I originally posted this in AITA and it was removed. I can’t see any of the comments now.
I (35f) am 7 months pregnant. I am married to an Family Medicine Doctor (35M) and we’ve been together 10 years. Throw away reddit because my SIL follows me on reddit and reports everything to my husband.
I’m reaching out to all of you to ask your advice on a fight my husband and I are having on our birth plan. My husband really wants to deliver the baby which I can kind of understand. It’s not uncommon for doctors to deliver their own kid. There is still an OBGYN there monitoring everything, and the doctor father steps in at the last minute as mom is crowning to just catch the baby.
My husband has I guess always dreamed of being the one to pull the baby out, while I pictured it very differently. I thought he would be up by my head, holding my hand and helping me through it. He says he will do that, but the easiest part is the very end where I won’t need him anyway. He said if I really want someone there, his mom can step in. I’ve been on my own since I was a kid living in my car, so I don’t have anyone I’d want in there with me except him. I don’t really even want his mom in there. She’s great, but he’s my person. I know it would be “cool” for him to deliver our baby, but I really feel like I need him there.
I personally didn’t want our doctors to know he was a doctor, because as soon as any of my doctors, or even our vet, finds out he’s a doctor they talk exclusively to him. I don’t even want him to go the prenatal appointments anymore because no one talks to me. They all talk to him, and I can’t ask my questions to anyone but my husband at home.
But he’s already told everyone he’ll be delivering his first baby. I guess I don’t want this because I wanted him to be there as a husband and a father, and not a doctor. I see him as a doctor 95% of the time, and I wanted to experience this with my husband and not my husband the doctor. I wanted him to be there for me as this is my first birth and I’m terrified. He just keeps telling me I’ll be fine.
He pulled in friends/family who also don’t understand my POV. They said this is his first child too, and to just let him have this since I had the honor of being pregnant.
I just really wanted him to hold my hand all the way through it, and be able to share this experience as parents and people instead of a medical professional. I was hoping we could see the baby at the same time and just be equals in this.
The Unexpected Twist: This argument has been going on for weeks, and his insistence, coupled with his apparent dismissal of my fear, has been baffling. Then, during another tense conversation, as I tried to explain again how scared I was and how much I needed him there, he finally blurted something out. He muttered something about “that one time,” and “not being able to save them,” and “feeling helpless.” It wasn’t until later that I pieced those fragments together with a story he once briefly told about a young patient he lost early in his career, a complicated emergency where he felt he failed. His desire to deliver our baby isn’t just about honor or control; it’s a way for him to process his own unresolved trauma, an attempt to ‘fix’ that feeling of failure by ensuring a perfect outcome for his own child.
Am I being selfish for wanting this to be my way?