedian into a Childbirth Class

Wednesday night, my wife Evi and I attended our first-ever childbirthing class. I wasn’t exactly excited. Two hours of listening to someone talk about how a woman somehow shoves what looks like a nine-pound ham out of her vagina isn’t my idea of scintillating entertainment.

Not to mention, a week before, while doing yard work, I managed to contract a nasty impetigo infection while laying down soil, AND have a massive allergic reaction to mango sap while plucking mangoes from our tree. Yes, both. In the same day. Right now you are probably asking, “Joe, where are both these injuries located?”

MY FACE! MY GODDAMN FACE! MY BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL FACE! I have a nasty, blistering, pus-producing sore on my right cheek, which is also swollen to the size of a catcher’s mitt, and an equally nasty rash that started at the base of my neck and has expanded to my left cheek and behind my ear.

So yeah, I had to walk into a happy, sterile birthing center class packed with anal, overprotective, soon-to-be first-time mothers, while I looked like an extra from the Walking Dead. I would have worn ragged clothes with blood stains and limped inside while moaning, but there’s no way my wife would’ve allowed it.

Anyway, we were the first to arrive (I have a punctual Russian wife) so we had our choice of seats. Eventually, the room was occupied with fifteen couples and a cute 20ish girl who came alone, and sat next to me to my right, the pus-oozing side. Evi, who’s been quite the social butterfly ever since I brought her down here to Florida, immediately smiled and introduced her and myself. She smiled and reciprocated, telling us her name is Alex, and her husband couldn’t make it that night.

I judge people by their sense of humor, so I usually make a joke the first minute I meet them to see if we can be friends.

“So Alex,” I deadpanned while looking around the room. “Who do you think is going to have the best baby here?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “Maybe after they’re all born we should hold a ‘Baby Derby’.”

“Wait, you mean like a horse race, where they all start out in numbered stables?” I asked. I said ‘best’, not ‘fastest’, but I liked where she was going.

“Yeah,” she said. “They’d all wear numbers and there’d be an announcer saying, ‘The #3 baby is in the lead, but OH! It looks like she’s turned the wrong way!'”

“And, ‘It looks like #5 baby stuck his hand in the #7 baby’s diaper'” I added.

Evi bent over laughing. Alex laughed so hard she did the same. She passed the test. We have a new friend.

Eventually, the class started. Donna, the instructor, told us that she’s been teaching childbirth for 30 plus years. She added that we’d spend most of the next six weeks in our seats, because in her experience students didn’t learn as much getting on the floor. I had no idea what she even meant.

She began the class by teaching us terms we’d need to know, like ‘amniotic fluid’ and ‘cervix’. I’d tell you more, but I’ll be honest, I’m pretty sure after ‘cervix’ I’d fallen asleep with my eyes open. I don’t think I heard anything else. I do know, however, that Donna pointed in the direction of her own vagina an uncomfortable amount of times.

Wait! I do remember she taught us that at 20 weeks, the uterus begins small contractions. “You can’t run a marathon without getting in shape, right?” Donna said. “Well, for a uterus, childbirth is a marathon, so at about the 20th week, you may feel it contract as it’s working out to get in shape for the big event.”

At this point, I got pissed. You mean to tell me, muscles can work THEMSELVES out? Why the hell am I dragging my fat ass to the gym three times a week? Why don’t my lazy muscles do some contraction shit on their own?

Angry, my mind wandered off. I started thinking about how the hell I’m going to help raise a child, maintain a marriage, grow a mortgage business, get in shape, write humor, and somehow still squeeze in comedy stage time here and there. How on Earth do some people do it? How does Elon Musk run two entirely separate bleeding edge tech companies and maintain his life? How does Mark Cuban run–

“Did you get that?” My wife asked, startling me. “What Donna just said sounds important.”

“Um, yeah, of course,” I lied. I hope whatever it was, it’s not as important as Evi thinks it is. I went back to open-eye sleeping.

At the end of the session, Donna said that having a supportive partner is the most important thing a pregnant mother can have. “She is going to go through so much. So much pain, so many hormones, so many emotions. She’s really going to need someone to talk to.”

“Don’t worry,” I whispered to Evi. “We’ll find you somebody.”

She gave me the look. You know the one.

I can’t wait until next week.