Having witnessed childbirth twice before, I have acquired this expertise: I know that alarms on delivery room machines are nothing to fear. Along with smoke detectors and airport security machines, they belong on the long list of devices in American life designed to cry wolf. Apart from that, here is the sum total of what I have learned waiting for my children to be born: (1) arrive sober; (2) do not attempt to be interesting, it makes the nurses uneasy; (3) never underestimate your own insignificance; and (4) try to get some sleep, as no one else can. Of course it is important to be present and conscious for the birth of your child. To miss it would be to invite scorn and derision and lead others to speak ill of you behind your back. But up until the moment the child is born, the husband in the delivery room is in an odd predicament. He been admitted to the scene of the crisis but given no serious purpose. He’s the Frenchman after the war resolution has passed.

I had just pressed a second pillow hard over my head to mute the alarm and was nearly asleep, when I heard a new voice. “You’re ten centimeters,” it said.

The last time they’d brought the chains out onto the field, they’d measured her at a mere four centimeters. Ten was was clearly forward progress, but it had been nearly five years, and I couldn’t recall how many centimeters there were in a first down. I rose on the couch, and in the unnaturally bright tone of a man pretending he had not just been asleep, asked, “So….how many more centimeters we got to go?” That’s when I noticed we had a new doctor. She looked at me strangely. “Ten centimeters means the baby’s coming,” she said.

“Oh”