Pregnancy can be hard on a couple. It’s stressful for the mother because her body is changing drastically and the father can sometimes feel inadequate. But Dads, there are a few perks.
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The baby has a large head, probably got it from my genes, most likely because the people in my family are so smart. Or maybe they just have heads the size of a watermelon for no good reason. Anyway, because of this big head we scheduled a c-section in a few days and the female hysteria in the house is at its peak. The love of my life decided she doesn’t want her midriff sliced open so she decided to make appointments with whomever she could in order to speed things along before the due date. And I, of course, was the driver. I drove her to shiatsu, acupuncture, a massage, a hot stone massage, a coffee reader, a palm reader and a newspaper reader. We visited anyone who could help guide our little peanut out of the womb. Nothing helped.
Desperate and exhausted we got to Serj. Serj is a healer. Or a liar, it depends on how you look at it. Serj has special healing and communicating powers and he intends to communicate with his ancestors hovering up in the sky so that they can tell the baby “come on kid, get out!”. I couldn’t understand why he has to communicate with spirits instead of just communicating with the fetus itself, but I assumed my questions would not be tolerated, and I wanted to stay on good terms with Serj because I thought that maybe at the end of the session he would be nice and get Lincoln on the line for me.
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Desperate and exhausted we got to Serj. Serj is a healer. Or a liar, it depends on how you look at it.
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Serj asked the love of my life to lay on a bed in a pretty dark room with a tape that was playing water burbling sounds. “you sitting here” he said as he pointed to a purple beanbag in the corner. I tried to sit down carefully but quickly lost my balance and drowned in the beanbag while noticing Serj raising his hands and splashing oil on the love of my life and screaming “rise bastards, rise!”. I would get up and help get that psycho away from her but I was trapped so deep in that beanbag that at some point I secretly begged the spirits to “rise, rise” so they would help ME rise.
I eventually gave up and fell asleep in a fetal position. “Go wash body!” Serj roared, waking me from a sweet sleep. The love of my life went into the shower and left us alone. Serj came over to me. He stood over me as I was waking up, uncomfortably moving in the beanbag, desperately trying to escape. “You try sex, Yes?!” he asked, reaching a wet oily hand to help me up. “Excuse me?!” at this point I was completely awake. “Sex. Intercourse. Mating. You try it?” he asked again impatiently. “If we hadn’t had sex we would’ve had nothing to induce, right?” I tried to joke but he was not amused. Serj rolled his eyes and breathed deeply. He started explaining that his spirits already started inducing the labor and it would probably do the job but that we should try having sex. And a lot of it. Apparently it induces labor. Who would believe the universe would be so generous with us men, giving us unlimited access to sex and even recommending it to women. Serj explained we need to do it a few times a day for several days in order for it to work. I wanted to kiss him! Who would refuse such an offer?! Pregnancy, no pregnancy, it really doesn’t matter, I can do it in the air, sea and land! “Finally, I’m getting something out of this pregnancy!” I cheered, Serj frowned and looked very angry, “and a baby of course… I’ll get a baby… That’s the best part…” I tried to appease him to no avail.
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I naively believed that all I had to do for sex is turn off the light.
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Serj contemptuously took me with his greasy hand towards a big closet and started giving me incense and candles to soften the mood in the bedroom for our sexy night. “You put candle half hour before intercourse, yes?” he said, “you must massage woman’s body. Then use incense. Put leaves. Put perfume. Whisper loving words. Yes? Know guitar? Play romantic song” He kept adding more and more tasks and I began to see how the instructions for our sexy night were turning into an Ikea dresser instruction manual. I naively believed that all I had to do for sex is turn off the light. I got tired. It was 8 PM. I needed to pay the babysitter, make dinner, bathe my daughter, walk the dog, take the garbage out, put the dishes in the dishwasher, put a laundry up and attempt to watch a song or two on “American Idol”. With all due respect to this gift, I’ll pass. The only thing I’ll do in the bedroom after all of this is get into bed, turnover and hug the wall.
I looked at Serj and reached out, he shook my hand in response and I said, “Can you call Lincoln’s spirit for a sec?”
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Photo credit: Flickr/J.K. Califf
Read more by Avi Laviad on his dad blog, The Hormonal Dad.